The Blog Squad: A Blogger Collaboration - Part III
We are a group of three book bloggers situated on different continents but brought together by our love for books and a penchant for talking about them. We’ve joined our forces to create a collaborative series of posts about book blogging and we hope you’ll enjoy the discussions.
A MAGICAL WORLD OF WORDS - AmyNikita
BOOKS.BAGS.BURGERS - Uma K
BOOK REVIEWS BY DI - Di Hewlett
Book Blogging is actually a huge responsibility all in itself - you’re putting your opinion out there for the public to see. Not only that, it’s your opinion on something that someone has spent a lot of time creating. If you’ve accepted ARCs or review copies from publishers and authors you have a responsibility to get a review out there. There’s post scheduling, there’s cross posting reviews, there’s actually writing a review worthy of someone’s time to read! It’s a lot to think about! Yet none of that would be possible or worthwhile without the readers, the followers, the commenters.
As a blogger you want to say that your numbers (followers) don’t mean anything but … THEY DO!!!! Followers matter, pageviews matter, number of comments matter! Not only do all of these things help our credibility as bloggers and they help us get the books we request from publisher: It’s sustenance for our book blogging addiction hobby passion.
When I first started my blog I didn’t realise just how much time and effort would go into it and without the people that I interact with, it wouldn’t be worth it. I love the conversations that I have and the friendships that have sprung up. So while the numbers do matter, for me it’s the interaction that counts the most.
Oookaay...Tricky question.
I love interaction. There are two main reasons why I started my blog are (A) I NEED to gush about books and share my super intelligent thoughts with everyone (B) I NEED to converse and interact with my bookish friends.
I don’t just want to tell you why I loved a book; I also want you to tell me why you did/did not love the same book. Everytime I see a new comment on one of my posts, I jump for joy (Thank you amazing people who comment on my blog. Here are some kisses!) I think I wouldn’t enjoy writing about the stuff I love if there’s no one to read it!
So yes, I’ll go with smaller number but more interactive followers (BUT) I’d be lying if I said I didn’t care about the number of followers I have. Everytime I see that my blog has a new follower, I jump for joy too! But when it comes down to either this or that, I’d go with “small number, more interaction” any day.
That’s a really hard question! (Thanks…...Di?!)
I love blogging interaction. I find that interacting with other people on the blogosphere is literally the best thing about having a blog, and, to be honest, I would feel so sad and disheartened if no one ever commented on my blog or replied to my comments on their blogs. Interaction is a huge part of blogging - obviously - and I would seriously miss it if it never happened.
So if I had 200 people following my blog and none of them ever - or at least very rarely - commented on my posts? Yes, I would miss it. Heck, I would miss it. I would probably want to stop blogging. Of course, having a lot of followers helps with getting review copies and ARCs, but I honestly think that I would lose all motivation for blogging if I never interacted with other bloggers. Actually, I know I would.
So.
Interaction with fewer followers is better than having a ton of followers who never interact. That’s what I think.
And so THANK YOU to everyone who comments on my blog :) I wouldn’t want to blog without you <3
A lot of bloggers don’t do this, but a lot of bloggers do and there’s some pretty huge bloggers out there that always seem to make the effort. Alyssa @ The Eater of Books and Cait @ Paper Fury come to mind…
Commenting back is actually a pretty hot topic and while I love getting a comment back it’s not something that you can actually rightfully EXPECT. Blogging is time consuming and not everyone has the time to get around to your blog.
Personally I always make the effort to comment back and I am on the Bloggers Commenting Back list because I feel that it’s important to not only spread the commenting love, but to participate in the community. The only way to build a relationship with people is to comment on their stuff and have them come back and comment on yours. You get to know people and establish a rappor that can turn into a real friendship. It all goes back to the reward of interaction. If I visit your blog and comment and never hear back from you…. Well then I may not keep coming back - that’s just the natural course of things I think?
That’s actually hard to explain. I LOVE getting a comment back but I don’t EXPECT it. (Does that even make sense?) I blog hop all the time. I make it a point to visit the blogs of all the people who comment on my blog and leave some love :) But I do understand it’s not possible for everyone! They probably have a lot of people commenting on their blog to blog hop everywhere or maybe they’re busy... So I don’t EXPECT anyone to comment back! I understand it’s different for everyone.
Not at all. Of course I love it when it happens, but I don’t expect it. I absolutely love comments and I love getting them, but whether they come from a “Bloggers Commenting Back” policy or simply because the blogger saw my post and wanted to comment, doesn’t matter to me. I’m certainly not going to hold anyone to anything or expect them to be as active with commenting as some bloggers might be.
If I’ve taken the time to comment on your blog then I think that it’s only polite for you to take the time to respond - even if it’s only a ‘thank-you’! Some comments, especially on older posts can slip through the cracks (I’m guilty of this myself!) and I understand that not everyone has the time to put into responding to comments, but again, if I don’t get the interaction from a blogger then there’s nothing pulling me back to that blog over and over…
I do know that some people prefer to spend their time visiting other blogs and commenting back over there which is a totally different beast - that’s the same as replying and you’re establishing your interaction in a different manner.
I don’t know - answering these questions seems to be solidifying something in my brain - bloggers should be doing all of the engaging and interacting! Maybe the long and the short of it is that yes, I do expect you to visit me or at the very least respond to me and recognise that I’m commenting on your blog. Is that bad of me? Who knows… But what I do know is that if you make the effort and engage me in a conversation I’m going to meet you halfway…
P.S. I have just read all the other responses and we’ve all mentioned the same bloggers who always interact with their followers/commenters!!!
Like I said, I LOVE interaction. I think it’s good to reply to the comments on one’s blog ‘cause it’s only then that the ‘interact and converse’ part happens.
But again like I also said, I understand replying to all the comments on your blog- especially if you’re a huge blogger with a large following- is really hard! A huge shoutout to Cait @ Paper Fury for being THE most amazing person when it comes to replying to comments. She gets like hundreds of comments on every post and yet replies to them all!
So yes, again while I don’t EXPECT a reply, I’d LOVE one :)
I personally think it’s part of your commitment as a blogger to engage with your readers, and thus reply to every comment you receive on your posts. Of course, this is really hard if you have tons of comments from your “millions” of followers, and due to school and work and studying and LIFE, not replying to comments is naturally understandable. It takes a lot of time.
That said, I do *swallows and cowers* think bloggers should reply to the comments they get on their posts. And I have HUGE respect for the big bloggers like Alyssa @ The Eater of Books and Cait @ Paper Fury who reply to every comment they receive, despite getting like a hundred per post. I mean, that’s crazy! It’s just amazing.
That's all for this week! I hope you will check out the other collaborative posts too!
We hope you’ve enjoyed our discussion post! Please talk to us and let us know YOUR answers below. What do you think of our responses? If you have any specific questions you’d like us to address in the future, please let us know in the comments section below. Stay tuned for next week’s questions!
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