I've been doing some big thinking lately. Primarily I've been thinking about MY OWN PERSONAL BLOGGING RULES. Because while I don't want to offend anybody and definitely don't want to end up hurting anyone (including myself), I also want to talk about stuff.
And by stuff I mean books.
So I came up with some guidelines for myself, and while they're not exactly guidelines you need to know, I think it's nice to know what the blog you're reading is about. And what this blog is about (hopefully) is AWESOME THINGS.
AWESOME THINGS ABOUT BOOKS
- I'll be talking about and featuring the books I read and love. This isn't going to be limited to YA because my reading isn't limited to YA, but you can bet that the majority of books will fall under that umbrella.
- I'll talk about the authors I'm a big fan of. Not all of them probably, because there is a lot, but some of them.
- I will be doing discussion and opinion posts (often about the YA genre), but these discussions will never be about any specific book, series, or author.
AWESOME THINGS ABOUT OTHER STUFF
- I'll probably/maybe end up talking about television shows that I love. These include (but are not limited to): Community, The Office, 30 Rock, Parenthood, Friday Night Lights, and Cougar Town.
- And maybe (occasionally) movies. But there are very few movies I care enough to actually watch, much less spend time writing about.
- I might write the occasional personal post.
- I'll talk about geeky-awesome things such as: spies, robots, Star Trek, and Get Smart.
THINGS I'M NOT DOING
- The biggest thing I'm not doing on this blog are book reviews. While I will discuss the books I love, I won't be doing formal reviews anymore. But you knew that. (This does make me wonder if this could be considered a book blog -- can you have a book blog if you're not reviewing? Or is it called something else?)
- I won't be participating in IMM (In My Mailbox) anymore. Not because I don't love it but because I don't want to mention the books I'm reading and then not feature them and have someone think I hate their book. Note: I don't hate your book, just trust me on this.
- Unless I have big news, I won't be talking about my querying/publication journey much (if at all). Right now I have exactly two people who are privy to all of my query news and I like keeping this information fairly private.
I debated continuing to do discussion/opinion posts quite a lot and in the end I decided that my opinions are fairly innocuous. I'm not mean, a lot of what I say is pretty positive, and I doubt that opinions on something as general as genre will end up hurting me or insulting somebody. There's cautious and then there's paranoid. If I gave up voicing any opinions I'd have to stop blogging, and I think the positives of having a web presence probably outweigh the few less-than-great opinions I'll be sharing.
Do you think I can still consider this a book blog even if I'm not reviewing? Or is that the definition of book blog?
Just to put this out there...whether or not you review a book or express your opinion isn't going to be a determining factor for me on reading your book. I read because I want to read and personally, I like opinionated people. Depending on how well you express yourself may actually determine whether or not I'm willing to read your writing. Be true to yourself, you know?
ReplyDeleteReally I don't see how this book blog will be any different from your previous blog, other than instead of reviewing books you'll be talking about them (closely related, no?).
ReplyDeleteI am too much of a luddite to know what the definition of a book blog but I do know that I am always excited to hear about robots, Star Trek and spies. And TV, especially TV about robots, Star Trek, and spies.
ReplyDeleteGood for you :)
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