When I first started The Relentless Reader I thought I knew what made a book blogger: book reviews. Lots of them.
But after a couple of years I noticed that I didn’t like to write book reviews. I found myself being repetitive and trying to force a new spin on a book that may have been reviewed dozens of times. I began to feel stale, unoriginal, uninspired.
On top of that I noticed that review posts received almost no love. Comments were few, shares were nearly nonexistent. I felt as if I were speaking into a void. Reviews take effort, as you know. It seemed to be for naught.
So, if I didn’t like writing them and people didn’t bother reading them I was left with this question: Why bother?
Do I have to write formal reviews to call myself a book blogger? My last few reviews were few and far between. My very last was months ago. The world didn’t stop turning. My bookish peers haven’t excommunicated me. I still receive books in the mail.
I feel like a more effective book pusher when I’m talking with people instead of at them. That’s what works for me. It’s immeasurably more rewarding to talk about books on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or The Socratic Salon.
What will the future look like here on The Relentless Reader? I don’t know. Maybe one day I’ll go back to formal reviews. Maybe not. The beauty is that I get to define who I am. And I am a book blogger.
I just want to talk about books. I sure hope you’ll indulge me.
The Relentless Reader 
Thanks, Lisa! I tend to agree!
LikeLike
You've totally gotten inside my head with this one! This is where I'm at now, too. I stopped blogging for awhile because I just couldn't face writing those damn reviews–and I knew nobody read them anyway! But I missed it . . . so now I'm thinking, I'll just post fewer reviews and more conversational stuff. And write reaction pieces to books that I really want to push!
LikeLike
Yes, yes, yes! This is exactly what we wanted The Socratic Salon to be…somewhere to really TALK about a book. We don't have to be vague, we don't have to skirt around certain scenes or spoilers. It's awesome 😀 And yeah, my book review posts were full of crickets and that was about it. So if I don't like writing them, don't care to read them most times, and they get no action here on the blog..thennnnn what's the point? 😉 I'm a much bigger fan of the chatty stuff as well. Much!
LikeLike
Hooray! It's a good thing when we realize what's not working for us. If something doesn't feel authentic anymore there's no good reason to keep plugging away at it. 😀
LikeLike