First things first, I’d like to thank Deanna of Deanna Reads Books for nominating me for this Blogger Recognition Award! I appreciate it so much 🙂
Second, readers, please make sure to go check out her blog! It’s wonderfully organized, she’s a great writer, and her color scheme is so lovely!
The Blogger Recognition Award
The Rules:
– Thank the blogger who nominated you and provide a link to their blog.
– Write a post to show your award.
– Give a brief story of how your blog started.
– Give two pieces of advice to new bloggers.
– Select 15 other bloggers you want to give this award to.
-Comment on each blog and let them know you have nominated them & provide the link to the post you created.
To be totally honest, I hate that last rule. When someone comments on my blog posts, I want the comments to be related to the post, not just informing me about a tag.
So I’m definitely going to follow Deanna’s lead and just tweet to those that I have tagged if they have Twitter. Or perhaps I will post on another social network they have rather than commenting on their blog. 🙂
How I Started
Reading has always been something I’ve been really into. As a kid in school, I was the student that read the entire book long before it was due. Through middle school, when I had major insomnia issues, I would spend hours and hours at night reading. Though high school and college, even though my schedule was always jam packed, I made sure to find time to read.
In elementary and middle school, I kept some pretty impressive reading journals. But in high school, that practice fell away. After I graduated from college, I decided that I wanted to start writing up short reviews on my Goodreads account. Around this time, I was also introduced to BookTube. From there, I thought that I wanted to do something more with my reading hobby.
The first step of my blogging start was on Books & Writing Amino. This is mainly a phone app, but you can also access it on a desktop, here. I had a lot of fun here really working on my blogging style and getting to know some lovely people! But after a while, I realized that I was sort of growing out of it. The average audience was much younger than I was, and yet again, I realized that I wanted to do something more. Though I am still on that platform today, I only really share links to my blog posts and short posts.
This urge to do something more finally pushed me to create this blog, Erica Robyn Reads!
My Advice:
1. Really put some thought into your design and formatting.
You want your design to be clean, consistent, and most importantly- a reflection of you. I can’t tell you how many hours I have spent tweaking my blog, and I know there are many more hours ahead of me!
So don’t get discouraged if you haven’t gotten your blog looking how you wish it would look. You’ll get there! You can start by playing around with the back end design elements. Don’t hesitate to ask other bloggers questions about a certain element of their page that you’d like to implement on yours. Or, if your budget allows, you could hire someone to help make your design dream a reality!
2. Don’t stress about the numbers
Deanna mentioned this on her blog as well and I couldn’t agree more!
I see so many bloggers complaining about their low numbers when it comes to views, comments, or followers. I totally understand the stress, after all it is upsetting to put a lot of work into something and not get much of a result.
However, blogging isn’t just about the numbers. It’s about you having fun with your hobby. Just keep creating original and fun content, and the followers, views, and comments will come with time.
I Nominate:
- A Kernel of Nonsense
- Alternative-Read
- Always Me
- Barb of Booker T’s Farm – Books and Nails and Puppy Dog Tales
- BiteIntoBooks
- Brooklyn of Brooklyn Sipping A Cup Of Tea
- Carina’s Books
- Comfy Cozy Cup
- FLYLeF
- Greg’s Book Haven
- Heather’s Reading Hideaway
- Kati’s Bookaholic Rambling Reviews
- The Literary Apothecary
- Musings of a Bookish Kitty
- The Well-Thumbed Reader
And as always, my tagging the bloggers above in no way requires them to participate; I tag just to get the word out about their lovely blogs!
If you haven’t yet been tagged, but would like to be, feel absolutely free to jump in! 🙂
Thanks for reading!
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Thank you for the kind words about my blog! It's taken me three years of constantly tweaking my design to get where it is so I definitely agree with your advice that you should really think about the design of your blog.
Deanna Reads Books
Of course!! 🙂
Congrats =)
🙂
Aw, thanks so much for the nomination! ❤️ I agree, design takes a while to get down, but with work, you can get your blog to look the way you want! And definitely not stressing about numbers! I think it's inevitable, but with time, it'll become less stressful! 😄
Of course!! 🙂
Aww Thank you so much for the nomination Erica I am going to try to do this tag on my blog, and I totally agree with everything you had to say here. You rock my dear friend have a great Sunday!
Of course!! I can't wait to see your post 🙂
I like how you gradually found your way to this blog and had some experience before, especially in identifying the audience that works best for you. I totally agree with your sound advice 😉
😀
Ooh fun tag! And great advice. I was the same way. I think as a kid all I did was read! And I remember when I started I just assumed I wouldn't have a lot of #'s, I mean there are so many right? It was such a great feeling to get readers and to interact with others. Who knew ha ha? There is room for everybody, and everyone has such a unique voice.
Thanks for nominating me!!! 🙂
Of course! 🙂 It's so fun to think back on and share our childhood reading habits. With the numbers thing, I have seen quite a few bloggers announce recently that they are stopping because they aren't hitting their number goals, and that makes me SO sad!! 🙁
Thank you for tagging me, Erica! That's so nice of you. And congratulations on being tagged yourself. 🙂
I think it's awesome that you kept reading journals when you were in school. I wish I had thought to do that. I echo your advice about not paying too much attention to stats. It really takes the fun out of blogging and only puts stress on the blogger.
Of course! 🙂
I wish I still had my journals! I have no idea where they ended up, but I'm sure they are long gone.
Thanks for the nomination, Erica! I've never heard of that Amino app before – I might have to check it out.
By the way, I did this tag a while back – you can check my post out here if you like. 🙂
Awesome!! Thanks so much for sharing your link. I LOVE the tips you mentioned in your post!
Congrats on the nomination! Your blogging advice is so true. I spent so much time figuring out exactly how I wanted my blog to look, and I still find myself tweaking things on the back end. I also had to tell myself to stop stressing over the numbers. I used to keep track of my stats monthly, but I've decided to just enjoy blogging, and hopefully the readers will come. 🙂
Thanks so much! 🙂 And yeah! I still totally tweak things here and there. Just knowing that the formats we choose aren't permanent is so fun! Who knows what our blogs will look like a year from now! 🙂