The Kari AnnAlysis

Posts Tagged ‘blogging’

I love my blog, I really do. It’s like my little own piece of venting paradise. I can write whatever I want, whenever I want. So what is my problem? I am not being a good blogger.

My blog was born on MySpace, then grew on to Blogger, then to Wordpress, then I got my own little domain. I started the blog because I fell in love with Jane Eyre. I wanted to scream it to the world and let everyone know how I felt, not that they would care. My blog became a book blog naturally, because I love and know books and love to talk about them. And what a better place to do it than on the Internet? I can talk/write and if you don’t want to hear it or read it, you can click away and not hurt my feelings by rolling your eyes at me or blatantly ignoring my chatting.

I have been blogging for, geesh, three years now I think. I have had a lot of phases and trends, which is a constant in my life. I have been on meme kicks including Wordless Wednesday, Teaser Tuesday, In My Mailbox aka On My Bookshelf, etc. etc. etc. And I have been all over the place with posting book reviews from on time and often, to few and far between. There are times, like now, when I have a list of posts I need to work on, but they are just sitting there, gathering dust and losing steam.

I don’t want to say I am in slump, because I have the content, I just need to get it out there. So it’s a slump of sorts, I guess.

So what am I babbling on about today? I need to be a better blogger. If I want people to stop by and read, I need to give them a reason to do so. I need to be a stickler about getting my content on here and I need to be diligent about posting topics people will want to read about.

Yes, I have been busy lately, with work and life in general, but I need to quit making excuses.

I am asking for a little help from you, my readers, while I am working on getting back on top of my blogging game. I am asking you to be patient with me. I need to not only fine tune what I know and what I am good at, I also need to find out what I want my blog to say about me. A lot has changed in my life since I have started blogging. I am moving up the ladder at work, gaining more responsibilities daily, I am married, and even though I know I am in no way old, I am not getting any youner. I need to decide where I want my blog to go from here. I want to keep it based on books, but I want it to be more.

I have a few ideas up my sleeve on how to make this happen, but please stick with me as I am figuring it out.

I also want some advice. How do you keep up with your blogging game? As you grow as a person and blogger, how do you move forward and make changes to fit your personality and your life without making a complete overhaul? Do you have a blogging schedule? Do you do posts daily? Or take a day and knock out a whole week’s worth?

I am going to be positive here and hope on lots of responses and give you all a pre-Thank You for your help!

Last year, I experienced Book Blogger Appreciation Week from the outside. I checked the website, learned about new blogs and hoped that the ones that I already read kicked some major book blogging butt.

This year, I decided to take part. I read through the instructions, looked through my posts and picked the ones I thought made me look the best. I chose 5 reviews that I thought showed that I was decent at what I do. I was semi-pleased with the posts I chose, but quickly realized before I even sent it in, that I had some work to do.

So here are some things I am going to work on for the next year:

*Don’t only post book reviews.I love reading blogs where people just write. I have seen some awesome topics that are still bookish, but are just so much more than blogs. We are writers. That’s what we do. And I was actually checking through a #bblog chat on Twitter recently and someone said something along the lines of “if I wanted to read only reviews, I’d go through a Barnes and Noble.” I never thought of it like that, but I think I worry too much about reviews and not just writing. I know there are many times that I think of a good post, but I forget about it and it never happens. I am changing that. I have already started posting ideas. I’ll start a post with just an idea or two so that I don’t forget them and every time I log on, I see the looming post. Plus, all I really had to turn in this year were reviews and I saw that a lot of the posts I liked the most that others turned in were just posts about books in general, or authors.

*Interview some authors.When I first started blogging, I never thought this would be possible. But now, through Twitter especially, I talk to authors on a daily basis. It’s still crazy to me. I have recently found that most of the authors that I have been reading are on Twitter and will usually write me back or retweet my posts that involve them. Plus, in most of the books I get from publishers, they tell me this could be available if I wanted. I guess I am just now feeling comfortable enough to do this. Maybe….

*Don’t do all memes.I love memes because I love the traffic it brings to my blog. I write these reviews for me. I started writing so I would remember, if I ever needed to, what I liked and didn’t like about a book. But, I still like seeing that other people are at least coming by to see what I am writing about. I am going to stick with a couple of memes though. I still love Teaser Tuesday and will always check Musing Monday and Booking Through Thursday and judge those based on the topic and how much I can discuss it. But this goes back up to the first bullet point of just doing reviews. This helps me do a little more writing, but sometimes it feels like just a cop out and something easy for me to do to get a post up. I think I need to push myself to come up with unconventional topics, rather than wait for someone else to think of them. Now there is one meme type that I really want to work on. I have seen a couple of bloggers do posts with book covers that are similar. I have started making folders and putting similar book covers together. Hopefully in the next couple of months I will be able to get at least one post out of this! I think it’s cute and creative.

*Post more. There are times in the past year that I went a week or two without posts. There are days when I check other blogs every day or so. If they don’t have new posts for me, I’ll stay away for a while. I don’t want people doing that to me. On the other hand though, I do want these to be stellar posts that I may need to spend a day or two working on.

*Schedule posts. I started doing this already. This week, for instance, I posted a review on Tuesday and had posts scheduled for every other day during the week. Now, I don’t have to worry about my posts for at least 5 more days,  unless something comes up that I want to get out there. I have already felt like this has taken a bit of pressure off of me to get posts done. I finished 3 books in the past week and have scheduled their reviews to be posted over a 5 day period. I used to just post them as soon as I got them done, meaning some days I had 2 or 3, then I would go another week without a review.

*Keep my theme awesome. I am a big fan of the theme I have now. It allows me to be creative and change it all the time. I am very phase-y, so I like change. Changing my picture allows me to do that. Speaking of, it’s about time. I think I’m about done at the pool for the year. One thing I do need to work on is spacing. The post I published earlier this week about cupcakes looked great before I saved it, but after I saved, no matter what I did, it didn’t post the way I wanted it to. And no matter how many times I changed and saved, it stayed the same. Simplicity is best

I feel like I am doing a lot of rambling, but I am trying to keep my head clear and let you guys know what is going on in there. New year, new leaf.

What did you learn from other blogs this year?