My Humble 3 Months as a Book Blogger

The past three months have been a whirlwind in terms of book blogging. I’ve learned a lot of new things about the blogosphere- mostly the hard way, I should add, and I’ve decided to share my humbling experiences with you. I’ve separated it into different topics I want to address, so skip to whatever pleases you.

Getting Discouraged

 

This was me after only just one month.

It’s freaking depressing to realize that there are literally (in the correct use of literality) tens of thousands of book bloggers out there, with my genre, YA books, being at the top. I admit that it’s rather discouraging when I see that I’m not getting any traffic. I sort of hang my head low and remember “Why? Why would someone come to my blog when they can go to a less sketchy blog? A blog they probably weren’t redirected to from a spoon fetish site?”

Then I thought about it this way: isn’t writing a book the same kind of thing? Yeah, there are probably millions of books out there, but authors always have at least one fan, whether it is themselves or their moms. And authors can share fame with other authors. Who says that an author published 3 months ago can’t share their fame with JK Rowling?

Asking for Things

 

True story: I was very rude to a successful (dare I say famous?) blogger. I basically snubbed her while asking for a favor.

It wasn’t intentional, but I wasn’t expecting much to come out of this encounter. See, I was just starting out blogging, and I was really eager, sort of like a girl who’s just got her first boyfriend. When this famous blogger accepted my request for a guest post, I probably rolled around in my bed screaming for ten minutes.

Then, she didn’t respond for, I think four days. That’s a perfectly reasonable amount of time not to respond to something, but I thought they were ignoring me. So I sent an email that was along the lines of, “I know I suck and I don’t have many followers and stuff and I understand if you’re ignoring me.”

Yeah.

YEAH.

I was a happy Cephalopod.

I didn’t say THAT precisely, because I had a more careful way of skirting it, but nobody’s really an idiot these days, so people read into it that way. I really didn’t mean to offend her, but that’s a side effect of getting discouraged. You feel like you have nothing to lose, when in fact, you have a lot to lose.

Anyway, everything was sorted out, and we were happy clams. (Or campers. Can’t remember what the saying is.) I got a lot of traffic to my blog, and I gained some new online friends.

Moral of the story: Ask and you shall receive.

Blog Tours

 

In an extension to that anecdote, I must say that I’ve had pretty good luck with asking for things. I am scheduled for a blog tour with the famous blogs. Mundie Moms, Story Siren, Bookish Brunette! *SQUEEL!* You don’t know how happy I am to be a part of it! And I only have 73 followers as of this post. Can you believe it? Neither can I.

It should be taken into account that as long as you are willing to review the book and post everything on time, there shouldn’t be a reason for a blog tour company to reject you, at least with my understanding. Besides, what do you have to lose? A little scrap of your dignity? Well, yeah, but with blogging, you have to aim high or don’t go at all. It’s hard to be a small fish in a big pond, so make yourself known right away.

NetGalley and Edelweiss

 

A lot of people are addicted to NetGalley.

*Shudder* I have not even ventured near this territory, so I can’t tell you what they’re like. I reckon I could actually request books right now, because I’ve seen blogs with 50 followers get eARCs from there. I will try to request things in the near future, but for now, I’m sticking to my library and out of pocket purchases.

Networking

 

Dear God, this is such an extensive part I can’t even tell you. For now, I’ll just say it’s been a pleasure. In general, networking as a blogger on twitter is pretty easy. Other bloggers are more than happy to talk to you, although some authors have turned the cold shoulder to me. (And I don’t really care, either.)

Goodreads seems to be the book network of choice, however. I’d recommend it for a newer blogger.

Print ARCs 

 

You know my position on this. I posted this post the other day. And another blogger friend of mine posted this.

That doesn’t freaking mean I’m immune to free things. The other day, someone on Goodreads was giving away ARCs, and I couldn’t resist. I requested something from her. 

I thought, “Damn. I AM a greedy bitch. It looks like I can’t really justify my ARC post anymore.”

But that’s not true. I thought about it more (probably to justify my actions) and I realized that I had a 100% probability of getting these books so I went for them. And shit, I’m going to give them away in a giveaway probably, so it doesn’t matter.

What my point is, I’m not going to try to request Print ARCs or any of that crap until I have an established following. Like maybe 1000 followers. Because until then, I’m taking books out of the hands of people who really will help the book.

Co-Blogging

You should try it. It's made life a whole lot easier.