Discussion: Ten Steps To Being A Happier Book Blogger

I'm a pretty laid back blogger. I read whenever I feel like it and don't berate myself when I choose Game fo Thrones over the latest book. But I have been in that stressful zone of 'oh-god-my-followers-are-going-to-leave-me-if-I-don't-post-all-the-latest-book-releases'.

Step One
 Close your eyes. Take a deep breath. Open them. Guess what? Nothing happened. Your blog didn't explode, your followers are not picketing your Twitter. Don't be afraid to not post every single day. Take a break every now and then! Go catch up on Game of Thrones!

I gotta start using this as an insult.
Step Two
 How many books have you requested to review on NetGalley and Edelweiss? Are they piling up? Be honest. If the answer is 'erm... *silent panic*' then you might want to... take a break. I know, they're new and they're shiny. But there's nothing stopping you from adding those books to a Goodreads shelf and reading them at a later date. Make your blog different to everyone else's, give some older books some love and search out ones no-one else has heard of.


Step Three
Be nice to yourself. You're not a bad blogger if you haven't read 1 million pages this week and posted all the reviews! Give yourself lots of positive comments. 'I wrote a review for the blog today!' 'I didn't buy any new books this week!' 'I bought lots of books this week! *party*' are all good statements.


Step Four
Take a day off from reading and blogging and go on a book hunt! I do this often. I'm not sure about America but in the UK we have lots of Charity Shops and it's really fun to visit a new place and rummage for bargains. Why not search to find out if there's any beautiful bookstores near you and take a trip? I recently went to Bradford, where I hadn't really visited before and found a wealth of charity shops and this beautiful Waterstones.

Of course if you want to rummage like Macklemore that's cool too.
Step Five
Take a day to be social! We all get caught up with reading and reviewing and promoting so it's good to have a day to be social I think. Maybe if you post memes, use that Saturday to visit some other blogs and see what they're up to. Of course, you must be somewhat social already, you're reading this.


Step Six
Set a Goodreads reading goal lower than you think you can easily read in a year. Why? Because when you easily smash it it will feel DAMN GOOD. I have mine set to 100 because I'm just one of those speedy readers (sorry not sorry) but I know by the end of the year I could easily read 130. So if you think you can read 70 books this year, set your goal to 50 instead of 100. Try it!


Step Seven
Stop forcing yourself to read books you don't like. If you're four chapters in and want to stab your eyeballs out, now is the time to stop reading and choose a different book instead. You can always pick this book back up later.


Step Eight
If relaxing in front of the TV watching 10 hours of Game of Thrones isn't your thing, maybe do a bit of spring cleaning. Sort out all your bookcases, go through books that have been sitting on your shelves forever and decide if you really need to read them if they've been sitting there that long. And if the answer's yes... see Step Two.


Step Nine
Re-read! I don't think I know many bloggers that feel they don't have 'the time' to re-read their favourite books which is odd because we spend most of our time reading. One favourite book a month or few months is hardly going to dent a hole in your review schedule, so go and fall in love with it all over again!


Step Ten
Just enjoy everything more! You started a blog because of love of books, and apparently, writing a lot, so if you've fallen out of love with it, learn to love it again. Love the smell of new and old books. Love the soppy quotes that are littered around Goodreads. Love your neighbours dog! But not too much. That would be weird.


Vickie x

Comments

  1. Oh gosh, this post is stuffed with win. XD I'm still laughing at the last GIF. x) I agree that blogging NEEDS to be about the fun! The only one I don't really ever do is...um, reread. I just, bleh. It doesn't really appeal? I've reread about 2 books this year: Insurgent and Gone, and while I'm glad I did, I still would rather read NEW books. Shiny new books! Huzzah! They are so beautiful.

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    1. I should have added - but if re-reading books isn't for you, that's cool too. As long as you're happy!

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  2. Hahaha, I love the Silver Linings Playbook gif. It's really sad how many times I've wanted to chuck a book straight out the window lately. Anyway, great post! :)

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  3. Aw, I love this post so much! And what I love about it is that I've seen lots of posts about positivity, but this one actually really proposes helpful and fresh ideas for being happy about blogging, go you! I'll be honest, I've been doing a lot of deep breaths lately and trying to convince myself that publishers won't hate me for not getting to all the review books I'm behind on, but so far no hate mail so I'm all good ;-)

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  4. I absolutely LOVE this post! Confession. I'm one of those readers who keep requesting books, even though I have a ton of review requests that I need to finish...... OOPS. GAHH it's so hard to stop :'(

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  5. If I didn't do step nine I couldn't do this. I always have a 'bedside' book that is an old favorite. Right now that is usually Pratchett, but occasionally I switch it up. That is the book I put myself to sleep with.

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  6. Ohhhhhhhhhh, look at the gif goodness here. Good advice too, I think. I love re-reading books :D

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  7. Love this list. I'm still new enough at blogging that, sometimes, I feel positively overwhelmed. I guess one of my biggest problems is that I always try to compete with those huge blogs that have new posts up and dozens of comments every day. Of course, as a reader, my biggest fault is step seven on this list. Even before I started blogging, I had a hard time stopping a book. Finally, I love the GIF for step nine. That lady should be the patron saint of book bloggers.

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    1. I've been caught up in what the bigger bloggers were doing before! I've taught myself to not care so much if my blog isn't as popular as theirs, I know with enough work and dedication it will be. Or at least I hope madly that it will!

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  8. Very nice. I love this. I do want I want on my blog. I try to get reviews up but it doesn't always work out to where I get as many up as I want. But who cares right!!!

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  9. Brilliant - I do get a little bit stressy sometimes if I don't have the time or inclination to finish my Netgalley books (often it is because I just don't like reading on the iPad). I've taken a step back and Im reading for quality this year rather than quantity. Some of the books I read are publisher requests, and loads are just books I want to read. Life is too short.

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  10. Anonymous10:09 pm BST

    What a brilliant post! So many great tips, I'm definitely going to try implement some of these. Thanks. :)

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  11. Anonymous11:02 pm BST

    Great post and suggestions. The GIFs made me LOL, esp step 4 & 7. I have to keep Step 2 in mind, as I'm always requesting too many books. I've finally stopped doing that on Netgalley, and have made a list for Edelweiss but only requesting a couple at a time.

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  12. I have great issues with stress. You touched on all of the things that I've been dealing with lately. I get overwhelmed with the amount of books I have to read that I just... don't. I do have moods where I will read a few books in a couple of days, but that rarely happens. Same goes for blogging, just a lot less often. I have to read and edit my reviews about a million times over, so it becomes stressful for me. I find myself constantly conflicted with reviewing. Do I really want/need to? I do it so that I can write down my opinion. Instead of having in a notebook I have it out there for people to read. Lately I've decided that I am just going to do what I want, when I want. =)

    Also, #7 was something that I discovered before I started reviewing. I just can't deal with horrible books. If I find it bad, why read more of it? There are occasional books though, that I just can't look away, but I don't find them horribly written... or maybe I do... I can't explain it! (I've been thinking about re-reading Divergent even though I hated it. Weird, right?!)

    Anyway, great discussion post!

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