Sometimes prayers get answered much quicker than expected and life gets turned on its head. The past two weeks have been a whirlwind of finding an apartment in the “big city,” sorting and packing through stuff…so much stuff, and finally, this weekend ~ the big move. And with the move comes getting all of the utilities and internet connected. . .and relying on their schedules rather than my schedule ~ as if they don’t know I have a blog! It’s a conspiracy to keep me from blogging! *just kidding* Sometimes it helps if one would actually call and get the internet set up! That chore kind of fell to the wayside in all of the chaos of moving. Sooooo, I’m sitting in Starbucks with my iced caramel macchiato 5 pump {yes, I like it extra-sweet}; trying to catch up on a week’s worth of no internet when I should be unpacking. Priorities, right?!? And you Lovely Reader is a priority!
Enough of my lamentations! Just know I’ve missed you this week.
Now, last week I posted a new feature that I am so proud of and hope that it helps us book bloggers and shares a little bit about this world with the readers who are not bloggers. I love to learn how others do it ~ where do they find the time, the voice, the ability to dedicate so much to running a blog? If we were all a bit honest I think we could say it becomes an incredible outlet, almost obsessive in that we get a bit twitchy if away from the internet for any length of time *wink, wink* {yup, that’s me ~ all twitchy this week!}
So, more confession time. . .this time, we have three incredible ladies whose blogs I have come to love and admire. They are dedicated in their individual blogs with giving you lots of tips, great reviews, and personal insights, not to mention each one has a truly beautiful layout and blog. This week I asked for some confessing; let’s get real and talk about the challenges to this thing called book blogging that we are all so devoted to: If you were being completely honest, what would you say your biggest challenge is to book blogging?”
Shannon from River City Reading I think my biggest challenge with book blogging, and maybe blogging in any niche, is finding a balance between wanting to grow my audience and make improvements without compromising content or losing sight of the reason I started blogging in the first place. It can be easy to get sucked into the lure of competition, stats and numbers, but that only seems to lead to burnout after a while. While I always hope my blog will gain traffic, I try to keep my focus on reaching and retaining readers, not just getting hits. I’m still fairly new to the blogging world, but I hope that in the long run this will help keep me from fizzling out early.
Julie from ChapterBreak My biggest challenge as a book blogger is managing time constraints. There are so many amazing books out there that I would love to read and review, but between family time and work obligations, at best I only have time to read one book a week the “traditional” way, and one a week on audio. I have been balancing writing reviews with other features like a weekly discussion, memes (one we run and those we participate in), book tours and author guest posts.
Rebecca from Love at First Book Balance. I love books. They are, and have always been, a huge passion of mine. But sometimes it is so difficult to find the proper balance between reading the books, writing the reviews, and finding time to maintain my blog (responding to comments, reading and commenting on other blogs, promoting on social media). I’m working really hard to find that proper balance that fits my lifestyle, and I think it all starts with remembering my passion and why I started blogging: my love of books.
I would echo Rebecca, Julie and Shannon ~ my biggest challenge is life gets in the way of blogging ~ and oh my gosh are there so many books out there I want to read! I learned early on in my blogging days that finishing a book I absolutely do not like is a definite waste of time. I hate for it to sound so harsh but some books just don’t appeal to me ~ Life is too short to read a bad book.
So there ya have it ~ the dirty secrets of book blogging and how we try to overcome. Balance is the biggest thing ~ finding and retaining that balance is the key to success ~ in any role. Right?
What challenges have you had blogging? Do you have a unique way of overcoming?
How about book lust? How do you keep from becoming a book hoarder?
