.#ArmChairBEA Blogger Development @ArmchairBEA

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Armchair BEA

Day #2 Has me talking about Blogger Development. 


Starting a blog is a daunting but rather easy task. What many may find difficult, is keeping up with daily interaction and expanding your blog to become what you want or need from it. 

First I would say, blog for yourself, don't start off thinking you will get a million hits, or that you will have a million followers. It takes time and energy to build a following. Do what comes naturally to you.

To have a successful or at least a noteworthy blog is to have interaction with your fellow bloggers. Yes, you must go there if you want interaction. There will be people who comment who don't have blogs, but the majority do and they would love to interact with you, so talk with them. Visit their blogs and jump on the comment train. 
Socialize on other sites. It could be on book related sites-Goodreads, Shelfari, or the new sites-Book Tribe, Riffle, etc. interact with people who have similar taste to you. This will not only open up discussions, but it will draw people to your site(list your blog, on all the above sites)

Another great way to draw people to your blog would be to join blog tours. I know what your thinking-but it's so much work. I'm here to say yes, it does take extra minutes from your day, but more and more tour companies are making it easy to post book blasts, cover reveals, etc. Most are now formatting the post with HTML so just copy and paste, easy as pie! 
If reviewing every book seems like too much, then do another post. Most tours want reviews, but they also need interviews, blurbs, guest posts, or just posting a giveaway. Remember tours are like an advertisement or a commercial of sorts for a book and author. Authors want and need this from bloggers. What do you get in return? 
Well, first your helping an author get his name/book out there.
Your hopefully seeing an increase in blog traffic(I know I do)
You may get your hands on a great ARC, that you've been dying for.
You might gain a new follower
You may receive a gift, or on some occasion the actual book in the mail, signed with swag.
You may receive acknowledgment from the author, weather through your blog, or other social media site. I know first hand, must of my interaction from authors come via e-mail or twitter.

Social Media and why you should join- I'm briefly going to explain why you need to have social media sites connected with your blog.
ONE WORD-Free advertisement! You can reach a broad range of readers or followers utilizing social media. Twitter, Facebook, etc.. are the way to go. Tweeting your post, and sharing your posts on Facebook could draw many people to your site. Think about it. You tweet/share your posts throughout the day and someone retweets/shares it. So not only did you share it with your followers, but they shared it with theirs, and it could go on, and on. So yes, social media sites are a must. The only thing negative I would say would be --just don't over do it. Tweet/share at least three times a day, but don't   over do it and become spam. No-one wants to see a million tweets/shares about your review, so proceed with caution, and don't over do it.

My last piece of advise, make sure your enjoying what you do. Blogging takes time, energy, and sometimes money. Don't go into blogging thinking your going to get hundreds of free books, yes you will get books, but are you up to the task to review every single one? Reviewing books from pubs, authors, etc. is just that! You MUST review that book, now I know you won't be able to review every single book or like every single book, but proceed with caution on requesting or excepting books. Don't overwhelm yourself with too many ARCS. I know it's a thrill to receive a book in the mail, or on your e-reader every week, but do you really have the time to read them all, and satisfy the pubs. and authors?   
If you don't follow through with your reviews then they will discontinue sending them to you. With that being said, you can easily overwhelm yourself with reading/reviewing/blogging so much so, that YOU WILL BURN OUT! It happens to almost everyone. So take it easy and do what feels right for you.


I could go on and on, and will soon! I'm currently working on expanding my blog through more discussion posts. Another great way to draw all types of readers to your blog.
So what advise would you give me? Did my posts help you, or do you agree/disagree with my thoughts? Is their anything you could add???