The Story is About   +  TIME

Blog Tips (2)

Updated 6/02/11

Disclaimer: Please take into consideration that these are only my suggestions. You can agree or disagree with them. I’m not saying you have to follow them, and I’m not saying I’m a blogging expert.

Check out my first post on: Getting Started.

Now that you’ve gotten your page started and the layout tweaked to your preference, it’s time to work on your content. If you are starting a book blog, obviously reviews are going to be a big part of your content.

So, lets address that first. Content.

Figure out how you are going to write your reviews. Here are some questions you might want to ask yourself before you start:

  • Are you going to take a professional approach or more personal?
  • Do you want to summarize the plot yourself, or would are you going to use the flap summary?
  • What length would you like your reviews to be?
  • Are you going to have a rating/grading system?
  • What about cover art? Do you want to post that with your review?
  • Do you want to include other information about the book besides your actual review, maybe a link of where to purchase or how many pages the novel is?
You might find things that work for you further down the line and things that don’t, it’s okay to change your style periodically until you find what fits you. It’s always a good idea to at least mention the title of the novel and the authors name. Since (hypothetically) you’re just starting your blog, and I’m assuming at this point that you’ve started your blog in hopes to one day review ARCs, (although I hope that is not your primary reason) now probably isn't the time to be actively seeking out getting copies. Build up your content, get a few reviews under your belt and go from there. (We'll talk more about advance readers copies later.)

While book reviews are great, it’s also nice to post other book related content. For instance, you might want to participate in weekly memes around the book blogging community, this will help you network your blog and meet other book bloggers! I actually host a meme called In My Mailbox, basically I share what books I’ve gotten that week in my mailbox, or what books I’ve bought, got at the library or borrowed and then I ask others to share too! And we go around and comment on each others posts. Here are some more memes you might be interested in participating in:

  • Waiting on Wednesday
  • Weekly Geeks
  • Booking Through Thursday
  • The Sunday Salon
  • Teaser Tuesday
I’m sure there are a lot more, but these are a few I remember off the top of my head. But like I said, a great way to network and meet other bloggers! But don't overload your blog with memes! Maybe you can have some relevant personal posts as well. It’s always nice for your readers to know a little bit about you. Of course, some people feel differently about that, a nice balance is always a good idea. And once you get some content going, maybe you can get an author interview and make up your own feature, have some fun!

So, now you have all this great content, but your still not getting visitors? What’s up with that? Let’s get some visitors!

Don’t:

  • advertise your blog on other people’s blogs especially in the comments section. No one likes SPAM! And I know that's a pet peeve for several blog... sometimes it can result in automatic delete of your comment.
  • go to a forum and list a "check out my blog" post in every thread. That's probably going to turn people off more than anything.
  • spam people on twitter. "hey check out my blog." probably not the best approach.
Do's:

Network! Here’s what I did when I started out, because no one knew I existed at one time either! First off I made a MySpace page. This is a great networking tool, because 1.) Lots of authors have MySpace pages. 2.) Lots of readers/book lovers have MySpace pages! I hate MySpace now and I no longer have an account, but this worked for me. That being said... I would NOT use MySpace as a social networking tool today. One of the biggest referring sites to my blog, is Twitter. Get a Twitter account. If you're not sure how to use it. Learn!

You could also do Facebook! Remember with social networking tools, like Twitter and Facebook, you have to make them work for you. Interact with other people. It can be hard to keep up on everything, so I use feedburner to update my Twitter status when I have a new blog post up and I use NetWorkBlogs to update my Facebook page!

There is also a huge book community to join!

  • BookDivas
  • RandomBuzzers
  • GoodReads
  • Shelfari
  • YABC
  • Librarything
  • Barnes & Noble Book Club
Visit other Blogs
Another suggestion is to visit other book blogs! Leave a comment relative to the post for that day. I almost always check out where my comments come from if it's a blogger I'm unfamiliar with! There are tons of easy ways to get your blog name out there.

Blog Directories
There are a ton of them! (do a google search! I'm sure a dozen will pop up!) I host a directory that you can join: YA Book Blog Directory!