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.
How long have you been blogging? Have you celebrated any milestones yet?
Well I celebrated my 3 month anniversary with an entire theme change on my blog and then I promptly forgot my 6 month anniversary! But September will be my 1 year anniversary and I’m SO excited for it! I can’t believe it’s almost one year now! Feels like yesterday I was messing around with blog templates and graphics. I’ve not yet decided on how I’ll be celebrating my 1 year anniversary but I hope to do something fun!
Come August, it’ll be a year since I started blogging. AND JUST TYPING THAT HAS MADE ME FREAK OUT. It feels so weird and scary.
So yeah. It’s almost been a year. I celebrated a six-month blogiversary a while ago, and I was hoping to have a giveaway to celebrate my one year, but I’m broke. So sorry about that :( But I’ll have one as soon as I get money.
Do you have any confessions from your ‘newbie’ blogger days?
Hmmm...I guess when I first started, I was too caught up on the numbers. I spent so much time trying to gain followers and get more comments. I was obsessed with the view count etc etc. I also kind of got into a blogging slump at the beginning because of that! I’m so glad I got over that and started to actually blog because i loved it. I still feel very silly when I think about it. I still feel happy whenever I gain a new follower but I’m no longer obsessed with the numbers and stats.
This is so embarrassing. For weeks after I started blogging and commenting on other blogs, i was angry because I didn’t think anyone was acknowledging or replying to the comments I’d left on their blogs. I thought it was rude and I was hurt and angry and annoyed - and I could not understand why it was just me they were ignoring.
But then I, uh, realised: the blogger default comment system doesn’t send you notifs when people reply to your comment. So I got back in my box.
Thinking of it now, though, I can’t believe I didn’t go back to the original post sooner and check to see if they’d replied. But no, I stared at my inbox waiting for email notifs.
Idiot.
Do you get blog envy?
I definitely do! Like Di said, there are so many amazing bloggers out there who have wonderful blogs! I remember being really envious of most bloggers when I first started my blog and I’m happy to say I’ve been more in control of my envy lately. There are so many inspiring bloggers we can learn from but it’s also important to focus on our own uniqueness. Ever since i started focusing more on how to make my blog “ME” I stopped getting too envious of other bloggers. I still admire other blogs for the gorgeous design or the wonderful writing but I never put myself down for I believe I too have my own unique style that stands out.
OH YES!! I’ve had some really bad stages when I just lost all motivation and gotten seriously lo because my blog wasn’t as successful or attractive or well written as someone else’s. I still feel like that at times, but now I try to look at someone else’s achievements as being inspiring, rather than something I’d mope around envying. I try to learn from the bloggers I admire, and the truth is you can always improve. So I’m trying - and I agree with Di. Be inspired, but don’t sell yourself short. Try to focus on your achievements, not failings, all the while letting yourself learn from other blogs and bloggers.
To see my answers make sure to visit the other collab posts!
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!
