4 Things You Shouldn’t Feel Guilty For or Beat Yourself Up Over as a Book Blogger (Coming From Personal Experience!)

This post is brought to you by me feeling in a preachy mood!

Just kidding, I hope this doesn’t come off as a really preachy post! More of like a, “YOU’RE GREAT AND YOU SHOULD THINK SO TOO” post, because I think we all need that reminder sometimes.

Today I’m going to be discussing something that I think a lot of bloggers struggle with: guilt, but I’m going to tell you why you shouldn’t beat yourself up over those things! Feeling guilty, while it can be a motivator can improve yourself, more often than not leads to people bringing themselves down, and it makes me so sad to see.

I got inspired to write this post after I saw some comments on the post I wrote on 10 pieces of advice I wish I’d given to my younger blogger self, when I touched on some things I felt bad about in blogging-wise!!

(I also recently read a blog post by Emme @ A Literary Latte that discussed the guilt we feel as readers, and I really liked it, so I wanted to share it with you all! Of course, this post isn’t the same as hers, and I definitely recommend reading it!)

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What Makes Me Comment on a Blog Post? Tips to Increase Interaction and Make Your Blog Posts More Compelling

Welcome back to the latest edition of May pretends to know what they’re doing!! 

Today, I’m going to be talking about something I hold very near and dear to my heart: interaction. It’s near and dear to me because 1) I’ve been the worst at it and feel extremely guilty over the lack of it for the past year, but 2) I love doing it and it makes me happy!!

Comments are 100% the number 1 thing I look forward to when I publish a post. Yeah, it might get a lot of views and a lot of likes, but when I manage to get someone to take the time to write out their thoughts in response to a post I wrote?? That’s gold. Plus I just love talking to you guys so much!! (Despite what my silence last year might make you think.)

So today I thought I would share what makes me comment on a blog post, aka what compels me to interact with a blogger, so you’re able to apply those things to your own blog posts! I think interaction is KEY to growing your blog and being a successful blogger (whatever “successful” means to you), and I hope this post will be helpful to encourage that interaction!!

Full disclaimer: I’m by no means an Actual Expert on any of this!! I didn’t study any field related to this type of thing (because I am… still in high school…), and the only “research” I did was this. I’m literally just using my own experiences as a 2-year-old blogger, so if none of what I says actually works, you can blame it on my tendency to put in minimal effort. (Just kidding, this post took me a long time to write.)

Discussing Blogger Appreciation and the Lack of It: Analyzing Answers, Stats, and Graphs From a Survey I Made!

Hi and welcome back to May rants: blogger appreciation edition!

I’m SUPER excited for this post, because it’s something I’m passionate about, and I spent a lot of time gathering information in order to write it. It’s also something I think isn’t talked enough about often, but has been discussed more recently!

I’m hoping that this discussion will be somewhat thought-provoking. I made a survey that I invited book bloggers, readers, and authors to take. I’ll be taking data from the survey itself and hopefully it’ll help people see how I and many others believe bloggers are underappreciated and DESERVE more appreciation!

Before I get started though, I want to first say a huge thank you to everyone who participated in the survey. I’m blown away by how many responses I got (a total of 143!). It really helped me make this post, and I had fun seeing the stats, like the nerd I am.

I really hope you guys find this post interesting, and I’m warning you in advance that it will be LONG!! As in, 3,000 words long!!!

Do Book Ratings Have Anything to Do with Critical Reading??: My Thoughts on Why I’ve Been Rating Books Highly Lately

I’ve been questioning everything about me being a “critical reader”.

For example, the other day* I said “cortical reader” instead of “critical reader” and I was thoroughly shocked. How could something like that possibly happen.

Okay but all jokes aside (apparently cortical has something to do with the brain??), I’ve really been having a small existential crisis over high book ratings and critical reading, until like two months ago when I figured it all out.

So today I’m here to discuss something that’s been plaguing me for quite a long time now: high book ratings, its connection to critical reading, and what it means for me!

And this post is going to be kind of weird because I couldn’t figure out how to organize it right but HOPEFULLY YOU GUYS GET IT??? Because this is something I’ve been wanting to talk about for a long time and I don’t think I’ll ever get my thoughts organized it but. I’m pretty proud of how this turned out.

*I’m lying, I wrote this draft in June but could never write it properly so it wasn’t actually the “other day” but BEAR WITH ME PLEASE I need some jokes.

All About ARCs: the Pressure, the Privilege, and the Issue of Payment for Creators (aka Compensation)

I think we can all agree that the concept of ARCs is really cool.

I mean, getting to read books before they release? Without having to spend money? THAT’S REALLY NEAT.

Unfortunately, the reality of ARCs is a little less cool.

Today I’m going to be discussing some issues with ARCs that exist right now and aren’t being talked about enough. I think it’s super important to discuss these issues so that we can work towards finding a solution, because these are things that can and definitely should be improved!!

Disclaimer: I am fully aware of my privilege in being able to receive ARCs from publishers, and I am very thankful and grateful. This is not a post complaining about my privilege; rather, it is about how yes, ARCs are great, but there are issues with it that need to be addressed and discussed.