Mundie Moms

Thursday, January 26, 2012

Thoughtful Thursday- MM's Q & A on Book Reviews, Blogging & More

For today's feature I thought I'd take a moment a publicly answer some questions I often answer on email or else where. Today's questions are about blogging, reviews, my chats and more. Though I've gone back and forth about saying anything about the sixth question, I felt now was as good as any to take a moment and answer these questions.

Why Do I Review?

This is a great question. Simply, because I love to talk about books. I started my book blog so I could publicly talk about books and refer books to others who might not have other wised picked it up. I mean, that's not the entire reason why I started the Mundie Moms blog, but that was a HUGE part of it. The other part my reasoning was to keep fans of Cassie's books up to date with series, news and such. I wanted a place to come and promote books, host live author chats, run other promotions which is why I ventured out and created the Mundie Moms blog. I admit I spend far more time than I should on my blog, but I'm passionate about this hobby of mine, and I'm passionate about reading. Reading to me is empowering. I love that I'm able to spread the word about books via my blog. So my short answer is, I review because I love reading, I love books and I love to talk about books with others.

Do I Love What I Do?

Yes, I love what I do. I don't ever see myself falling out of love with reading. I've always loved reading, it's something I fell in love with in grade school, but the moment I stop loving what I do on my blog, is the moment I stop blogging. If it's not fun, why do it?

What Have Advice Do I Have for Bloggers?

My advice is, DO WHAT YOU WANT TO DO, it's your blog. You'll find a ton of great advice out there from other bloggers, but you don't need to apply everything you read to your blog. Be creative, be you. Do what feels right to you. I think your blog should be a reflection of you. Just because other bloggers are doing something, doesn't mean you should. There are a lot of great memes out there, and if you like some of them do them, if memes aren't your thing don't do them. Don't let what other bloggers do or have discourage you from blogging.

My other advice is to not become envious of other bloggers. I personally spend a ton of time on my blog. It took me a long while to really build my blog up to what I envisioned it to be, and I'm still wanting to change more things to get how I want it to be. I worked hard to establish myself by building up relationships with publishers and authors, as well as bloggers. It takes awhile to build trust with people, but slowly but surely it will happen. Just keep doing what you're doing. It's okay to do your own thing, in fact, I love blogs who do just that. They take ideas and put their own creative spin on things. Have fun, don't be afraid to do your own thing, and enjoy it.

What's One Thing I've Learned From Blogging?

I enjoy promoting the books I read, but I've learned over the last 3 years that if I don't like it, it's okay to stop reading it and it's okay to not post a review for it. I learned that that hard way. I used to think I had to read every book that was sent to me, leaving me no time to read the books I wanted to read. I learned it's okay to say NO. It's also okay to say no to review requests, though I feel bad doing so. I'm a wife, a mother and I have other responsibilities outside of blogging. It's impossible for me to fulfill every request I get and fulfill the commitments I've already made.

Do I Get Paid To Review?

haha, I wish I earned a living doing this, but no, I don't get paid. I do not make any money off my blog. Everything that I do is completely out of pocket. Hopefully I'll be able to start bringing in a little bit when I start posting blogger ads.

What Do I Think of the Recent Blogger/Author Drama?

I have really gone back and forth on answer this question, because I'm seriously a little stunned there's even drama going on. Yes, I've read some horrid things on Goodreads, and I've heard from a ton of blogger friends about the recent rash of things that have been said, and honestly I'm wondering where the respect went.... I feel there is no need for anyone to bash each other. There's no need for a reviewer to personally bash an author and there's no need for an author to personally bash a reviewer. So what if you don't like a certain book. It's okay to not like it. I've read plenty that I didn't love and a ton that I did love. I think reviewers cross the line when they become disrespectful towards an author because they didn't like their writing, as in name calling, personally attacking them etc. The same goes for an author who rips into a reviewer for not liking their book. Not everyone is going to enjoy their writing, and it's naive of an author who thinks other wise. There's a ton more that can be said about this, but I think the bottom line is it only takes a few bad eggs to ruin it for a lot of people.

Are all reviewers and authors hateful and rude? Not at all! I think the more time that's spent dwelling on the negativity surrounding a lack of respect that's going on, on both sides, the more the negativity is going to come out. There are a ton of fabulous reviewers who continue to support authors and love what they do. There's a ton of authors who continue to give their support to reviewers. I personally think Maggie Stiefvater said it best in her post about this here.

Who Runs Your Author Chats?

This is definitely a tag team effort, and the few times I've done it by myself were a little chaotic behind the scenes. I run the chat itself and my friend Cynthia who runs A Blog About Nothing, and whom also reviewed for MM's for a bit helps me sort through the questions, and Sophie does the tweeting for the event. There's more to it than that, but honestly without their help and the system we have in place, there's no way I could run a successful chat. I often times have other bloggers offer to help me with them, which I really appreciate it, but I've learned that it works best to keep up with the system I have, because the three of us all know what to do, and what the other people are doing. I hope that makes sense.


I'll post more questions I've received in a future post about my blog tours, more questions about blogging and any other questions I get. Thank you for all the great questions!

4 comments:

  1. Love this post and all your questions and answers. I do hope you'll post about how authors can set up a blog tour through your blog. Not that I'm there yet.

    I LOVE your blog and so appreciate all the work you do on it. I just started blogging a year ago and I can't believe all the work in just setting up author interviews once a week. And I love books too like you. As an aspiring author, I can't say enough how much I appreciate book review bloggers like you.

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    1. Natalie- Thank you so much for your comment! I really appreciate that. :) I'll definitely answer the blog tour question in one of my next TT posts.

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  2. What a wonderful post! I absolutely love your blog and I think you do a great job. I am still pretty new at the whole blogging thing, but I really enjoy it. I jumped into things a bit quick and overwhelmed myself, but now I am settling into it.
    It's great that you took the time to answer these questions. I think that the whole blogger/author drama is sad really. I don't think things like that should ever happen. I think it's unacceptable for either blogger or author to ever be rude about things or bash on one another. Negative reviews are one thing, but flat out rude or mean is just horrible behavior.

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  3. Thanks for your thoughts and advice. I feel like a lot of people think about sharing what's going on in the background, or what have you, but then life just gets busy and it's easy to forget. It's hard to always follow through with good intentions.

    But it's helpful to see how real you are, and that everything's a process of growth and learning. Love it.

    dbstevens, kickingcorners.blogspot.com

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