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
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| 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.
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| 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
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| 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.
