BBAW_Celebrate_Books

Book Blogger Appreciation Week’s topic today is to be about our blogging goals for the coming year. It is supposed to be concise, in 50 words or less. You may have noticed, but I’m not concise. Anyway, I included my goals in brief and then my goals explained.

My goals in 28 words:

Request fewer free books; join fewer giveaways. Spend less time blogging. Spend greater portion of blogging time promoting the classics. Read with more focus. Join fewer organized “challenges.”

Thoughts

My husband does not read my blog, but he’s very supportive of my reading and my blogging habits. Because few people I know in real life express any interest in my reading and blogging, I’ve always been a bit embarrassed at calling “blogging” a hobby. Can blogging truly be compared to “scrapbooking” or “gardening”? Sometimes, in real life, I feel ashamed to admit that I spent hours every week writing posts and responding to comments on a blog.

I guess you could say, this year’s BBAW activities have helped me feel like all the time I spend blogging is actually an appropriate hobby, including the person who nominated my blog for an award in the first place, the committee that added Rebecca Reads to the shortlist for Best General Review Blog, and all the people reading and posting this week with BBAW. After this BBAW, when someone asks me what my hobbies are, I’ll have to say “I blog about books.” It is a real hobby, and I’m an active participant. It’s a hobby I don’t have to feel ashamed of.

Have you ever felt embarrassed when talking to IRL people about blogging?

Many thanks to all of you for reading along with me! It helps to know I’m not alone in reading voraciously and blogging about it.

As I explained to my husband about the BBAW “award” process, he’s been very happy for me (making the shortlist made me very giddy), but he still, as he always has, asked me what the point is.

That made me consider: What is the ultimate goal of all this blogging? Where am I heading?

About Blogging

I’m not a books blogger so I can get free books. I am still not going to use my blog to market new books for authors, publishers, or publicists; no free books will be coming my way because of my blog. That’s how I want it. If you read about a book on Rebecca Reads, it’s because a friend I trust recommended I read it or because I really wanted to read it, not because a publicist threw it my way. (Note: I’m not saying it’s wrong if you read books publicists send you; it’s just for me, the longer I’m blogging, the less I want to join in that game.)

I’m not interested in hosting giveaways. I’m not even interested in entering most giveaways. If you are reading Rebecca Reads, you probably won’t win any books. I’m house poor (i.e., any extra money is going in to new house right now), and I never even buy myself a book. (Oh, but how I’d love to!!) Further, because I have a plethora of unread books on my shelves, I will not enter other blogger giveaways for more books (of course, there are always exceptions to that one! Sometimes I really want the book!). I will giveaway on Rebecca Reads those used books I read that are in good condition, and otherwise, I’ll bookmooch them to someone else.

About the Blogosphere

I need blogging limits. This week has shown me that I’m probably one of the less active book bloggers  already (I haven’t visited everyone’s BBAW posts; I’ve only visited those of people’s who’s blogs I’m already subscribed to, although I did find myself bouncing around “meeting” new people). Despite not being a huge “blog-hopper,” I’m already feeling a bit overwhelmed. I’m going to do my best to be an active participant in the community, but I need limits. For example, I need to stop blogging while my son is awake and needing attention. Since he’s probably going to stop napping every afternoon, this may mean that I’m blogging even less in the coming year.

I want to promote the classics in the blogosphere. I want to start something. (See this post for my ideas.) This week, I’ve found some great classics blogs, and I look forward to reading those too!

About My Reading

Maybe it’s okay to not be an eclectic reader. Over the past year, I’ve been trying to read a little bit of everything, trying to expand my reading to new genres. I’ve enjoyed that, but I’m realizing that it just makes me spread thin. I’m not focused at all. I’m realizing I’m not all that interested in reading YA literature, and even children’s literature is not a key desire (although, since my son is young, there will always be some). I’m eager to read some of the classics that have been calling my name.

I want to work on my personal goals and not join as many “challenges.” As fun as challenges are, I’ve gotten sidetracked from my personal projects, and I want to remedy that. Reading should be for me, and I should be reading the books that I feel like reading now, not ones I felt like reading six months ago when I joined a challenge.

I’m pretty happy where my blog is right now. But I feel like there’s always a need to refocus every now and then! Thanks to BBAW for helping me to do so.

BBAW has been so much fun this week, and I’ve probably added more than 30 new blogs to my reader. It’s helped me stop feeling self-conscious about being a book blogger and instead proud of the time I’ve put in. It’s helped me realize the ways want to focus my reading and blogging for the future.

Thank you so much for being a part of the book blogging community! I appreciate you – and I’m looking forward to another year of reading and blogging!

What have you enjoyed most about BBAW this year?