Sunday Special (13) How Book Blogging Does You Good (And Bad?)

It's been a slow weekend for me and I'm getting really lazy. I intended to find some more lookalike covers for sunday special, but changed my mind, and posted this up instead. I've been book-blogging for over three months and it brought me so many new thoughts and feelings. So here I am to share my experience, and hoping to hear yours too.

How it started...

I seriously never imagined I would have a book blog one day. I mean, I really loved to read and talk about books, but reviewing and connecting to authors? It was something so big to me. The first problem was I didn't have many English-written books. Second, I didn't know how to give organizing ideas on a story - when I chatted with my friends, I just simply told them the synopsis and added random comments here and there. And the worst fear of mine was...guess what? No one would read my blog. There were so many good book blogs out there, who would bother to read one of a newbie? But well, after a lot of weighing the pros and cons and finally decided to give it a try. I'm so lucky Serene Hours got visitors ^^ your love keeps my blog alive!

The good...

Let's see. Book blogging does me a lot of good. I got to get to read lots of books I never ever had a chance to, from various publishers and the authors. There's no more looking at the covers at Amazon and drooling all day. There's no more crazy contest hunting (I still hunt contests, but that as wild as I used to be haha). I actually got down and read, then later, shared my of view with other bloggers and readers. It was super duper great you know. It was so different from reading ebooks - gluing my eyes onto the screen all day only to get headache afterwards. One more cool thing was being able to lend my friends my favorite books and let them enjoy the fun.

My style of reading changed too. I used to skim and skip a lot so I usually missed the important details. Now, I read much more slowly and carefully so that I can find the great things about the plot, the characters, the writing, as well as the not so good stuff . Reading is not just for fun now. It's to learn from the authors' piece of art. You know, when you have this habit of analyzing, it'll help a lot - especially to me, who's desperately to become a writer in the future : )

So what's the best thing? Definitely meeting so many cool people! Before it all, I was really afraid of authors. Silly I know, but in my mind they were celebs and celebs were hard to get close to. Turned out I was so wrong. They were nice - most of the authors I emailed/messaged replied to me with such nice tones. They loved and appreciated their readers a lot. Some of them are very fun to talk to - for example C.K Kelly Martin and Sarah Ockler - made me feel like I was talking to sisters. And of course I have to mention my awesome blogger fellows too. You guys are awesome, I mean it, honestly. I learned a lot from you - your friendliness, your confidence and your support for everyone else. A few of you are so good with words that I'm deeply jealous. Last but not least is my shout outs to all the publicists, without them, I didn't know how to manage to get the books.

The bad...

There's the bad? Of course, nothing can be perfect. Having a blog is stressful somehow to me. I don't read that fast so sometimes it's hard to keep up with my posting schedule. With schoolwork and everything, there may be not much time for writing reviews. And it rarely happens, but there're occasions when I finish a book and seriously don't have anything to say about it. Weird right? 

Making your blog stand out is a difficult thing to do too. I got some readable features but I don't think it's enough. Moreover, I don't know if you feel it too but when I ask for review copies and be turned down, I'm always upset.

Uhm so that's how I feel about book blogging. I wanna know what you think too. If you love me, be sure to leave a comment and tell me your story. I so love to hear. Please don't say no to curious Thao<3.