A huge “THANK YOU” to Jay over at this-is-my-truth-now for nominating me for this award! 🙂 I saw my nomination before Jay even had a chance to mention it since I get an email every time he posts, but I’m thankful either way. 🙂

Jay’s blog is absolutely awesome. I highly recommend visiting it. He’s currently doing a 365 project where every day he takes one word and talks about how it either describes him or is relevant to him. I love reading his posts!

RULES:

• Thank the blogger who nominated you and provide a link to their blog.
• Give a brief story of how your blog started.
• Give two pieces of advice to new bloggers.
• Select 10 other bloggers you want to give this award to.
• Comment on each blog and let them know you have nominated them and provide the link to the post you created.

How I Started Blogging

I started writing more and more book reviews about 3 years ago. I joined a couple of author-specific review crews and also the Cozy Mystery Review Crew on Facebook. Then, approximately a year and a half ago, a little less than that, but that’s close enough, I joined NetGalley. When I joined NetGalley, I decided that I wanted to create a book blog so that all of my reviews could be found in one place. I also wanted a place for the occasional “life musing” that came to me. The first 6-8 months, I floundered a bit, trying to get a rhythm while fighting with my depression and anxiety, but since December or January, I’ve done much better at posting regularly and have started incorporating Book Tags, Author Interviews, Blog Tours, and other bookish things besides straight reviews. I now post an average of 3-4 times per week depending on what book I’m reading and what else is going on in life.

My Advice to New Bloggers

1. Find something you’re passionate about to concentrate on for your blog. If you’re not passionate about your subject, you’re going to get to the point where writing a post is just a drag and then it becomes harder and harder to make yourself post. Pretty soon, you’ve stopped blogging all together. It took me three tries to finally make a blog that I feel great about posting on and that I enjoy doing. I suppose given the fact that I am a librarian, I should have stumbled onto book blogging long before I did, but oh well. 🙂
2. When you first start out, try to blog every day. You may not settle into a daily posting routine, but you should try it at first to try and get your rhythm going. I didn’t do that and I really floundered the first few months. Now, I’ve settled into posting, on average, 3-4 times per week. I’ve made myself a separate blogging calendar on Google Calendar so I can spread out my reviews, giving me adequate time to read them, while still fitting other posts in around them. It works for me. You’ll find your own rhythm eventually. 🙂

My Nominations

I decided to go with 10 blogs that I recently started following. Obviously I’m enjoying them if I’m following them! 🙂

1. Things I’m Glad are Things
2.  Wonderless Reviews
3. Bread Reads Books
4. A Bookish Human
5. Writing With Style
6. Forever and Everly
7. The Story Salve
8. A Crave for Books
9. Sugar Dusted Pages
10. Tea and Paperbacks