Blogging 101: Why Sometimes Book Reviews Aren't Enough

So, you want to start a book blog and you don't know where to start. This is completely normal. Starting a blog is an overwhelming feeling, there is so much you need to know that you don't. We are hoping with this new series that we will be able to help new bloggers navigate the blogging world!

Previous Posts: Platforms | Websites Essential for Running a Blog | Staying Organized | When, Why & What To Post | How to Write a Banging Book Review | What NOT To Do in the Blogging World

In the years since we created The Book Bratz we learned one big lesson: Blogging isn't just writing book reviews. Sure, book reviews are a part of having owning/running a book blog BUT they aren't part of your blog as a whole. To be quite blunt with you: Book reviews sometimes don't cut it. This post isn't about me telling you to cut down orn reviews or cut them out all together. Book reviews are fun to write and they are how we express our like or dislike for a book! This post is just to give you some ideas on other things to post and some things to keep in mind! 

I've noticed a trend of the years that the post that end up getting to most engagement (views/comments/retweets/ect.) are posts that aren't book reviews. Occasionally a review will surpass other posts in engagements for the week but I find it to be super rare. Sometimes discussions posts, memes and bookish lists are more interesting then a book review. That is 100% okay and there is nothing wrong with that. 

On The Book Bratz we aim to post 2-4 reviews a week and then use the other days for discussion posts, author interviews, weekly memes, tags and other bookish posts. With the three of us we often post almost everyday of the month and sometimes even twice a day. I know this isn't possible for many bloggers for the fact that you run your blog on your own. There is no right or wrong amount of times to post on your blog per week/month. You only got two posts up this week? That's awesome! That's two more posts. My point is: Your effort doesn't go unnoticed. Running a blog is a huge responsibility and you are doing it! 

A book blog doesn't have to strictly be book reviews! It's an outlet to share your love for books. You can talk about anything you want on it. Here are some examples of post ideas:

• Discussion Posts - Have something bookish that you want to talk about? Write a post on it! Want to give advice to new bloggers and older bloggers on things you learned? Write a post! The sky is your limit. 
• Book Tags - There are so many Book Tags floating around and you can find a bunch of them on Pinterest. They are really fun to do. 
• Weekly Memes - There are so many weekly posts that bloggers participate in: Stacking the Shelves, Top Ten Tuesday, Waiting on Wednesday! There are more that I didn't list but they are fun way to compile book lists to share with your followers. 
• Book Lists - I love making book lists. I've done so many over the years and they are so much fun to make. I love when we compile lists of our favorite spooky reads for Halloween and our favorite romances for Valentines day. We even compile a list at the end of the year with all of our favorite books! 
• Own Voices and Diverse Reads - This is such a huge and important topic and so many people have their own thoughts and opinions on it. Write a post sharing yours! You can even talk about some of your favorite #ownvoices and #diversereads. 

The post opportunities are endless and the above are only a few *ideas.* I've said this in some other posts but: No one can tell you what you can and can't post on your blog. It is your own and you can do what you want with it. Have fun! Be creative! Your blog is your outlet. 

Let's gear away from your blog now and talk about other social media platforms. Another big part of blogging is following the community and taking part. Twitter is a huge way to connect with readers/bloggers/authors/publishers and the book community is massive. I know that sometimes it seems intimidating but everyone is super amazing and we are all there to support each other. I've found so many blogs that I love through twitter that I probably wouldn't have found otherwise. But there isn't just the twitter community, you have Instagram (Bookstagrammers), Pinterest, Facebook. There is so many different places for you to connect with you followers and engage with the community. 

I love writing book reviews and I love reading book reviews. It will always be my favorite part of blogging (besides all the amazing friends I've met through blogging.) This post is simply about something I noticed and ideas of other things to post besides reviews. I hope this helps in some way for you! 

Do you like writing bookish posts more or book reviews? Do you find this to be true as well? Let me know below! I would love to hear from you :)