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How to start a book blog, review books, and have a successful book blog

Introduction

After doing some research on blogging and Finding quite a few resources that dealt specifically with how to start a book blog, I decided to put together this guide for those thinking of diving into the book blogging community. (Especially since some of the best results on Google are things like “How to Start a Book Blog in 6 Easy Steps” that cover only the basics and appear to be articles written by paid-for-click bloggers, not by people who ever really I started or ran a book blog!) I started Pages Unbound in 2011 with very little idea what I was doing, so I hope other new bloggers feel they don’t have to do the same!

Table Guide: 17 Steps to Starting a Book Blog

Choose a blog name.
Choose a blogging platform.
Choose a topic .</li
Write a page about.
Write a review policy.
Write some posts and schedule some posts in advance.
Decide if you want to rate books.
Read other books’ blogs.
Add widgets to the sidebar.
Make graphics for the blog.
Decide which plan social media forms to promote your blog.
Start a review archive page.
Participate in the book blogging community and comment on other blogs.
Work on SEO of your blog.
Make a request to have ARCs reviewed.
Consider if you would like a co-blogger.
Organize a blogging event.

Basic concepts for starting your book blog

1. Choose a blog name

Once you’ve settled under a certain blog name, changing it can be difficult, so you’ll want to give this some thought. Choose a name that reflects what your blog will be about, and also do some research to see if it’s an original name or if there are other variations. (For example, someone started a blog called “The Unbound Page” several years after founding “Pages Unbound. This could be confusing for both audiences.)

2, Choose a blogging platform

First, decide if you want to go paid or free for your blogging platform. Free is a good place to start if you’re not sure how long you’re going to keep blogging, or you’re just on a budget. The two most popular free platforms are WordPress.com and Blogger. While I personally recommend WordPress.com for its ease of use (and ease of conversion to paid WordPress.org later), you should research both platforms and decide which one will be more useful for you.

If you know you’re going to be serious about blogging, it might be a good idea to get paid up front. At least you pay for a domain name. That way, you won’t lose any followers if you switch blogging platforms, say from Blogger to WordPress.org, and end up changing your URL.

3. Choose a theme

Think about two things: the tone of your blog and user readability. Choose (or pay for) a design that represents the spirit of your blog: fun, serious, focused on mysteries, obsessed with fantasy, etc. However, make sure that it is easy to navigate and that your text is easy to read. (For example, avoid light fonts on dark backgrounds. Also check if you can change the font size if the default is too small.)

Also, I discuss this further in the intermediate usage tips of graphics, but keep in mind that you must comply with copyright laws and must use images for your blog theme that you have paid for the right to use, are your own images, or are explicitly free to use online .

4. Write an About Page

Readers consistently say that they like to know about the blogger behind the blog. While you don’t have to get too personal if you don’t want to, you should still say something about yourself and the overall purpose of your blog. Let your readers get to know you and what they can expect from you on your book blog. If you’re comfortable with that, consider adding a photo for an even more personal touch. p>

5. Create a Review Policy

As a book blogger, even if you’re new, you’re likely to receive requests from authors and publishers to review books or feature other content on your blog, such as guest posts or interviews. . Instead of waiting for people to email you and then panicking, decide up front if this is something you’re interested in, and then include your guidelines on your Review Policy page.

A few Things to include in your review policy:

What posts you will consider. (Only reviews? Only interviews with the authors?)
Which genres are you interested in and which genres you don’t want to review.
If you’re going to post negative reviews or if you’re posting, post only three reviews. stars or more.
If you are posting the review somewhere other than your blog (Goodreads, Barnes
Which formats it will accept. (Print books only, Kindle books, PDFs?)
The email address where people can contact you. (I recommend creating one specific to the blog, instead of using your personal email.)

6. Write some posts and schedule some ahead of time

Obviously, your blog will need content. You can start with a simple intro post that tells people who you are and why you joined the book blogosphere. (You can read my tips on writing your first book blog post here.) From there, your content will likely include book reviews, book discussions, book tags, etc. Write some of these posts ahead of time.

Decide how often you want to post to your blog (three times a week? once a week?), and consider writing at least three weeks worth of posts before your blog goes live. Post. This will save you a lot of stress trying to post constantly and keep you from struggling to create content. New bloggers often report blogger burnout when they don’t schedule posts before launch.

7. Choose if you’ll have a rating system

Many, but not all, book bloggers use a rating system in their book reviews to give their audience a quick indication of how much they enjoyed the book they’re reviewing. There are advantages to including ratings (for example, other people seem to like them) and disadvantages (for example, sometimes people seem to skip the review and just review the rating). Krysta and I have not used ratings on our blog for several years. And it was fine. However, you’ll probably want to be consistent with whether or not you use it from the start, and you’ll also want to think about which graph you’ll use for grading. In fact, many people don’t use stars at all, but some other image that goes with their theme, like teacups, cats, muffins, etc.

8. Read other book blogs

If you’re not really reading other book blogs, now is a good time to start. While there is always room for creativity in the blogosphere, there are also conventions. Find out what other bloggers are doing and what your blog readers are expecting. If you want to break the mold and do something very different, that’s great, and now you’ll do it as an informed decision.

The details of starting your book blog

Once you have the basics of your book blog, it’s time to start thinking about the details: making the user experience good for your readers and getting visitors to your blog.

1. Grow a great sidebar

Don’t overwhelm visitors with too much information in your sidebar. Think about what information will be useful to them and put the most important stuff at the top .

Consider including in the sidebar:

a short bio (save the long version for your About page)
a search bar for your blog
a way to subscribe to your blog (email or WordPress feed)
links to your social media pages
a blog button if you have one</li
a list of your most recent posts
a list of popular posts
information about any special events you have

Consider omitting from the sidebar:

the tag cloud (no one actually uses this to navigate).
a calendar (I can see your recent posts ).</li
Recent Tweets (I can only follow you on Twitter).
Too much information about your favorite books or other curious facts

You can also choose not to do it. have a sidebar on everything. Some bloggers feel that the sidebars clutter up their space and prefer to include information like how to follow them on social media elsewhere.

2. Think about graphics for your blog

Most blogging experts recommend having at least one image per blog post. Planning for this can take some time. First of all, you want to make sure that you are on the right side of copyright laws and that you are not using images illegally. Second, you’ll want to think about branding your images and keeping the look consistent across posts. (Consider creating graphics of similar sizes, fonts, and colors.)

Image Basics

To get started, you may want some basic graphics so you don’t have to create a new one for yourself. each post (unless it’s something you enjoy doing). So you can create one image to use for all discussion posts, one image to use for all Top 10 Tuesday posts, etc.

Advanced Images

Yes Do you have time to invest in doing a lot of graphics or are you investing in using images to increase traffic, create a unique image for each blog post. To be truly unique, you can use your own bookish photography. If not, look for royalty-free images and optimize them for sharing. This means putting the title of the post on the image and also putting the name or URL of your blog. If you’re going to be sharing a lot on Pinterest, expect to recommend vertical-style graphics (long vertical images).

Check out my recommendations for free graphic tools for book bloggers here.

3. Choose which social networks to join

Few book bloggers only blog. Joining social media will help you meet other bloggers and readers and help you promote your content. If you’re a fan of social media, feel free to join everything: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Snapchat, Riffle, etc. However, remember that the most valuable social networks are the ones you enjoy enough to actually use. If you’re going to start slowly or have limited time to devote to other outlets besides your blog, I recommend Goodreads (of course) and Twitter as the places where the book community is usually most active. (You can also read my posts on using Goodreads to drive traffic to your blog and using Goodreads to write better reviews.)

Note that there is also a large community of books on Instagram (Bookstagram), but this site generally won’t drive traffic back to your book blog. Join if you’re really interested in taking pictures of books and interacting with other readers on the site itself, not because think that it will be a good way to promote your blog. And, if you’re interested in joining, don’t worry about not having “enough” or “beautiful” books. It’s perfectly fine to take creative shots of your e-reader with book covers or photos of books from the library.

For my tips on Bookstagram, see:

Thoughts on five weeks of Bookstagram
Do you use library books for Bookstagram?
How to Rock Bookstagram on a Budget

Josephine at Word Revel also has an excellent Bookstagram Series 101.

After you join, make sure your social networks are clearly linked in the sidebar of your blog, so people can find and follow you. Then add your blog URL to your social media profiles. If you’re on WordPress, you can also set your blog to automatically share new posts to Facebook and Twitter. (There are other sharing sites, such as LinkedIn, as well, but most book bloggers won’t use them.)

4 Starting a Review Archive Page

One of the first things I do when I visit a new book blog is check their review archive. I want to know what kind of books the blog features and if I agree with the bloggers’ opinions about the books we have both read. Make it easy for visitors to access your content by starting a page for your reviews archive, which you can choose to sort alphabetically by author or book title. You can also create archive pages for any other publications you You type regularly and want to group by category.

5. Join the book blogging community

If you want people to read your blog, the most useful thing you can do is read and comment on other people’s blogs. Write meaningful comments and connect with readers, and they will want to read the actual content of your blog. Alternatively, no one can visit your blog if they don’t know it exists, so get out there and talk to other readers!

You can also join memes, read-a-longs, reading challenges, Twitter chats, or other events Hosted by other bloggers. Big events include Bloggiesta (a few times a year) and Armchair BEA in May.

To learn more about how you can get traffic to your book blog, go here. You can also see the best blogging tips submitted by our readers.

Advanced Book Blogging

If you really want to drive traffic to your blog or get known in the book community, start blogging. think about search engine optimization (SEO) for your blog and create unique and timely content.

1. Fill Out These Quick SEO Tips

There’s a lot of information on the web about how to improve your SEO and drive traffic to your blog. The following tips are quick ideas to get you started:

Include ALT tags for your images. (Use the media editor in WordPress to do this.)</li
Compress images. Part of good SEO is making sure your site loads quickly. If you use a lot of large image files in your posts, use a site like compressjpeg.com to make them smaller.
Use header tags. Your blog post title will be an H1 tag. In your post, use H2, H3 and maybe H4 to structure your post.
Use keywords. Be sure to naturally include the words that you think people would use to search for your post in the post itself.If you’re reviewing a book, for example, you’ll probably want to mention the title and author’s name a couple of times throughout the review, not just once.
Use links. Send readers to other related posts on your blog to keep them engaged and reading.
Update old content. Once you’re an established blogger, make sure your old content is not wasted. If you’ve written an interesting discussion post or helpful guide, update it and re-share it on social media.

If you’re wondering what kind of stats you can expect as a book blogger, check out this informal survey I conducted.

2. Get Advanced Reader’s Copies (ARC)

Indie authors and publishers may start contacting you to review their books very early in your blogging career. However, if you’re interested in getting ARC from major publishers, your blog will probably need to be at least six months old, and you’ll need to show publishers that you’re giving the book visibility by sending them your follower stats. numbers and average pageviews. It can also be helpful to update your blog frequently and have comments on your posts.

For e-ARCs: Simply go to Netgalley or Edelweiss, fill out your profile and apply.

For physical ARCs: Check out some of these guides.

Novel Knight
Katie’s Book Blog
Natalie Patalie
Cuddlebuggery

Some publishers have specific forms they ask bloggers to fill out to apply for ARC, and publishers do not want to be contacted by email. for ARC applications.

HMH Teen ARC form (USA)
Penguin Teen (USA)
Fierce Reads ( USA)

You can also enter Goodreads Giveaways for ARC to check out the industry newsletter Shelf Awareness for ARC.

3. Think about getting a Co-blogger

As the tasks that “big” book bloggers are expected to perform increase, I’ve been predicting that bloggers who invest seriously in growing or even monetizing their blogs of books may want to co- Blog. After all, bloggers are expected to

constantly write unique content
read books and other blogs
comment on other blogs
take photos
create graphics
manage social media
organize events
…and more.

If that’s not something you don’t have time to do alone, or if you don’t have the skills or interest to do it, you might want a co-blogger to help you out. If this idea appeals to you, find out what questions you should ask potential co-bloggers.

4. Host Your Own Blog Event

Once you’re pretty much established, you can think about hosting your own book event. This can be anything from reading a book you enjoy or a book you want to read but haven’t read yet, to an event where you focus on a single author/genre/series/etc. and collect some guest posts from other bloggers.

It’s a good idea to look around and see how other people host events first. For example, what discussion times, questions, or activities might accompany a reading? How long should the event last? How many people can you expect to participate? Start planning and scheduling from there.

If you want guest posts, I recommend reaching out to a few bloggers that you think will be interested in the theme of the event and emailing them specifically asking if they would like to contribute. with some. . (Also include details like when you’d like the draft, how long the post should be, if it will link to your blog and social media, etc. so they can make an informed decision.) If your blog is still small, you may have trouble getting participants if you only send out a general call for guest posts. Approaching specific bloggers to guest post will help ensure that you get content and that your event is successful.

Krysta and I asked fellow readers to guest post when we first launched our Read-In Event. Tolkien’s March (a kind of annual). Now that we’ve been blogging for several years, the event is big enough for attendees to put out a general call for guest posts.

Everything else