Wednesday, May 29, 2013

Armchair BEA: Blogger Development

Girls Just Reading has been reviewing books and book topics for 6 years. We have an affiliate account with Powell's books, which doesn't quite cover our expenses, but that's ok.  We blog for the love of books.
Design credit: Sarah of Puss Reboots

Julie's thoughts on Blogger Development

Social Media is a wonderful thing, especially Twitter for us book lovers. It is a wondrous way to connect with your favorite authors, book bloggers, publishers, etc. It can also be harmful for us book lovers because your TBR piles will grow exponentially. :)

I'm lucky enough to have connected with a couple different communities via Twitter. The first one being SheReads. This is a compilation of book bloggers that focus on Women's Fiction. We received the featured book of the month and then link up our reviews via their website, plus then participate in a monthly chat on Twitter. It's a great way to get exposed to new blogs and to have people find you. It's also a great way to read different books and experience new to you writers.

Another thing that kind of happened by chance was HashTag Book Club on Twitter. A bunch of us book bloggers were discussing books we had on our shelves and we all had one book in particular, A Grown-Up Kind of Pretty by Joshilyn Jackson. It has evolved into a monthly read that we discuss between 2-4 times broken up into sections. It's been a great way to connect with book lovers and discuss different ways of thinking about the novel.

If you aren't on Twitter, beware it can become addictive but it is a blast and you will "meet" people of like minds. ~Julie

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8 comments:

Anonymous said...

the thought of making money from my blog is an interesting one, but I always wonder if it would be worth it. I guess there is only one way to find out.

tanya

FICTION STATE OF MIND said...

Twitter is a great resource :) I'm hesitant to monetize my blog because Im self-employed and don't need anymore tax hang ups :) nice to find your blog

LLM said...

I love Twitter, but it can cause issues just because I spend so much time there.

LLM - ABookGeek

Krazzyme(Young Readers) said...

I've never heard of Shereads before.. Will definitely check it out

Jana said...

I definitely agree with social networking. It does wonders for getting traffic and gaining friends.

- Jana @ That Artsy Reader Girl

Stormy @ Book.Blog.Bake. said...

Social networking is one of the best ways for blog development, I think. I found twitter really intimidating at first but I find as relax it becomes more fun, not just something I do for the sake of my blog.

Lisa Pottgen said...

You are so right! Twitter can be a very dangerous place to be. I keep ending up in Twitter jail from talking to much.. And I am the shy one!

Lisa @ Just Another Rabid Reader

Anonymous said...

I'm on Twitter but I don't use it. It's more than I have time for! I'm always missing out on fun events.