Blogging as a Hobby

Welcome to the first article in The Blogging Shelf! Thank you for being here. New chapters in life always call me to reflect. Every birthday, I make time to check in and reflect on the reading and blogging of the year past. Becoming a mama has been the biggest change I have ever faced and it feels like the right time to look back, farther and deeper. When I learned that I was pregnant, I knew that I wasn’t going to stop blogging. Time would, and as predicted, has, become a precious commodity.

This first article in this brand new series isn’t a guide on how to blog. Instead, it’s a reflection on how blogging has stayed with me, why I keep returning to it and all that it has offered me over the years. We will begin with a trip down memory lane and then jump into lessons I have learned that have helped me sustain this hobby. I will also talk about what I see as success now, compared to when I first started Armed with A Book. If you’ve ever tried to keep a hobby going while your life shifts, I hope this resonates.

Let’s begin.

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The Road to Here

I’m going to age myself when I say this – in the 2010s blogs were the place people wanted to be. Every writer and company was starting a blog. Anyone and everyone who had something to say was on WordPress or Blogspot. Some of my friends were blogging too! I have been blogging since 2012. That was my first glorious summer of writing everyday and though I didn’t set out to review books, I wrote about them then too. 

When I was teaching preservice teachers in 2016, creating a blog and maintaining it for the term was an assignment. It was to make them think about online presence and write thoughtful reflections online. In 2018, I had my space on Medium, a blog called A Teacher’s Hat, where I wrote about teaching and learning. I was active on Twitter, now X, where I met a vibrant and welcoming teaching community. Then, social media was a place to share our writings and make new connections.  

In May 2019, after finishing my teaching degree, I made a purchase – I bought this domain name and web hosting services for three years. I have since renewed it once without a second thought. 

Over the years, sharing writing has changed a lot. With character limits and the rise of snappy content, it can feel like no one wants longform anymore. Social media platforms want us to spend more time there then away from them. With constant reminders to spend money on marketing and ads to reach a bigger audience, blogging as a hobby often feels disheartening. But here I am and here you are. Blogs still exist. Writers still write.

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Lessons to Stay Here

Blogging is not a job where I have to perform and be productive.

As an organized person, it has been easy to bring order and structure into this labour of love. At times, I have found this to be a burden. A week when I don’t have the energy, emailing collaborators that I will reschedule used to come with shame. Becoming a mama taught me that taking that space is my right and this is how I don’t burnout. 

I had at least 6 collaborations planned for early 2025. The months leading up to the birth were busy and I didn’t get around to scheduling in advance. Afterwards, my new mom-brain was sleep deprived and did not have the energy to post them. I am eternally grateful to Ariel for helping me draft the emails that I found so hard to send and yet, so glad I did. What I found from each of my authors was acceptance, love and kindness. I appreciated the acknowledgement of my human experience. A blog might look like a well oiled machine but ultimately it is run by a person who has a life.

Lesson in practice: For many years, scheduling in advance used to work for me. Now, I no longer do it more than a day in advance. This is more in line with how much time and energy I truly have. 

With the rise of Bookstagram and BookTok, I sometimes feel book blogging is unwanted and unnecessary. A number of book tour organizers I know have moved their focus to Instagram and TikTok, taking blogs completely off the list as a space to share about the book. Many publisher influencer programs inquire about social media follower counts as they are a more objective way to understand someone’s reach. One cannot compare the following on social media with the smaller number of email subscribers on a blog. 

Lesson in practice: I remind myself that blogging has existed long before hashtags, SEOs, algorithms and influencers. Those who want to write, write. Let them (publishers, blog tour organizers, etc.) care more about social media. Let me stay true to what works for me and keep writing. (Borrowing from Mel Robbin’s The Let Them Theory here!)

Hobbies have soundtracks of pressure too. Burnout happens and I learn from it. 

• We are all protagonists of our stories. We believe people know when we post or don’t. That they notice when we leave something unsaid. It’s not true. In a hobby, there should be just love and follow through. There is endless time. In the early years, I dug deep into content strategy and editorial calendars. They always made me anxious and I found myself thinking I wasn’t doing enough. 

Lesson in practice: I have years of posts on the blog to show that I show up and collaborate. I know I will not run out of ideas as I am not going to stop reading. I don’t worry about content. I just find pockets of time when I can add it to the blog. Most weeks, it’s 5 days. Some weeks, I intentionally take off. Other weeks, I do a few days. I am the boss here. This is my hobby.  

• At one time, it was the desire to be everywhere – X, BlueSky, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, Threads, name all the platforms you know.
  
  Lesson in practice:  I have stuck to a few chosen platforms on which I am active to varying degrees.  I don’t even bother crossposting on the same day a lot of times. Instead, if I have the energy, I share ‘This week on the blog’.
  
• Sometimes burnout can look like sharing everything rather than being selective. In the years without big events, when I have found time to post 5 times a week, I have read at least 100 books and reviewed around 80 on the blog. See table below. Every year is not like that. 2022 was the year I got married. 2025 is the year I am home with my newborn. I don’t know what the stats will look like just yet but it won’t be 80 reviews and definitely not a 100 books.

	2022	2023	2024
Books read over the year	85	124	111
Review copies read	47	58	54
Books reviewed on the blog	52	88	80

Lesson in practice: It’s ok to post less. I go by my energy and time.

• Being available to professionals in the publishing industry, be it publicists or authors, has its pros and cons. I have talked at length about the downside in this article on Author-Book Blogger relationships and it is amazing to me how this article from 2020 is still going strong and gets an occasional comment. 
  
  Lesson in practice: I have learned to clarify what publicists and authors want from me. Is it a timely review? Is it an interview where questions must be sent by a certain date? More importantly, I have spent time thinking about what I am able to offer. I am no longer afraid to ask and tell.

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Blogging as a Lifelong Companion – What is success?

What has it given me?

Since my first blog in 2012, I have evolved and since 2019, I have found a consistent rhythm. In Armed with A Book, I have created a place for myself that I share with Ariel and occasionally with other creators. Even if I am not actively posting on a particular day, it is like an open door, always available. This blog gives me a reason to write. Create. Experiment. Design. It is a way to connect to a broader community of writers and readers. It is a place to write thoughtful things. I have enjoyed it so much that I am still here. 

What is success to me?

Up until even 2 years ago, success was getting my review requests approved from publishers, more physical books in the mail, lots of emails from authors and publicists wanting me to read their books, being on newsletters and podcasts – I wanted to be seen and these were all ways for me to be seen – by doing more, by reading more review copies, by collaborating more.

Now, in mamahood, it is about existing. It is about being present. It is about writing something which I may or may not post. It is about posting a few times a month and I know I have been doing more than that. It’s about being excited for ideas and new things to do on the blog, like this series! But most importantly now, it is about showing my daughter how to nurture something for myself, something outside the everyday necessary tasks. I am a role model now even if she doesn’t have the words or the insight yet.

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Conclusion

Little did I imagine in 2012 that almost a decade later, I would have my place on the World Wide Web – a blog named Armed with A Book. What began as book reviews, I am starting to see, are more about life, the thoughts that live in my mind, how I grow with the stories I read. 

This blog has been with me for six years now. It’s not because I always show up regularly 5 times a week, crossposting to other platforms as if it’s a business trying to make money. I have stayed clear of affiliate links, sponsorships, buy me a Kofi, and ads intentionally. What matters to me is creating and putting this time in. I always come back in spite of the towering pile of books I want to read, family, friends, career because this is a place I have nurtured and want to.

I put together a new subscriber-focused page some months ago. It reminded me of all that I have built and how new ideas continue to surface with time. I have gathered so many new ideas this past summer and I am excited to make time for them as life allows. I have endless time. This blog is on my schedule.

One of my favourite sayings is momentum is messy and I truly believe it. Messiness is posting less sometimes and other times, more. I can do it anyway I want. That’s true for the blog posts I plan, a book I want to read, a person I want to host.

Anything that we pursue long term has ups and downs. If we want to keep returning, we have to not only make time for it but also be good with the time we spend away. I want to end with a quote from Rumi:

Let yourself be silently drawn by the strange pull of what you really love. It will not lead you astray.

Rumi

How long have you been blogging or pursuing a hobby? Take a moment to think about all the joy it brings to you and why you keep coming back.