The Daydreamer's Ramblings: The book blogging community

The Daydreamer’s Ramblings is a semi-regular feature here at Ramblings of a Daydreamer. It ranges from discussion posts to rants to raves about my favorite things. I had originally thought of calling it ‘From the Author’s Perspective’, because I feel that I might have a bit of a unique perspective being both an author and a book blogger. Most authors these days are bloggers, but few are book bloggers, so I thought I might take that perspective and talk about issues that bloggers are concerned with, but from the perspective of an author. I might still do that, but it will fall under the umbrella of The Daydreamer’s Ramblings, rather than having a bunch of different features to confuse you all!

 

A couple weeks ago, I was answering interview questions for my good blogging buddy Jessica from Thoughts at One in the Morning for her huge indie event this summer, and one of the questions got me thinking about how much I owe the book blogging community.

I’ve been book blogging for a little over a year now, and I’ve loved every minute of it. I’ve met so many great people, and the best part is I get to talk about books to my heart’s content. I’ve only ever had a few friends here and there who liked to read, so I’ve never really had anyone to talk books with. It’s hard, because reading is one of the things I enjoy doing most, and when you really love something you want to talk about it, right?

That’s just one of the many reason I love book blogging. I get to share my thoughts and opinions on books, learn about what's new in the book world, discover new authors, and find books that should be added to my never-ending TBR pile or wish list. To me, that’s priceless - having other people who get it, and who share my passion.

The book blogging community hasn’t only been great for me as a reader, it’s also been great for me as a writer. Shortly after I started blogging, I brought out an old manuscript I’d written seven years before, and decided to finish and publish it. After I started blogging, I quickly discovered how many YA book bloggers there are out there, and I made a huge decision - to change my book from adult to young adult (or I guess technically “new adult” - sort of a happy medium). As soon as I started making the changes, everything fell into place, and I knew it was right. Because of that, Blue Sky Days was opened up to a whole new world of possible readers - readers from teens to late adulthood who love books about those crazy, emotional teenage years. 

When the book was finished and I was ready to publish it, I already had contacts in the book blogging community. I had quite a few people contact me asking for ARCs, and I contacted a bunch of people I knew through blogging. It made life so much easier for me, because a lot of people already knew who I was and had heard about the book either from my blog or through the blogging grapevine.

So, you can see that I owe the book blogging community a lot, and I’m extremely grateful for all the friends I’ve made and the connections I’ve formed. I really do feel like we’re a community. I hope that someday I’ll feel as comfortable in the general blogging world - I’ve started another blog for everything not related to books and writing - and it’s slow going (not that I’m doing it for anyone else or to get page views or followers - it’s a place for me to express myself and talk about my other passions). I'm finding it a harder world to break into and gain acceptance in, and because of that, it makes me even more grateful to my book blogging friends.

What do you think of this community of ours? What does being a book blogger mean to you? Do you feel it's changed you? In what ways?