The Book Cove's 1 Year Blogiversary! (Day 8: Thoughts of a naive blogger)
Our 1 Year Blogiversary is quickly approaching (June 10th)! How time flies! To celebrate, we are having a 10 day series of special blogiversary and blog appreciation posts! (Enough exclamation points?)
Day 8: Thoughts of a naive blogger
It all starts with "I'll just write out my ideas so that they're there for whomever wants them and then call it a day." It ends with...well...it never ends.
One day I got fed up with too many purposeless reviews and decided that I wanted to start writing my thoughts on a book. I was already familiar with Google tech so to keep it simple I joined Blogger. Within an hour I had my first post published. Then I waited a couple of minutes. Any takers? 1...2...3...that's it 3 people and no comments? I can do better than that!
*Waits a couple of days*
20 people? That's it?! No way! But my reviews are so good! (I'm really not that full of myself, but let's be honest, we've all been here.)
Maybe it's my layout.
*spends all night excitedly working on "web techy" stuff"*
And so it started...
I've alluded to my blogging and coding history randomly in past posts and comments. In high school I learned a little about HTML. Basically what it was and the basic working commands. Every now and then whoever was in charge of updating the school clubs' pages would ask me a question and we'd figure out how to manage the web pages through trial and error. That carried over into college, except with less frequency. So when I just decided to start a blog of my own a year ago it was an interesting learning curve! I'm someone who likes to just mess around with stuff though so I thought it was fun spending 8 hours at a time trying to figure out how to make a box in the exact right spot and right color that I wanted it. Okay, maybe not a ton of LOL fun but I felt pretty good when I figured it out!
It started out with fairly simple stuff like learning how to change fonts, sizes, and backgrounds. I was content with that for a little while and then I wanted to do more...like complete redesign of a site more. Who woulda thought that that can take up an entire work weeks worth of hours?!
That was a common theme for me starting out (and still is). I'd read a book and write a post. Then fiddle with the post. Then want to add cool clickable pictures to the post. And hour by hour would be chipped off the clock. Then after a while I'd decide that social media would be a good way to spread the word on my glorious readings. Just a twitter. I mean a twitter and a Facebook. I mean a twitter, a Facebook, a tumblr, a pinterest, and a Goodreads account.
Then there comes the idea of, hey let's take promotional requests! Then came the blog tours, cover reveals, book blitzes, interviews...which don't get me wrong, I love doing those, but I was mysteriously running out of time in the day and I couldn't figure out where the heck it was going!
Finally I discovered popular blogger memes and challenges. These provided me with more blogging ideas, never ending TBR lists, and a fun group of people to cyberhang with weekly. Which is great when you have a demanding job that takes away from your "normal people" socializing time and leaves you up at 2AM on a computer.
And that is how it happened. What started out as a simple blog post about my thoughts on a book turned into hours of "techy stuff", networking, emailing, and promoting. It all escalated pretty quickly! And it was all because of my visitor inferiority complex. For whatever reason I naively thought that because there are millions of people online that they would all find their way to my page in the matter of hours. And when that didn't happen I figured I'd find a way to make it happen haha! That was the day that blogging started to take over my days. Not in a bad way though. I enjoy writing and socializing, so it's really a pretty sweet gig for me! I'm actually quite surprised that I've not only kept it up this long, but I've been able to get in at minimum weekly posts the entire time. Not too bad for a first timer!
-----------------------------------------------------
How about you? When you first started did you dive into the blogesphere and get caught up in it all?
----------------------------------------------------
One day I got fed up with too many purposeless reviews and decided that I wanted to start writing my thoughts on a book. I was already familiar with Google tech so to keep it simple I joined Blogger. Within an hour I had my first post published. Then I waited a couple of minutes. Any takers? 1...2...3...that's it 3 people and no comments? I can do better than that!
*Waits a couple of days*
20 people? That's it?! No way! But my reviews are so good! (I'm really not that full of myself, but let's be honest, we've all been here.)
Maybe it's my layout.
*spends all night excitedly working on "web techy" stuff"*
And so it started...
I've alluded to my blogging and coding history randomly in past posts and comments. In high school I learned a little about HTML. Basically what it was and the basic working commands. Every now and then whoever was in charge of updating the school clubs' pages would ask me a question and we'd figure out how to manage the web pages through trial and error. That carried over into college, except with less frequency. So when I just decided to start a blog of my own a year ago it was an interesting learning curve! I'm someone who likes to just mess around with stuff though so I thought it was fun spending 8 hours at a time trying to figure out how to make a box in the exact right spot and right color that I wanted it. Okay, maybe not a ton of LOL fun but I felt pretty good when I figured it out!
It started out with fairly simple stuff like learning how to change fonts, sizes, and backgrounds. I was content with that for a little while and then I wanted to do more...like complete redesign of a site more. Who woulda thought that that can take up an entire work weeks worth of hours?!
That was a common theme for me starting out (and still is). I'd read a book and write a post. Then fiddle with the post. Then want to add cool clickable pictures to the post. And hour by hour would be chipped off the clock. Then after a while I'd decide that social media would be a good way to spread the word on my glorious readings. Just a twitter. I mean a twitter and a Facebook. I mean a twitter, a Facebook, a tumblr, a pinterest, and a Goodreads account.
Then there comes the idea of, hey let's take promotional requests! Then came the blog tours, cover reveals, book blitzes, interviews...which don't get me wrong, I love doing those, but I was mysteriously running out of time in the day and I couldn't figure out where the heck it was going!
Finally I discovered popular blogger memes and challenges. These provided me with more blogging ideas, never ending TBR lists, and a fun group of people to cyberhang with weekly. Which is great when you have a demanding job that takes away from your "normal people" socializing time and leaves you up at 2AM on a computer.
And that is how it happened. What started out as a simple blog post about my thoughts on a book turned into hours of "techy stuff", networking, emailing, and promoting. It all escalated pretty quickly! And it was all because of my visitor inferiority complex. For whatever reason I naively thought that because there are millions of people online that they would all find their way to my page in the matter of hours. And when that didn't happen I figured I'd find a way to make it happen haha! That was the day that blogging started to take over my days. Not in a bad way though. I enjoy writing and socializing, so it's really a pretty sweet gig for me! I'm actually quite surprised that I've not only kept it up this long, but I've been able to get in at minimum weekly posts the entire time. Not too bad for a first timer!
-----------------------------------------------------
How about you? When you first started did you dive into the blogesphere and get caught up in it all?
----------------------------------------------------
Blogiversary Posting Schedule
*note that future dates' posts will not have a working link until that day*
Day 1: 5 Blogging Facts (June 1st)
Day 2: The Book Cove's Top Posts(June 2nd)
Day 3: The Book Cove's Top Contributors (June 3rd)
Day 4: The Book Cove's Top Followers (June 4th)
Day 5: A bit of a biography (June 5th)
Day 6: 2nd Year Goals (June 6th)
Day 7: Our Favorite Blogs (June 7th)
Day 8: Thoughts of a naive blogger (June 8th)
Day 9: Most recent book purchases (June 9th)
Day 10: Giveaway! (June 10th)
Day 2: The Book Cove's Top Posts(June 2nd)
Day 3: The Book Cove's Top Contributors (June 3rd)
Day 4: The Book Cove's Top Followers (June 4th)
Day 5: A bit of a biography (June 5th)
Day 6: 2nd Year Goals (June 6th)
Day 7: Our Favorite Blogs (June 7th)
Day 8: Thoughts of a naive blogger (June 8th)
Day 9: Most recent book purchases (June 9th)
Day 10: Giveaway! (June 10th)
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