Inspired by Brittany from The Book Addicts Book Guide.
I remember back when I was only on Goodreads and the reviews I read kept redirecting me to book blogs. I was impressed by how neat they were. And I started contemplating starting my own where I could be myself and share my love for books. That was back in October 2013 when I actually made my blog and started posting.
But now with so many arcs and e-arcs that I have, I feel like reading and blogging have sort of become an obligation to my readers, to the publishers, and to myself. I don't want to feel like this. It makes it so much harder to read books knowing I have a deadline. I want to go back when reading was just for myself.
I realize that when I keep making reading goals like "I want to read 100 books this year," it just puts more pressure on myself. And it makes the books I read less enjoyable. I feel like it's also one of the reasons why I've been in a reading slump lately.
I know I posted a lot about ALA Midwinter and that I got so many arcs. Well now that has sort of overwhelmed me. And even though I didn't request it, I still feel obligated to read them all before their release date. But I do know that that is really impossible.
When I first started this blog, I thought it would be fun and simple. But it's just so hard to keep up with the arcs I have and the books I want to read. Blogging sure has it's perks. We get to read books before they are out and that's so much fun. Plus FREE BOOKS! Who doesn't love free books?! But on the negative side, we probably don't have much time to read all the books we want because of all the arcs we get from requesting.
I don't really request a lot because my blog in a way is still small, I haven't passed the 500 followers mark. But I am getting there soon which is pretty surprising!!
But everything single time I request a book from a publisher, I feel like I have keep posting to let the publisher know that my blog is active. But posting everyday is really tough and a lot of hard work for me.
That's why I want to stop posting every single day. I'm still going to post actively but not as thought my life or the books depends on it. And I'm most importantly going to (or at least going to try to) post more reviews. Last year, I posted a ton of blitzes and not enough reviews. So I've put an end to that.
I just have to keep telling myself that this is my blog and I should post what I want and not just because the publishers expect that.
The only thing that seems to help me not worry is scheduling posts in advance. This is something I did well over the past month and I will continue that.
The reason I even started my blog was so that I could give reviews to people like they did for me. They helped me find some of the best books I've ever read. Whether it's a good or bad rating review, I still love reading them!!
It felt good to let that out!!
I totally respect that. A few times I've thought that maybe I should start a book blog myself with how much I read, but I feared encountering what you have - I didn't want reading to become more for others than myself. Reading is much too fun to get into a situation you're not comfortable with that makes you want to read less, you know? Hope you get back to a place where you enjoy this hobby again!
ReplyDeleteYeah I actually thought that it would affect my reading the way it did. That's why I sort of needed to write it down and let it out :)
DeleteYou should definitely blog the way you want. You can still be active without posting every day. Personally, I post only three times a week, and that's fine with me and my readers because it's how I want to blog. :) It's been hard to keep with ARCs on my end, too, but honestly it doesn't feel like too much of an obligation for me. I hope you get back into the swing of things soon. :)
ReplyDeleteAimee @ Deadly Darlings
Hmm I might try that. And I definitely do want to blog how I want because it is a place where I should be comfortable being who I am :D
DeleteYou're not obligated to anyone but yourself, and you don't have to be active every day. When I first started really blogging (about a year in) I was only posting twice a week (Tues and Thurs) in order to maintain enough content, because I as also in my first year of teaching and at the school literally from dark AM til 8 PM almost every day, plus ten hours on weekends. Once I really got into the groove, I just posted whenever I wanted within the week, and I slowly started adding meaningful weekly memes - Top Ten Tuesday, WWW Wednesdays, Feature Follow Friday and Sunday Post. I know you already have a handful of memes you participate in, but you don't always have to do them all each week. Recently I've been skipping a few of mine. I also did a lot of blitzes and nixed that this year to do more reviews. I felt like this and was comparing myself to other, years-established blogs and I had to just tell myself to cut it out. You just have to keep telling yourself why YOU started blogging, because we all hit this phase. One thing that might also help is to stop accepting books for review through your blog. I have that in big, bold at the top of my review policy page, and I haven't accepted books for review in over a year (except for the review tours I sign up for and a select couple of authors who I have established relationships with) so that I can read what I want to read. You do what works for you!
ReplyDeleteI've also been comparing myself to other bloggers. But I try to steer away from that because they've already had a long time to establish themselves and it's barely a year for me. This year, I've also decided to focus more on reviews than blitzes too. And I have decided not to post everyday so that I could have more posts scheduled in advance. It's actually been pretty helpful so far :)
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