The Not a Book Club Club discussion
Do you have a book blog?
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I have been thinking about this myself for a while now. But I would also expand this to grab news items that are relevant to me (a UK based reader). While some US news is important, its not always relevant. As always, very busy at work and the last thing I want to do is get back on a computer - would rather read :)I will probably roll my own up as I am a website dev who specialises in .NET and is Umbraco Certified. For the non techs, I would recommend either going for a maintained service (where you pay a monthly fee, and get access to a number of templates and modules), or get some cheap hosting and using something like Wordpress. The old saying - 'you only get what you pay for' plays true in website hosting and support.
I actually started one last year, mainly to get free review copies from german publishers and press passes for book conventions. They always have a big contingent of books for bloggers and I don't think there as many here as there are for english books, I think it's a nice niche. But I think goodreads is the better platform to promote books and after this amazon reviews. Because you find people with your taste in books and discover books you would have never discovered on your own. The blogs I actually follow are very few, I think goodreads is the better tool.
Mod
I have a decent following here, but I highly doubt that would translate to anything worthwhile off the site. As it is now with 270 people (81 friends + 189 followers) of my reviews, I'm lucky to get more than 10 likes. That's not very encouraging for me to try something bigger.
I had been considering trying to make one for the chance at free review copies/ARCs but honestly I'd rather wait to read them with everyone else.
Then again it seems like half my friends are always reading books ahead of release date these days...
Ah yes, I found your blog last week, Nico. Did you get review copies out of it yet? That possibility hadn't occurred to me.A lot of my real life friends don't seem to be on Goodreads, and although I have invited them, they seem reluctant top sign up. Nevertheless, they keep asking me to recommend something to read to them. Hm.
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True.I think I will simply throw a book post into my normal everyday blog every now and then, which is more an online journal and I don't keep track of who's reading it or not.
Seems too much work to maintain an extra blog for the 2 people who might read it :)
Mod
I like talking about a variety of things, but I don't believe anything I have to say is interesting enough for people to want to read/share it with others. lol.
I see my blog more as a journal for myself, rather than a blog with an audience. I can't lose it on the bus, and I can write from anywhere that has internet access. No need to lug an actual journal and pens around.
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So long as you don't care if people have access to what you write. If I did keep a journal I'm not sure I'd write the same things in it than I would post on a blog.
my book blog is on tumblr. I don't always post my reviews but I love posting pictures of books, cats with books, stacks of books, books I'm reading, etc. the url is on my profile.
A blog would be work for me and as soon as I make reading work, I won't want to do it. So I don't think I'll ever have a blog. I save my review to a thumb drive in case Goodreads ever has some sort of failure and erases everything. I write review for GR for fun and to help other readers out. Maybe my thoughts will help someone pick up a book or understand why it might not work for them.
@Kat yes I got a lot of books from the publishers, they have an extra press review copy section for every book, where you can order one and as of yet they send me one every time. Physical books, not just ebooks :)And then I have an account on netgalley, but there I often times get a rejection because it's sometimes limited to the US.
Mod
My most popular review is for Gardens of the Moon and that has only 36. The Shadow Throne (which is my personal favorite review) is a close second at 35, and I have a few others above 30, but not many.
Pretty lousy percentage of the 270 people following my reviews..
And I back up my goodreads data, which includes the reviews every few months or so. I'm probably overdue for a new back at this point. I should get on that.
I really enjoy your reviews Rob, I will remember to give you more likes(I don't really care about that stuff, since I don't do it often myself) :)I write reviews for myself as well, it's good that your are forced to think about the whole story again and look on it more critically a second time. Also it's nice to see you thoughts to a book you read a long time ago, to remember.
Oh and in my case it helps to write in a different language :)
And somehow my most liked reviews are the ones where I didn't like the book :P
I enjoy your reviews too Rob - I need to be sure to make better use of the like button. You have certainly influenced some of my reading choices, and given me some good laughs.
Mod
For me the like count is mostly important because it's the only way I'm able to know a person read the review. I wish they just had a passive read count, then I wouldn't care much if people clicked like or not.
So for all I know 100 people read each review and it's mostly the same 10-20 who always click the like button. Or my reviews are only being read by 30 people. Or just those 10-20.
I'd suspect for many people they may not actively read new reviews as I post them, but read/skim them if are trying to decide to read a book or not. Or at least that's what I do on books I'm not sure about.
Oh, and one of my top 5 reviews is for The Slow Regard of Silent Things, which I didn't exactly dislike, but I did rant a bit about Rothfuss. It seems to be popular with people who didn't like the novella at all.
I suspect quite a few fall into that category - you are right - a number "read" would be nice. Anyway - I hope you - and the others in our group- continue writing reviews - I sure appreciate them when making book choices AND when thinking about a book I've read.
Mod
Though I have noticed myself falling behind on my reviews more often lately and then doing a whole bunch of reviews at once instead of as I finish them.
i do read and like them if i catch them in my updates. otherwise its when i am thinking of reading a book i will see which goodreads friends have read it.i dont look for 4 or 5 stars i look for the 3 and 2 stars and ssk for thoughts if they havent done a review.
i try and do the same for all GR friends
Of course, I'm happy if someone likes my reviews :) But I'm writing them mainly for myself to be able to discuss them after a couple of months - it's quite often that a different group talks about the same book and I wouldn't remember things beside the main plot.
I've got a blog on wordpress dedicated to short story reviews. Last year with Rogues I found that review space here is limited. Normally that's not a problem at all - only with anthologies where I want to write more than a couple of words for each included story. I outsourced it to wordpress and I'm very happy with that. No follower at all, but I don't mind that.
Rob wrote: "My most popular review is for Gardens of the Moon and that has only 36. The Shadow Throne (which is my personal favorite review) is a close second at 35..."No worries, Rob, I've got your back. All tied up now.
I should probably post more book reviews to my blog, singing or otherwise. Or post to my blog more often than... god, once a year? I'm bad at blogs.
Mod
Welcome to adulthood!
Authors and publishers give more credit to review blogs than GR because individual reviews are much easier to randomly come across from search engines than ones just on GR, I think.
A blog can be fun; like Andreas said there's no pesky character limit to deal with so you can say all you have to say. But at the same time, you're a lot more liable to find yourself on the bad end of a mob if you post a negative review, depending on what you read.
There are pros and cons. Personally I prefer blogging over GR these days; a lot more random people come across my stuff, and conversations tend to go in all sorts of directions. GR is an extremely small community by comparison.
A blog can be fun; like Andreas said there's no pesky character limit to deal with so you can say all you have to say. But at the same time, you're a lot more liable to find yourself on the bad end of a mob if you post a negative review, depending on what you read.
There are pros and cons. Personally I prefer blogging over GR these days; a lot more random people come across my stuff, and conversations tend to go in all sorts of directions. GR is an extremely small community by comparison.
Alex wrote: "The job and perks are great, and getting paid is pretty neat, but having less time for reading blows."I transposed the lines on this and managed to read it as "The job and the blow are great...." which led me to think Alex was some sort of drug cartel kingpin now.
I am a prolific liker, but I really do read everything I like. I'm glad to know people like the 'likes' and don't wonder why some random person is liking their reviews.
I tried the blog but laziness kept me from maintaining it. It's probably still up somewhere. Posting the GR reviews to it is a good idea actually. My reviews tend to be very short and pretty similar. I tend to find it difficult to expand on why I really liked or disliked a book so I just stick to the feelings they generate.
When I first started on this site I used the recommendation option a lot but after finding a couple good groups, mainly this one, I've gotten most of my recs from them.
I normally read any reviews that pop up on my newsfeed, but I don't think I've ever visited anyone's blog outside of GR
The Not a Book Club Club
Books mentioned in this topic
Rogues (other topics)The Slow Regard of Silent Things (other topics)
Gardens of the Moon (other topics)
The Shadow Throne (other topics)
I was considering to start a blog to suggest books to my friends, but am unsure how to go about it. If you have a blog, I'd really like to go and have a look!
Kat