So today I have a kind of interactive discussion – I want to kind of have an open conversation, instead of just portraying my own thoughts and having you guys respond to that. Today, I have a question for you guys!
Now, I’m very fussy when it comes to following book blogs. I usually look at a number of random unimportant things and then decide whether the blog is worth following or not, and I’m equally hasty when it comes to unfollowing blogs. The minute I realize that a blog is deviating from the reason which made me follow it in the first place, bam! I unfollow it. But anyway, since we’re talking about specific reasons of following blogs, let’s talk about only that!
Things which immediately make me follow a book blog
1. Bright, clean and neatness
I usually love artsy and pastel-ly colors. I love looking at blogs which can satisfy my aesthetic sense (even though my own blog doesn’t do that :P) and I love looking at neat, well-organized blogs. I don’t like a lot of mess on the screen, with a thousand widgets on both sides and random other unimportant things and the main post somehow fitted in between. I’d rather read a blog which is neat and pretty to look at. Widgets are cool, but too many of them aren’t. I also don’t like cluttered blogs, somehow they irk me. I love bright pictures which are both neat and artsy.
2. Lots of discussion posts
I freakin’ love discussion posts. It’s sad that a lot of book blogs don’t have enough of these, but I devour those who do discuss a lot. A lot? In the sense, at least 4-5 discussion posts a month. I myself am trying to get better in this, and posting as many discussions as possible (which, once you start doing, is a lot of fun). I think discussions can speak volumes about the type of person the blogger is, and can spark up the reader’s thoughts and opinions about the topic being discussed. Also, discussions are amazing because they inspire the readers. Yes! How lovely it is, when you know that your discussions moved/affected/inspired someone enough to write something about the topic themself! So yeah, if your blog has a lot of discussion posts, I’m definitely following it.
3. Different types of book reviews
If your blog has exclusively YA contemporary reviews, then I probably won’t follow you for your reviews. However, if you review a healthy mixture of YA contemporary, fantasy, thrillers and even literary fiction once in a while, I’m much more likely to hit the follow button. I’ve seen so many pretty, attractive blogs, but because they prefer to review books of only one category, I usually don’t follow them and even if I do, it’s definitely not for the reviews.
4. Variety
If you only post reviews and reviews and reviews, I probably will never follow you. If you excel in book tags, your blog is fun but lacks information. So? Variety. That is SUCH a must. I usually follow blogs which are varied and wide in their content, and can provide information as well as fun in a healthy mixture.
5. Randomness
Random posts popping up between routine posts (like wrap ups, tbrs, book hauls, tags, memes etc.) is such a delight. Routine posts like memes and tags and reviews? A lot of blogs do that. Heck, most blogs do that! But if you can add random posts once in a while, that just attracts me much more to your page.
So! Those were most of the reasons why I follow book blogs. I’m thinking of doing a post soon on reasons I unfollow book blogs. Please comment below if you want to see that!
Now, for some help I need…
I need to follow more blogs!!
I’ve lately actually unfollowed a lot of blogs out of the 60 blogs that I followed…and I need some blog recommendations. HELP ME OUT! You don’t have to provide the link to the blog (because I know that’s a lot of work :P) you can simply name the book blog in the comments below and I’ll check it out. Please do suggest some!
Going Through Books 
The design of the website matters a lot to me when I decide if I should follows. But I think the most important is content and writing style.
Usually I am looking for quick bits of information and something entertaining. My absolute favourite is paperfury.com <3
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OH YES. Paper Fury is absolutely amazing. Her quirky writing style and cake talk always warms me up :P
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I look at the same things you do! I love blogs that review a large variety of books outside of YA as well as in it and if there are discussion posts, even better! Kinda in the same vain I don’t follow blogs that are 90% memes and tags.
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I totally agree with you, although its certainly not easy to incorporate all of those things. I’m trying to introduce it in my own blog bit by bit though it’ll probably be better if I post more often. I’ll try to do that once I settle into a routine, since college just opened.
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Yes it is definitely difficult! Even my own blog doesn’t fulfill all of the things I’ve mentioned :P But the fact that doing all this is difficult, makes the people who do manage to create and maintain awesome blogs all the more special :)
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I look for justified opinions about a book / the quality of the writing.
It bugs me when people review books and are either like “This book was so amazing, I can’t even explain, but it’s fabulous” or “This book was horrible, don’t waste your time, it’s just awful. because both opinions seem to lack any explanation as to why the reader feels that way.
I also look for the quality of the writing the blogger has, because how can I trust their judgement on how a book was written, when they can’t spell or use proper grammar, or structure their work – the exact same things they slate the author for?
A professional look to the website doesn’t go amiss either. :)
Pst, if you’re looking for suggestions, my book blog is right here: https://readandreview2016.wordpress.com/ ;)
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Exactly. I actually published a post a few months ago about things I like and dislike in book blogs, and I mentioned how I really dislike bloggers who simply fangirl and overreact and talk about their emotions without really going into any detail. I’d much rather hear about what a book is, rather than what you felt about the book. Of course, as reviewers, we’re all bound to express our emotions, but it should come with explanation. If I think a book is good and worth reading, I should also mention ‘why’ it is so.
And yes, quality of writing is important. Though I’m not looking for flowery, ‘beautiful’ writing in bloggers, I usually tend to be put off if a blogger makes a lot of grammatical errors.
And yes, a professional look also gets a thumps up from me.
And sure! I’ll check out your blog.
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Thanks for the reply! I’m not looking for flowery writing either, particularly when my own style is more “to the point”. I just think that if you want people to take you seriously as a writer and blogger, you need to have a decent standard of writing! 😂
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I actually follow blogs for the same reasons you unfollow them. Before I was a blogger I never followed blogs that had anything other than review posts or recommendations or wrap ups. It was of no use to me. But I get how as a blogger these are the fun things. Can’t recommend much since the blogs I follow are one you probably won’t like but I’d love to see the post on why you unfollow blogs.
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Yes, will definitely put that up soon.
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I love this post! I’ve thought of doing the ‘why I follow/unfollow’ posts too but I haven’t had the time, so it was a pleasure to read yours.
I think what drives me to follow a blogger is two main things: 1) that they blog about books I’m interested in reading and 2) that they make an effort to REALLY interact with their followers. Any blogger that does both of these things is gold in my books! I don’t really mind if they never post discussions because for me those are INCREDIBLY hard to write. :P
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I would totally like to check out your post on this topic :)
I too definitely love bloggers which take an effort to interact with everyone. And I especially love that because I know how difficult it is to always keep a track of who all commented and reply back. It takes a lot of effort and bloggers who can pull that off are amazing.
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Yeah, for sure! I think commenting is one of the most time-consuming tasks ever. It’s also very easy to miss comments and leave them unresponded, especially when you get a lot of them.
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Yeah exactly. Usually when I post discussions, there are just so many comments and that too (REALLY long comments) I have to take out time from the day and sit down to read and respond to each of this as a separate task of the day :P
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Hi there! I actually talked about this some time ago for a a friend’s feature! And since you’re asking for book blog recs then I’ll just go ahead and suggest you visit Geraldine at http://corrallingbooks.blogspot.com.au/ Her feature is called ‘Conversations’ and if you like discussions then I think that’d be perfect!
Here’s the link to my post about things that make me follow a blog (*gasp!* shameless self-promotion XD): http://www.pamelanicolewrites.com/conversations-5-things-make-hit-follow-blog-button/ Spoiler: I also like pretty blogs!
See ya!
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Thank you! I’ll check out both the links :)
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Well, of course, I would recommend checking out all the bloggers who link up to the Discussion Challenge because you know that they already meet one of your qualifications. I could easily spend hours just reading discussion posts that are linked up there (and often do!). :-)
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I actually do that quite often! I keep checking out links in your discussion challenges and I have actually found out quite a few blogs through that :)
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I love seeing variety in blogs too, admittedly my blog is lacking in that area and that’s definitely something I need to work on.
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Well, this post has got me brainstorming like crazy! Bless your soul!
I definitely agree with you on aesthetics. Maybe it makes me superficial…BUT DESIGN IS SO IMPORTANT. Even though, honestly, my design is not as good as it should be.
I really love a little spunk in writing! Especially for reviews. I feel like people get pretty serious in reviews, and that’s okay! But I really enjoy it when personality shines through every single crevice of a blog.
ORIGINALITY IS THE ULTIMATE MUST!! If a blogger loves doing popular memes, okay! Cool! But if that’s all they post about, I’m just not going to follow them. Because everyyyyyone does it! I looooove original posts (like this one 😉) that really stand out and inspire me. That’s what blogging is really about!
Also, what’s really important to me is interaction. If a blog NEVER replies to comments…it’s kinda a huge turn off for me. I get it, people are busy, but should anyone ever be too busy to thank someone for taking precious time out of their precious day to acknowledge your work? I don’t think soooo!
As for someone awesome blogs: Paper Fury! So much spunk, so much aesthetic, so much discussions!! Love her! I’m sure you already know her though lollll she’s so popular!
Twirling Pages: Her posts are always so thoughtful and you can tell she puts a lot of time into them! Her photography is AMAZING so her aesthetic is always on point! Plus she’s a ballerina so she does some really original posts about that :)
Drizzle and Hurricane Books: SHE IS SO SWEET! She’s got travel posts as well as bookish posts, and bunches of originality. Plus she’s French!
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Tbh, my design is not at all how I want it to be :D I just don’t have the time or motivation enough to actually sit down and give it some thought and make something succesful :) You blog is pretty and unique, the posts caught my eye immediately (that’s what I followed so soon, because it really is pretty :P)
Yes I too love original, different posts! It is needed sometime to make the blog stand out from everything else. I try very hard to post discussions and different things once in a while :)
Even I too love blogs which reply, but I myself am a bit behind on that. Sometimes I take an entire day to get back to a comment, which I wish could improve.
Also, yep I absolutely love the three blogs you mentioned!!
Thanks!
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I look for the same things as you do, which is what I try to aim my blog to be. I really need to post more discussions, because they;re really fun. I created a category called ‘Dreams and Discussions’, which should be encourgaing.
Book blogs? Oooh
1. ME(tarin of thought @mybookishlife) , of course!! (Some slef promotion :D :D ) Mybookylifewordpress(dot)com
2.Sarina@ Cookie break (sarinalangerwriter.wordpress(dot)com)
3. Cait@ Paperfury, AMAZING!!!
4. Tash @ The Bookie Monsters (thebookiemonsters.wordpress(dot)com
ENJOY these AMAZING book blogs, AMAZING post btw!!!
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Thank you so much for your suggestions! I’ll check the sites out soon :)
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I like blogs that stay relevant to their purpose. I.e if you post top 10 Tuesday, I don’t want to know the 10 names you’d name a cat or dog. Not relevant to blogging about books. Also, the blogger needs to share the same taste in genres as I do. Like you, it cannot just be all YA or romance.
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Yes. Relevancy is important but I guess almost all bloggers post something a little different once in a while? It’s a break for the blogger as well as the reader. And yes, definitely blogs which share the same taste as mine are much more attractive to me too :)
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I agree with a lot of these, they can make a big difference. I have trouble personally with the aesthetic one, since I can’t figure out how to make my blog look as nice as everyone elses :(
If anyone has any suggestions please help me out! or point me in the direction of good customization tips blogs
https://writethroughthenight.wordpress.com/
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Even I can’t figure out how to make my blog look prettier 😢
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I am so glad you put this discussion up! I just started my blog yesterday, and I was looking for advice, which this is full of! I will definitely take all of these into consideration for how I post. Thank you:)
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I’m SO glad that this post is useful to you :) Happy blogging to you!
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Yes, I agree. This was very helpful.
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I agree with most of your points.
1) I love clean and minimalist websites
2) Easy way to follow the blog
3) Has lots of discussion posts – well, I have just started doing that in my blog.
4) Reviews book from different genre. I actually unfollowed about 10+ blogs where they were talking of only YA
5) Too many promotions – like cover reveals and spotlights. I understand they are absolutely necessary, but 2 or 3 every week makes it tad boring.
6) I may differ with you on this. I love a blog that talks about other things than books as well. A doze of humor or take on your life has never hurt anyone (yet).
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I think blogs which have a single post once in a while not about books – like updates on the blogger’s life (which I do too) or something else – are really good but I have seen blogs which talk about books AND something else too (like books and poetry, books and makeup etc.) and I tend not to follow those :)
I’m glad we agree on the other points!
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