Blogger Recognition Award

Over the last few (okay, several…) months, I got 3 nominations for the Blogger Recognition Award! (Aww, you like me, you really like me~) Anyways, as I’m trying to catch up on my tags and whatnot, I figured I’d go ahead and fill this one out and return the favor by passing it on to a few other bloggers. ♥ I was tagged by Kathy, Lexie, and Alex!

the rules:

1. thank the blogger who nominated you and provide a link to their blog
2. write a post to show your award
3. give a brief story of how your blog started
4. give two pieces of advice to new bloggers
5. select 15 other bloggers you want to give this award to

It all started when…

I’ve always loved recommending books to friends and family, so in October of 2016, I decided to extend that to short reviews on Goodreads. More than anything, it was actually to help me remember my own likes and dislikes, because I had been reading so little, for so many years, that I had a hard time remembering what I had picked up or what I hadn’t.
Then, in January of 2017, I decided to move to a WordPress blog, just because it sounded fun and I thought it would challenge me to write longer reviews (my first 2 months’ worth of reviews were about a paragraph each), and to read a bigger variety of books instead of just rereading my old faves over and over again.
Now, it’s been almost a year and a half, and here we are! I love blogging and am so happy that I gave it a try.

My advice for new bloggers…

1. Networking is everything. In the beginning stages of blogging, most people don’t have a lot of followers, which makes it hard to keep yourself motivated to create content. Nobody likes shouting into the void, after all. The best thing I can tell you – and the biggest thing that I wish I had learned sooner than four months into my blogging career – is to go out there and “meet” people! Don’t be afraid to comment on other blogs, share your links on social media, etc. There are even “new blogger” trains on twitter all the time where you just drop your link and everyone follows each other! Making friends will boost your numbers fast, which will help your morale, and all of those new friends will give you a great community and support system (as well as more content because they might tag you in stuff!).
2. It’s okay to tailor your blog to your audience’s likes a little bit. You’ll constantly hear people say that you should only blog about what you like, and if that’s what makes you happy, that’s great – but like it or not, people are driven by success, and seeing our stats go up is always a nice feeling. I love writing mini reviews for graphic novels, but I learned very quickly that people don’t often get excited about a blog post that’s specifically for one mini review of one graphic novel – so I found ways to work around it by doing the occasional “mini review roundup”, where I throw a few short reviews into one post. People reacted so much better to those, which means my audience was happier, and their happiness made me happy – all for the cost of what was a very tiny compromise on my part. (That said, obviously don’t sacrifice your entire set of values and preferences for your posts, because then it’ll come off as fake, nobody will like it, and you’ll get burnt out AF.)

I tag…

1. Taylor @ NerdNarration
2. Heather @ The Sassy Book Geek
3. Danielle @ Life of a Literary Nerd
4. Annemieke @ A Dance With Books
5. Chelsea @ The Suspense is Thrilling Me
6. Dani @ Perspective of a Writer
7. Sofia @ Bookish Wanderess
8. Peachy @ Book Dragon Lair
9. Julia @ Owls Reads
10. Nicole @ A Myriad of Books
11. Mischenko @ ReadRantRock&Roll
12. Louise @ Foxes and Fairytales
13. Ellyn @ allonsythornraxx
14. Kelly @ Another Book in the Wall
15. Amber @ The Literary Phoenix

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