Category: Discussion

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Negative Book Reviews Are Necessary

Published on by Celeste28 Comments

Last month there was an uptick in commentary on book Twitter about negative book reviews. I believe it pertained to an author’s opinion that people shouldn’t leave negative reviews, or something of the sort. I don’t have the time to track down the incident that spurred another bout of commentary. Nor do I particularly care enough to do so because it’s a topic that will forever be ubiquitous in the community.

However, this is a topic I’ve been thinking about ever since I started my blog in 2021. I remember debating with myself whether to post negative book reviews. At the time I hadn’t seen any other blogger post anything other than a positive (3+ stars) review. And so it seemed like the norm and something maybe I should do because why contribute to negativity? After all, there’s certainly enough of that in the world.

But the more I thought about it the more strongly I felt about several things. First, I wouldn’t be true to myself if I only elected to share positive reviews. Second, sharing only my positive reviews wouldn’t be fair to potential future readers of a particular book. And third, reviews are predominately for readers, not authors.

Let me elaborate so that I know you know what I mean.

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How to Make Book Blog Friends and Grow Your Audience

Published on by Celeste24 Comments

I started my blog in March 2021, more than 1.5 years ago. Every so often I find myself reflecting on my journey. And every so often something I see on social media or someone else’s blog will spur another moment of reflection. A topic I keep coming back to involves how I found or created my niche within the bookish community. Note that I am definitely not an expert on this and these are just what I found worked for me. In this post I talk about how to make book blog friends.

It wasn’t easy at first. Starting a blog and maintaining it takes a lot of time and effort. Like many others, I started mine to connect with others who enjoy reading similar things. However, ever since the advent of more instantaneous social media (i.e., Twitter, Instagram, TikTok), blogging can feel like shouting out into the void. Therefore, it’s just as important to create and maintain at least one form of social media, in my opinion. That in itself can take a while to curate and figure out. You have to decide who to follow, what hashtags to use, and how to set up WordPress such that shared links to your site automatically preview an image.

All of this is initially overwhelming and may feel futile for the first few months. But after trying different ways to interact and create content, I feel like I’ve started to crack the code. (But who knows, it could change tomorrow. :-)) So I put together a list of things that I strive to do and that I encourage others to try. While I engage in these activities to connect with others, I’ve also seen a positive impact on my blog statistics, if that is something that is equally important to you. So, consider this list a work in progress. Read on to learn how to make book blog friends and grow your audience.

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