You can’t earn money, you have to review every book you read and other book blogging myths debunked

I have been blogging for over four years now and in that time I’ve seen various misconceptions about the blogging world, things that must be offputting to anyone looking at joining our community from the outside. So let’s take a look at these myths.

Last year I wrote a blog post about debunking book blogging myths, but even in the space of a year I’ve learnt a lot, so I thought it’d be fun to come back for another round.

You have to review every book you read

Only this year did I stop doing this, which seems ridiculously late. To be honest, I think this thought came about when I realised I no longer had the time to do everything. I also realised I wasn’t enjoying writing some of the reviews for the books I read that were just fine, not every book felt like it needed an in-depth review discussion and it felt more like a burden to write.

From here I decided to only write reviews for the books I wanted to have a discussion about or had something to say or wanted to write. Even if I loved a book, it doesn’t always mean I want to write a review on it. Since deciding to do this I’ve felt a lot less pressure on myself after finishing a book.

Everything you do has to be perfect

1, we are human and all make mistakes. 2, we are human and no one is perfect. I know what it is like to want everything you put out to be perfect, and by all means, put your all into what you create and make some amazing content. But don’t make yourself fall into a puddle of stress to make every single thing absolutely perfect. I know that can be hard for some people, but sometimes this can just be about the passion and enjoyment of creating bookish content. Sometimes I put out silly posts like my alternative book names that I know isn’t perfect, but it’s good fun!

It’s all about the stats, if you don’t have the views, why are you even here?

This is a LIE. Because. Everything. Takes. Time. And. Effort. You will not immediately start blogging and be flooded with thousands of views because that isn’t how website SEO and traffic works. You need to build up a reputation both with Google and in the community. SEO is a tricky business to master and is a huge contributor to your end of month stats. Not only does it take time to build high numbers, but it also doesn’t always mean all that much. It very much depends on what you want to achieve from your blog. You will be asked on occasion for blog stats, but you can also push your social channels alongside this to boost your blogging CV. It isn’t all about the stats and remember, it takes time to build up readers.

You can’t earn money from book blogging

I see this around a lot, a lot, a lot, and it is wrong. I’m not saying it’s easy to earn money from book blogging, but it isn’t impossible. I’ve been doing it for over a year now and have slowly built up a media kit of packages I offer to interested parties. The key to this is having the confidence to be able to ask, opportunities never fall into my lap, but I seek to create them for myself. In fact, I think I’ve rarely ever been offered payment, I have always steered the conversation in that direction.

You obviously need to have semi-decent stats to send to interested parties, so this isn’t something that will happen immediately, but if you set it as a goal, you can achieve it.

You have to own physical copies of books to be a book blogger

The year is 2020, you are surrounded by so many different ways to enjoy books. Audiobooks, eBooks, library books, your own collections… but you don’t have to own physical books to be considered a book blogger. I know a lot of people who use their local library to satisfy their bookish needs. Not only does this support the library, but also I’m sure the bank accounts don’t mind either! The thing that ties us all together is our love for books, there are no rules attached to that that tell us how to consume them, that is entirely up to you.

Running a blog takes too much time

This one is up to you. Running a blog can take as much or little time as you like. I have invested quite a few hours into my blog when it comes to the design and the way it runs, but honestly now that’s set up, I only need to dedicated time to writing my blog posts. Depending on the post will vary how long that takes me, but some posts are super quick to write. I always think a post should take hours and then scold myself for thinking like that. The more I write, the more practised at it I become, so the quicker I become too.

You can spend hours on your blog, or you can spend minutes, that is entirely up to you.

You have to write Waiting on Wednesday and Top 10 Tuesday posts

There are no rules for book blogging, nor are there expectations. There are a few post formats that are popular within the community that you can use if you want to, but you don’t have to do anything. Similarly, you don’t have to write book reviews either if you don’t want to. This is your platform and your content and you can write whatever you like. The weekly prompts aren’t written by all bloggers and actually can actually negatively affect your SEO because of their generic titles and the volume at which posts with the same name are created. So you really aren’t stuck into any content commitments by starting your own book blog!

I hope this second round of debunking myths has been fun and insightful, thank you for reading!

 

 

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