The Secret Life of a Book Blogger Tag

My Evil Overlord Cait at Paperfury tagged me to do this, The Secret Life of a Book Blogger tag, and me being nosy means that I love to know the secret lives of other book bloggers. But I suppose if I want to know about you guys, it's only fair that I answer the questions myself first... So here you have it, this is the very secret life of The Review Diaries Book Blogger.

1. HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN A BLOGGER?
I’ve been blogging for five long years now, which is crazy, because that also means it’s been five years since I graduated uni, which is OBVIOUSLY LIES.

2. AT WHAT POINT DO YOU THINK YOU’LL STOP BLOGGING?
Never. I’ll probably take breaks (I already had a long break due to real life problems intruding in) but I won’t ever stop blogging. I’ll have patches where I read and blog less, and months where I read an insane amount of books and won’t be able to stop talking about them, but I never want The Review Diaries to be a past tense thing.

3. WHAT IS THE BEST THING ABOUT BLOGGING?
So Many Things.
The community is awesome. I have made so many awesome friends through blogging. Some I’ve met and some it’s doubtful I will ever meet because they LIVE ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WORLD, but they’re awesome and the community and friendships are truly the best thing about this whole shebang.

But it’s not just that. The sense of pride and achievement I feel when I look at my blog, at my stats, at my different social media platforms, is huge. I built this baby up from scratch when I had no idea what on earth I was doing and was just stumbling around trying to make a pretty header, to today, where I still have a very loose grasp on what I’m doing, but there’s also a lot that I DO know how to do now and I’ve taught myself. I can do basic html coding, which is a huge deal for me, and is only something I can do because I got bored of not being able to do what I wanted. So I worked it out. This site is my baby. I have worked so hard to build it into what it is today, and I will keep working at it as long as it’s going, constantly improving and aiming to make it the best I possibly can. On bad days it can be my reason for getting up in the morning, and it is a source of huge pride, and that is quite frankly, pretty damn awesome.

I’m not gonna lie, the books from publishers are pretty incredible too. When I’d been blogging for a few months I remember wistfully asking my Mum if I’d ever be the kind of blogger who get sent advanced books, and I remember the giddy excitement when I received my first one. I still get that giddy excitement every time I get a new book. It doesn’t matter how often or how many, I am grateful and excited and feel so privileged about every single one.

4. WHAT IS THE WORST THING? WHAT DO YOU DO TO MAKE IT OKAY?
The self doubt. Every blogger experiences self doubt. It is something that never goes away, but you get much better at dealing with it over time. I have always had and probably will always have days when I wonder what the point is, if it’s worth the effort, if what I do matters at all. But then I a) remind myself that actually, I’m doing this first and foremost for me and it doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks. And b) anyone telling me they bought a book because of something I said or because of my review, that feeling is incredible. That makes everything worth it, because it doesn’t matter how many people are reading this blog, if just one person has decided to pick up a book because of what I’ve said about it, I can go home happy.

Also chocolate, chocolate helps any situation.

5. HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE YOU TO CREATE/FIND PICTURES TO USE?
I’m very basic with the pictures I use in my reviews because I like to keep it simple and clean. I tend to have the cover picture, which I nab from Goodreads, and my stars for the rating, which are the same for every review.
However with my newfound love of Instagram I am starting to take more photos, so when possible, and when I actually have a physical copy of the book to photograph, I am starting to take more photos of the books. That used to take me a while to get the right shot, but I’m getting better at knowing what I need and how it should look so it doesn’t take me long at all now.

6. WHO IS YOUR BOOK CRUSH?
SO MANY BOOK CRUSHES. I can’t even.
Jamie Fraser from Outlander by Diana Gabaldon.
Jared Lynburn from The Lynburn Legacy by Sarah Rees Brennan.
Nicholas Brisbane from The Lady Julia Grey series by Deanna Raybourn.
George Cooper from The Song of the Lioness Quartet by Tamora Pierce
Sean Kendrick from The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater
Gansey from The Raven Cycle by Maggie Stiefvater
Brigan from Fire by Kristin Cashore
Alan Ryves from The Demon’s Trilogy by Sarah Rees Brennan
I could go on, but I figure eight is more than enough…

7. WHAT AUTHOR WOULD YOU LIKE TO HAVE ON YOUR BLOG?
I have been stupidly lucky in that two of my biggies have already been on my blog, both Deanna Raybourn and Sarah Rees Brennan have come on to be interviewed (I may have fainted from excitement on both counts.) which leaves only two other authors that would leave me potentially incoherent with excitement were they to grace my humble blog with their presences. Maggie Stiefvater and Tamora Pierce. The former because oh dear God her books are just the best and I cannot actually put into words how much I love them. They are the type of books that I physically want to put inside my rib cage so I am never parted from them. (Too much?)
And the latter because her books shaped the type of books I love to read today. The Song of the Lioness Quartet was fundamental in shaping my love of fantasy, my love of magic and my love of strong female characters.

8. WHAT DO YOU WEAR WHEN YOU WRITE YOUR BLOG POSTS?
My magical writing hat...
Well it depends on when I’m writing. Take for example now, at three in the morning, I am writing this in my pjs wearing a tshirt that says ‘clearly I have made some bad decisions’. Accurate.

9. HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE YOU TO PREPARE?
I’m going to take that as how long does it take me to write a post and get it ready to go. It can vary. Some books I know exactly how I felt and what I want to say and the review will be written and scheduled in twenty minutes from start to finish. Others I have the review document open on my laptop for a week. I’ll keep coming back to it, adding, re-wording and generally poking it until I’m happy with how it’s turned out. The actual posting and scheduling doesn’t take very long at all.

10. HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT THE BOOK BLOGGER COMMUNITY?
See above, I love it. Book bloggers are so friendly and welcoming, and the best part? Everyone adores books so they’re automatically pretty awesome. I have made some really awesome friends through this community and had so many incredible experiences as a result. Sometime the drama can become a little overwhelming, and there are always frustrations, but really, you couldn’t ask for a more awesome collection of people.

11. WHAT DO YOU THINK ONE SHOULD DO TO GET A SUCCESSFUL BLOG?
There is no key or secret formula. It’s all about the person behind the blog and people connecting with them. The only advice I can give is to be yourself and write and do what makes you happy. Trying to imitate other peoples blogs and conform to the posts you think you should be posting is just going to make you miserable and that will show through to your readers. Write the posts you love to write, do things your way, your love and enthusiasm for what you’re doing is much more likely to attract readers than anything else. Blog for yourself above anyone else.

So there you have it, my ‘secret’s' to book blogging, nothing particularly ground breaking, but I’ve really loved taking part in the tag, so thank you Cait for tagging me. Now it’s over to you! I would love to hear about the secret lives of these wonderful book bloggers, although anyone who wants to join in is welcome! Link me to your tags in the comments below!

Angie @ Angieville // Rosie @ Rosie Reads // Zoey @ Uncreatively Zoey // Beth @ The Quiet People // Sophie @ So Many Books,So Little Time // Kerr & Rachel @ Paein and Ms4Tune // Mishma @ Chasing Faerytales // Viv @ Serendipity Reviews

How I Run my Book Blog

I've been contemplating doing a post about how I personally book blog, but hadn't really found the impetus to do it until I saw Sophie's brilliant post about Running a Blog over at her site 'So Many Books, So Little Time', so the fact that I actually finished this post and put it up is all on her - thank you for inadvertently giving me the push to do it Sophie!

Running a book blog is a lot of hard work. I'm really lucky that whilst I'm in France I don't have to go out to work, I do it all from home, so I can devote a lot more time to reading and reviewing than I could before - which definitely helps ease the stress!

1. As soon as a book comes in, either as a proof copy or an e-galley, I look at the release date and then at my diary. I don't post reviews earlier than two weeks before the release date, so that can mean a lot of shuffling around of previous ideas of when I'd post reviews. My diary is a messy and cluttered thing...

I have to have a physical diary to work with, otherwise my brain explodes. No really, brain matter all over the screen, so messy. For some reason my head just cannot work its way around having a calendar/diary on my phone or computer, as handy as that would be, so I have a little purple book giving me a month per page, with just enough space to write what post will be going up each day/scribble it out several times and make a mess.

That way I can immediately see where I have space, or where I need to make space and shift other reviews around to fit in the latest book. Unless I have an insanely busy week or month I tend to only blog on weekdays, because I mainly post reviews and trying to read enough books to fill seven days a week would cause me to binge eat an entire freezer of Ben & Jerry's and lie on my fainting couch.

2. Once I've worked out where there is space I create a scheduled post on Blogger with the title of the book and schedule it for the appointed day. That way I have a back up system of when things should be being posted and it helps me to stay on track.

It starts off as a scheduled post with a title and no labels. That way I can see it's still to be done. As soon as the review is in there and it's all ready to go I add the labels. Voila!

At a glance I can see where the gaps are and what I need to be reading and reviewing next.

When I finish the book I try to sit down no later than 48 hours after I've read the book, otherwise my goldfish brain has already moved onto the next book and I have trouble putting all my thoughts together. I used to make notes whilst I read, but now because I sit down straight after to review it I find I don't need to as much. Some reviews will sit open on my laptop for several days whilst I formulate what I want to say (weirdly it's sometimes the books I've enjoyed the most that I find the reviews hardest to write because it's hard to say anything other than READ IT READ IT NOW SO GOOD MUST READ) and others will be done in twenty minutes. It really does depend on the book and my experience with it.

As soon as it's ready to go it then gets left until a day or two before it's due to go live when I'll then go back to it, double check it for any glaring errors and do the odd tweak. Once I've written the review though I don't change anything outright, because I like keeping it as my thoughts when I'd read the book, not a week later when I've thought about it some more. Sometimes I'll add extra notes if the time away from the book has clarified or changed anything, but on the whole the review is how I felt in the couple of days after finishing.

Both of these ways of keeping track mean that I know what order I have to read the books I have in. It's a lot more structured than my old haphazard approach, but it means that I never miss release date deadlines or find myself scrambling to catch up with something I should have done a while ago. Less stress makes me a happy bean!

So that's my method of working, have I given you any ideas for helping to keep track of your blogging? Or do you have your own blogging schedule and methods? Let me know in the comments below!