Bookblogging: My Manifesto

I’ve been bookblogging all of four months at the time of writing this. The very first blog post starting which I was committed to writing about books and their authors was my thoughts on What we see in the smoke by Ben Berman Ghan. Before that I had tried my hand at bookblogging without realizing it when I wrote about The ocean at the end of the lane by Neil Gaiman and Freshwater by Akwaeke Emezi.

One would think that bookblogging is about reviewing and writing about books, those that are coming up and those that are personal favorites, or recently read. I got into it because now that my education was formally complete for a while and I had time to fill with reading, becoming a bookblogger gave me access to any number of books, as long as I was willing to give my honest opinion about them. That was a little hard at the beginning because I wasn’t in the habit of writing reviews, but having been a writer for many years now, posting on my blog about bullet journaling, writing, teaching and learning, it wasn’t hard to adjust and adapt this new habit.

What I did not realize was that bookblogging is an amalgamation of many other activities.

Whether it is posting on social media channels about the books I’m reading or excited about, taking staged pictures of the books for Instagram, connecting with authors and publishers online and through email, hosting authors on the website during their virtual book tours, as a bookblogger, I could choose to be in it as much as I wanted. Though I started slow, I quickly realized I wanted it all.

Bookblogging has the potential to be a full time job. I don’t know anyone who does that, but I know some people who earn from it part time. BookSirens, a website that gives access to advanced reader copies, asks the reviewers to specify whether they do reviews for a fee. Bookblogging is a profession because I have my own set rules and procedures on reviewing and what I do with that review after. I have an intake process for books as well as scheduling them, when I plan to read the book and when the review will come out. Thus, it’s an organized activity, no different than a profession. At least that’s how I feel. I call it my second full time job. 🙂

The following is my experience of bookblogging so far. This is my manifesto. I’ve described why I am a bookblogger, the joy I receive from it as well as the things I have learned in my journey so far. The details about scheduling reviews and interviews can be found, in brief, at the end.

Growing is part of the bookblogging journey.

Right now, I focus on reading and rejoice in the worlds that I visit. It’s a completely different experience from when I was a teenager. Now, I take notes and later, use them to write about the book. This gives me a deeper understanding of how the journey affected or changed me and my thoughts. Whether it is strength of character, the setting of the story, the situations that characters face or how these situations connect to my own experiences, there is so much to learn and think about. Sometimes that matches with the ideas that authors had. Sometimes the inferences are not what they had even imagined. So, I take joy in discovering and rediscovering the ideas behind the stories. 

Sometimes, it doesn’t end there though. Sometimes, I have to ask the authors more about their journey. And those are the opportunities that I cherish the most.

I have always felt a deep love for books. When I was little, I remember looking forward to my grandma’s stories. Storytelling was such an important part of my life that often, my family would make up a story so that I would eat food. They always had my attention with stories. As I got older and learned to read, they showered me with books. I would get a parcel of various famous books of the time from my father every couple months. It was amazing to read them and talk to him about them.

As my dear friend and fellow bookblogger Noly aptly describes:

I have come to the conclusion that buying books and reading them are actually two entirely different hobbies.

— theartsyreader (@theartsyreader1) July 11, 2019

Bookblogging has substantially increase my access to books, recently released books as well as forthcoming books, which can be expensive to buy on release. Another aspect of this is format of the book – because of bookblogging, I am reading a lot on my iPad and starting to build my virtual library. I wish I could touch and feel those ebooks the same way as I do for the books, but there is something to be said about books that don’t take physical shelf space. 🙂

Keeping the cycle of learning going:

I’m realizing with every review and interaction that I have with the writing community, I’m also in bookblogging because I want to learn more. I’m an avid learner, happy to undertake study in new areas. Fiction and non-fiction offer a unique blend of exploring issues in a personal way. Angela Savage recently published Mother of Pearl, a novel about surrogacy and motherhood. I found it quite interesting that the novel came out of her PhD research. This is what she said about writing fiction: 

I’ve always been curious about surrogacy and about Thailand, and when I found out Australians were going to Thailand and hiring Thai women to have babies for them, I recognized the seed of an idea for a novel. I read a great deal about surrogacy in the course of my PhD research, and also interviewed surrogate mothers, ‘intending parents’, clinicians and lawyers. My research identified three distinct schools of thought on the topic, both in academic writing and in the media: those wildly in favour (‘the neoliberals’); those vehemently against (‘the abolitionists’); and those who support surrogacy, provided it is carefully regulated (‘the harm reductionists’). I was troubled by the complex political and ethical issues raised by surrogacy, while also aware of the intense emotions at stake. Surrogacy is messy, and academic writing doesn’t lend itself to messiness. So I turned to fiction.

Angela, in her interview.

Angela Savage, the author of Mother of Pearl

When I started reading her book, I knew something about surrogacy but her writing brought forward aspects of it that I had not thought of before or pondered. Hence, there is always an opportunity to learn, even from fiction, and as I read, I tend to keep an eye out for themes and areas that I have not thought of before or have some previous knowledge about and would like to expand. 

Using social media

I share my reviews and thoughts on social media. Twitter is the main platform on which I make contact with writers and the writing community. It is not surprising that I sometimes fall in the trap of wanting more influence or being promoted by other people and account. I work in isolation in some ways, and crave the external gratification at the same time. We all do I think.

It is common to get in the cycle of gaining new followers on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook, and part of the reason I am writing this is to reconcile with the fact that they are great to have, and help with collaborating with publishers, for example, but ultimately, getting more followers is not the reason to read or write. I share my work there with the hope that occasionally, if not always, someone will pick it up and derive meaning from what I have to say, even if I never hear about it.

But sometimes, people do connect, and then continue to be there.

Author of Prowling the Darkness, a novella from the Rayden Valkyrie series amongst others, Stephen Zimmer, is an amazing supporter of mine. He never misses a chance to remind me that he loves the work I do and that my love for books is evident in my writing. Knowing his work, as well as the stories that other authors I know are working on, one of my missions is to connect writers. Stephen mentioned to me about one of his books being set in ancient Japan and I instantly thought of Erynn Lehtonen, author of Ramshackled, Book 1 of Yokia Calling series, who has a keen interest in Japanese mythology. I have loved their books and this was a great way to get them connected and talk about their similar interests. 

The Highlights – Always

As I read more books, connect with authors and publishers, I realize that the highlights of any day, week, or month, boil down to the confirmation of connection with the authors. Yes, the feeling of receiving a physical copy of a book from an author or publisher is rewarding as well.

But the time that we (me and the authors) have invested in each other, from reading their work, to reviewing it, to discussing it with them, answering questions – these interactions are what make bookblogging worth it to me.

Reading and bookblogging have opened up new avenues for collaboration that I never imagined as a little girl. If someone had told me twenty years ago that one day, I will be able to talk to the authors of the books I am reading, and they will tell me that they appreciated my thoughts, I most likely would have laughed and called it a dream. But it isn’t a dream anymore. Through bookblogging, I have been able to make friends with authors, join them in a livestream, discuss the larger picture of publishing in today’s world, and much much more!

I’ve only just begun. Like I mentioned at the beginning, I am only four months in. There will never be an end to books (restricted access maybe, but seeing the writing community, I doubt we would ever run out of books). All in all, the love for reading is sufficient to continue to be intrinsically motivating to read, write, share and connect. Everything else is bonus.

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A note about my Intake process

I get review copies of books in four ways:

1. Authors or their managers, reaching out to me personally.
2. Publishers whose Bookbloggers program I’m a part of.
3. Websites like NetGalley, BookSirens and Edelweiss. I’m mostly focused on NetGalley at the moment.
4. Blog tours through TheWriteReads, Blackhorn Book Tours, and Tomorrow Comes Media.

I add the books from NetGalley and Publishers to my reading schedule, tentatively assigning them to the month in which I will write about them on my blog, as well as if there is a possibility to collaborate with the author. Blog tours are handled around those books. Finally, for requests from authors, I inform them about my timelines based on already scheduled books and the latest I can host them on my blog.

The only cost for my services is the book itself, whether in mobi form or the physical copy. 🙂 And, of course, patience – if I’ve committed to it, I will read your book, but I might have others to finish before I get to it,

To manage all this, I have three documents:

• The Reader’s Roadmap: this is where each book goes – which month it will be read in, if it is for Armed with A Book or for any other purpose.
• The (book)blogger’s Roadmap: this has the book name under the month I will post about it on my blog. This also contains ideas for other articles and tasks related to the blog.
• The Publication Calendar: this has the tentative dates when I will publish on my blog.

If you want to see them, shoot me an email/tweet.

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Why do you pursue bookblogging and how you do you manage your reading? 🙂 I love buddy-reading so feel free to reach out to me if you would like to discuss a book together.