Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by The Broke and the Bookish and it's a meme of lists.
This week's list is the Top Ten Tips for New Bloggers:
1. Blog for the right reasons. If you're starting a book blog, I hope you're starting it because you love to read and because you want to other people who love to read as well. Don't start a book blog because you want free books.
2. Make your blog design reader friendly. The quickest turn off for me when reading any blog is neon pick lettering on a bright yellow background. I don't want to get a headache just trying to read your blog. Make sure it's easy for your readers to find your feed buttons such as: RSS, Twitter, Goodreads and GFC. Don't make us search for them.
3. Memes and Reviews. Participating in memes is fun but make sure the bulk of your blog is reviews. Throw in a few discussions and comparison posts or participate in a read-a-long.
4. Be honest. Don't write a 5 star review just to please the author. If you didn't like a book, then we want to know! You're not doing anyone any favors if you're not being honest.
5. Negative reviews. Negative reviews are great and I'm all for them! But this does not mean you can personally attack and/or criticize the author on a public forum. It's okay to be known as a tough reviewer but no one want to be that rude and inappropriate blogger.
6. Requesting reviews. I firmly believe that you should be running your blog consistently for at least six to nine months before you start requesting books for review. When you're reading to start, make sure you do your home and your sending your emails to the right places. Always be polite. Don't send an email that sounds like you're entitled to receive books for review. If they don't respond immediately, don't get upset. Just be patient and send another email. The worst they can say is no.
7. ARCs. NEVER, and I mean NEVER EVER sell your ARC's. If a publisher finds out that you sold an ARC, you will probably never receive another ARC again.
That's not ten but those are pretty much the basics. Just remember to stay true to yourself and your reasons for starting your blog in the first place. It's hard to put yourself out there in the beginning, but before you know it, you're going to have lots of friends and you're going to discover more books than you could have dreamed of!
4 comments:
Awesome tips, especially about the negative reviews. Although, I can't say I think any "book blog" should be mostly reviews - I think it should be whatever the person wants it to be, and that might be mostly memes, or lists etc.
Great tips! I love that you said you should blog for the right reasons. It’s so true that we must always blog for the enjoyment of books and never for getting free books. I also like that you say to always be honest! If people trust your opinion and you aren’t honest, it’s likely they wont trust your opinion after a while of doing that!
Darlene @ Leather Bound and Lovely
Great list! I forgot to add 'being honest' and do try to be. Couldn't agree more about blog design, some blogs are so much harder to read because of the choice of colors and the amount of clutter.
Liza’s Top Ten
Great tips. I think it is important that you added not to sell ARCs. It is something that many really may not know.
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