The Book Blogger Insider Tag

So recently Swetlana over at Reading Through The Night tagged me to do The Book Blogger Insider Tag and talk a little about my blogging habits, so that’s what we’re doing today!

This tag was originally created by Jamie over at A Little Slice Of Jamie!

THE RULES

• Answer the questions below.
• Tag at least 5 people.
• Have fun!

THE QUESTIONS

1) WHERE DO YOU TYPICALLY WRITE YOUR BLOG POSTS?

Most of the time I’m sitting on the sofa with my laptop – usually with the TV on for some background noise. Sometimes if I have an idea and I’m not near my laptop / can’t be bothered to turn it on I’ll grab a notepad and jot down something to copy and expand on next time I’ve got my laptop open.

2) HOW LONG DOES IT GENERALLY TAKE YOU TO WRITE A BOOK REVIEW?

I honestly couldn’t say, I suppose it depends on my thoughts on the book – Some which are a bit middle of the road don’t take me very long as I don’t really have that much to say on them. You know those books that are just alright, you don’t love them but you don’t hate them either, you’re just a bit indifferent. I find books I love take a little longer, trying to find the things to say to encourage others to read them, without giving away any major plot points and spoiling it for anyone, and without just screaming “I love it! Go buy it!”. Possibly the books that take me the longest to review are the ones where I didn’t really enjoy the book at all for whatever reason. Someone has obviously worked hard on it, so I want to make sure I give valid reasons for why I didn’t like it, while acknowledging that other people might like it.

3) WHEN DID YOU START YOUR BOOK BLOG?

I started my blog at the beginning of the year – to begin with it was briefly (very briefly) a bit more of a general blog before I realised how wonderful the book blogging community is, and that there are people out there who share my love and might actually be interested in reading what I had to say!

4) WHAT IS THE WORST THING ABOUT HAVING A BOOK BLOG IN YOUR OPINION?

So far I’m really enjoying having my blog, I think the first time I had a week where I didn’t blog much because I was spending a lot of time at work and the last thing I wanted to do when I got in was to turn on my laptop and spend more time staring at a screen, I posted a discussion post on it that weekend and got a lot of lovely responses from people pointing out how everyone is in the same position and people reading the blog will completely understand if I’m not posting new material everyday. My other problem is the fact I’m far too like a magpie when it comes to books, I look on NetGalley and even when I’ve said I’m not requesting any more because I already have too much to read I still manage to click request on something else, and then I put myself under pressure to try to get things read and reviewed as close to publication date as possible.

5) WHAT IS THE BEST THING ABOUT HAVING A BOOK BLOG IN YOUR OPINION?

I’m jumping on the bandwagon with this one, for me the best thing is the community. I’ve been doing this about 3 months now so I still consider myself a complete newbie but I’ve been so well welcomed into the community by everyone. I’ve discovered and taken part in some fabulous twitter chats as part of #SundayYA and my TBR is forever growing as a result of some of the recommendations I’ve seen on various blogs.

6) WHAT BLOG POST HAVE YOU HAD THE MOST FUN WRITING SO FAR?

Ooh that’s a good question, I think it might actually be my response to a This or That question that I did recently. The question was about book subscription boxes and currently I don’t subscribe to any so I decided to do a little research and see what was available in the UK – I was pleasantly surprised and will definitely have to try out a few. It was really interesting to see all the different things out there.

7) WHAT IS YOUR FAVOURITE TYPE OF BLOG POST TO WRITE?

My favourite blog posts to write are probably some of my discussion posts – I really enjoy the interaction with some of the people who are reading what I’m writing, and I hope that these posts encourage some discussion not just between me and the reader, but between readers as well. They’re about all sorts of things book and blog related from where I get my books from and how I blog, to my love of beautiful books and who I’d invite to a dinner party.

8) WHEN DO YOU TYPICALLY WRITE?

I work full-time Monday – Friday so it’s usually in the evenings or at the weekend depending on how I’m feeling. Although having said that at the time of writing this (which I’m scheduling well in advance) I’m currently on annual leave and having taken care of some boring things like laundry and washing up, I’m currently enjoying some crumpets and taking the time to write some posts in advance as I know I’m going away at the end of the week and won’t have chance. It’s also great to get some of my backed up reviews developed from scribbled thoughts to post-able content and scheduled!

9) DO YOU REVIEW EVERY BOOK YOU READ?

My blog is still so new but currently I am. Most of the reviews you’ll see currently are from books I’ve requested and kindly been given on NetGalley. I know it’s not really cost the publisher much to click yes and grant me access to a book but they starting saying yes when I was still so new so I think it’s only right that I review them, it might take me until a little after publication date to get my thoughts up but I do intend to review all that I’ve received! The books I’ve bought for myself have taken a bit of a back seat however so I think once I’m up to date with NetGalley I’m going to have to try to be a little more discerning than my current ooh that looks good! *click* that I started off with.

10) HOW DO YOU WRITE YOUR BOOK REVIEWS? WITH A CUP OF COFFEE OR TEA? WITH NETFLIX? CUDDLED WITH YOUR FUR BABY?

I tend to read a lot in bed, even if it’s the middle of the day I’ll happily go and sit propped up on my pillows and read rather that sitting on the sofa. So you’ll probably find me there scribbling some notes down as I go. Then I’ll probably do my first draft of the review on paper, I’ll lie on my bed and write with some music in the background. This is something I’ve done ever since I was at university, if I’m on my laptop I usually find it far too easy to become distracted by Facebook or Twitter, or to decide to play with a new theme for the blog. Eventually I’ll move from my bed to the sofa and turn the laptop on, there’s usually some TV in the background, I love a lot of American imports so it’s usually something like Bones (which I can’t believe is now over) I’m also a little bit addicted to Lucifer, and I love Grace & Frankie on Netflix. You’ll also usually find me with a drink at hand, depending on the time of day it could be any one of coffee, tea, hot chocolate or a nice glass of wine, probably a rose.

11) WHEN DO YOU WRITE YOUR BOOK REVIEWS? RIGHT AFTER FINISHING THE BOOK? TWO WEEKS AFTER FINISHING THE BOOK?

Usually I’ll have made some notes as I go along, I’ll try to write the full review relatively soon after but that doesn’t always work out depending on work and other things, so sometimes it can be a couple of weeks before I get to it. So far I’ve found I’ve enough detail in my notes to be able to write something even with a few books in between me reading the book and writing the review.

12) HOW OFTEN DO YOU POST?

At the moment it’s most days even if some days it’s just a little regular post that only takes 5 minutes or so to do like the Tuesday Teaser or a bookish quote on a Thursday. That said I’m quite aware that I might not be able to do this every week depending on work life balance, and I’m not too worried about this. At the moment when I’ve got a fair amount of free time I’m taking the time to write some posts and schedule them in advance to give myself a bit of a buffer, but if at some point there’s only one or two posts that go up in a week I’m okay with that, it’s not worth stressing over to the point I start to not enjoying blogging because I feel like I just have to post something everyday.

There’s my questions answered! Thanks again Swetlana, I’m not going to tag anybody because I suspect a lot of people will have already been tagged, if you haven’t and you like the look of the questions consider yourself tagged!