Bloggers: Why do you blog?

[Katie Lou]

Hi everyone!

I'm currently writing an article about book blogging for my journalism course and I was wondering if any of you could just say why you blog about books for my research? Also, what advice would you give to someone starting a book blog?

If you could just leave a comment on the topic then it'd be much appreciated!

Thanks :)

[[deleted user]]

Well, mostly I blog because it's so much fun! Writing reviews, posting memes, it just never really gets old. A lot of people think I'm crazy for just liking to write about books, but it's actually one of the things I like to do best for fun. Blogging is more for me than for the outside world, because writing reviews just gives me pleasure. :P So, basically I blog because it's really fun. Even though that answer is kind of lame... Haha.

[Irene]

I actually wrote my first blog on why I was doing it!

For me, I was SO sick and tired of having to have the SAME conversation about books with different people. Everyone knows I am a bookworm, so I am always a 'go to' person when a friend or relative need a book recommendation. I decided to create a 'one stop talk' so I could direct my friends to what book they should read and what was on my bookshelf....it blew up from there. I have always wanted to write, and it allows me to do just that! I love finding new books and getting both mainstream and indie titles out there to the masses!

[Larry]

Hello Katie - I blog to explore curiosity. I like to find interesting subject matter that sparks a response in me. I then turn the response into a blog post, and wait for comments that get the pot boiling for more comments and replies. Oh yes, the underlying reason is that I want people to find my blog, and subscribe to it because they find it interesting. And, somewhere along the line, these same people might be curious enough about me to buy and read my thriller novel.A Bridge to Treachery: From Extortion to Terror

[Cheryl]

Because I'm an author and supposedly knowledgeable people said I had to. Seems a little egotistical to me to think anyone might want to read my blog, but I plug on anyway!

[Jennifer]

Originally I started my blog because I am an author and my book manager said I should consider one. At first I thought I would never do it because, first blogging didn't really interest me, and second I only had, and until spring, will only have one book to talk about, and really who would keep coming back to a blog that only relates to one book? After reading a book, The Bestseller Labs Guide For Authors it talked about author blogs, how to start one, and how go about writing posts for it. I then decided to try blogging. I decided to call it animalsandmagic with the sidetag being, a blog by author Jennifer Priester so that readers would be aware that this blog would talk about my books often, but this is not the only thing I wanted to blog about, for reasons mentioned earlier. In my blogs description I mentioned that my blog would focus on these topics; animals, the relationships between humans and animals, books about these subjects as well as books about magic and the supernatural, and writing. The first blog post I made was titled, From Nonreader to Author or What Gets People Interested in Reading? This blog basically introduced myself as well as asked the readers to tell me what books first got them to read, and if they still like that book. I asked this question, not just to get readers to interact with my blog but because it was a topic that I really was interested in and was looking forward to the comments. In my next post, which I just made on Friday, I compared books that were similar in subject an genre and talked about the similarities and differences in each in a blog titled; Similarities and Differences in Books Part 1: When Books Are Familiar Yet Different. At the end of the blog I asked my readers to compare two books and tell me what is similar and what is different. I post every two weeks, and my next blog will be part 2 of the previous blog continuing the subject but this time I am going to compare the similarities and differences in my books to other books I have read that may have influenced my writing in some way, either directly or indirectly. I am not yet sure of what I will ask the readers at the end. After that, my next blog will talk about a subject from my first book series, familiars, and will focus on the topic of real life animal teachers, what I have learned from some animals, and talk about some books in which other authors talk about what they have learned from various animals, then ask the readers about their own animals or animals they have met.
My tips for writing a blog are as follows:
1) Write about something that interests you, if you aren't interested it will show in your writing and therefore others won't be interested in reading or following your blog.
2) Ask questions that you are interested in hearing what others answers are, reader interaction not only makes the blog more interesting for themselves and later readers but can spark some interesting conversations between yourself and your readers. And as long as you keep things friendly they may keep coming to or follow your blogs as well as spread the word about your blog to other people.
3) It can help to write out your blog on paper or type it on the computer before making the actual blog post. By doing this I discovered that it gives me a chance to see how it would look and often helps me keep things organized so when I have an idea for a blog I can write out what I have come up with and fill in missing pieces, such as my question, when I think of one. I also try to stay at least two blogs ahead and I have a list of topics that I may want to talk about at some point in time and if I choose to do this all I have to do is write the blog around the topic. Some examples are: I have a subject in my notebook currently called: Unfinished Projects: Do We Ever Go Back to Them? this blog would cover either the creation of some some stories I made that I later threw away, the origin story of one of the books I wrote that I almost didn't, or more likely a combination of these things. I may or may not ever blog about this but it is one of the options I gave myself. Another subject I came up with was to take some of my big series characters/the main characters and make a list of my favorite similar characters in books, movies, and tv. What I mean by this is that I would take characters such as DWW, a witch, and Trillman, a Golden Retriever and talk about my favorite witches and Golden Retrievers I books, movies, and tv.
4) Make your blog known. You can obviously post it some places on here. For authors with a Goodreads author dashboard, and/or an Amazon author profile, the blog can be added to these places. If you have a website link it to that. Share the blog with friends and followers on social network pages you are on and ask them to check it out or just let then know you have one, but don't tell them that they have to read your blog because this will turn some people off of it before they have ever read it. You also will want to avoid promoting your blog to other people by telling them how good it is or that they will really like it if they read it. This is okay if you are giving someone your review of someone else's blog but not your own, after all you are supposed to like your own blog if you don't why are you writing it in the first place? A blog should be enjoyable! In regards to your own blog you can however suggest they check out your blog if they are interested in a subject or subjects you blog about.
That's all the big blogger advice I can come up with at this time. My blog is still too new so there are a lot of things I haven't learned about blogging yet.