Jen at Crazy for Books restarted her weekly Book Blogger Hop to help book bloggers connect with one another, but then couldn't continue, so she handed the hosting responsibilities off to Ramblings of a Coffee Addicted Writer. The only requirements to participate in the Hop are to write and link a post answering the weekly question and then visit other blogs that are also participating to see if you like their blog and would like to follow them.
This week Billy asks: How many years have you been blogging? Anything special you want to tell everyone about your experiences?
I started this blog in February of 2008, so I've been blogging for a bit more than eight years now. I'm not sure how special my experiences might be, but I have learned some things over the years. For example, I now know to expect that anything you write will take at least twice as long to write as you expect it to.
I have also learned that I have no idea what blog posts will be a hit and what ones will not. My most popular two blog posts are a review of the Danielle Steele book The Ring, and a review of the Roald Dahl book Boy: Tales of Childhood. I have no idea why those two reviews get the most hits, but they are my most popular posts by a wide margin.
I have learned that the distance between a small scale blogger like me and professional authors, editors, and publishers isn't nearly as large as I believed it to be when I started. I now know that a lot of small press publishers will send review copies of their books out hoping to get a review on even a smallish blog like this one.
Experience has taught me that the spam filter is your friend, and it is wise to keep comment moderation turned on. Odds are that at some point, some people will be outraged by something you've written and will try to fill your comments section with crap. Cutting them off before their vitriol ever sees the light of day works better than anything else I've ever tried.
Most of all, I've learned that you have to write about what fascinates you first and foremost, because otherwise you'll never be willing to put in the time writing even if you aren't sure anyone else will ever read the end result.
Previous Book Blogger Hop: 170! Is the Largest Factorial Google's Built-In Calculator Can Handle
Subsequent Book Blogger Hop: Dana Kunze Holds the World High Dive Record at 172 Feet
Book Blogger Hop Home
Nice answer.
ReplyDeleteI luckily haven't had any awful comments.
ENJOY your weekend.
Happy Hopping!!
Elizabeth
Silver's Reviews
My Blog Hop Answer
@Elizabeth: I sometimes have people show up who are outraged about one of my reviews or my commentary on some subject.
DeleteI used to just delete such comments, but now I find amusement in the fact that such individual clearly spend so much time crafting what they obviously think is a crushing reply, and I simply send it into the ether, never to be seen by anyone.
Isn't that the truth?! It does seem that some posts take much longer to write than I anticipated. Almost all of them really . . . I'm also right there with you in appreciating the value of comment moderation.
ReplyDeleteThank you for your insightful post! And congratulations on your eight years of blogging.
@Literary Feline: Writing always seems to take twice as long as you expect. And then you budget twice as much time as you think it will take, and then it takes twice as long as that.
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