Why I like a blog

It’s the first Wednesday of the month again, time for a post for the Insecure Writer’s Support Group.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

FEBRUARY QUESTION: What turns you off when visiting an author’s website/blog? Lack of information? A drone of negativity? Little mention of author’s books? Constant mention of books?

MY ANSWER: What turns me off are either long and boring posts or the posts where the authors push their books. Rabid promotion disgusts me. It is much more enjoyable for me to talk about what turns me on, who are the authors I subscribe to, which blogs interest me. Because if I’m not interested, I won’t subscribe to the blog and won’t read it.

There is actually only one point of attraction for me in the blogosphere: the author gives me something I want or need.

An opportunity to participate regularly in a blog hop (IWSG blog or WEP blog).Free fiction by the writers I enjoy (Ilona Andrews’s blog https://ilona-andrews.com/blog/).A book review blog by a reviewer I trust (there are several of those).A blog where my main point of interest, more often than not, lies in the comments, not the blog posts themselves. E. g. the blog https://arghink.com/ by one of my favorite romance writers Jennifer Cruise. Her posts are usually short and to a theme, like Working Wednesday or my favorite, Good Book Thursday. Each Thursday, the author tells us in a few pithy lines what she read in the past week and then passes the estafette to her readers. Every week, these posts might have a hundred or more comments. I usually participate in the Good Book Thursday posts: I post my own comments and read the comments of the others. The commenters discuss the books they read, liked, or disliked, and why. Some comments have 5 or more comments nested under it. The whole conversations are going on in those comments. Most of my reading these days comes from the comments on this site. I especially like these posts because the commenters are very respectful and supporting towards each other. The virtual atmosphere is simply lovely.

What about you. What blogs do you like/subscribe to and why?