When I started blogging, all those years ago, I was a shy and introverted 21-year-old trying to kill some time living abroad. I never in my wildest dreams thought that what I thought was a little hobby would develop into something as exciting as it has. In the last three years, I have formed relationships with bloggers and authors alike, I have been nominated for prestigious blogging awards and I have worked with brands I never would have dreamed to have worked with. In spite of this, and my move over from writing exclusively about books to a more varied blog, full of travel and food, the Book Blogging community is something that I am honoured to be a part of and it has done amazing things for me as a person.
You make friends with people you
definitely wouldn’t otherwise.
One
of my favourite things about this amazing community is the most obvious things:
connecting with people all over the world and talking about something that we
all have in common with one another- books. Having the opportunity to share my
thoughts on something I’ve loved since I was a little girl makes me incredibly
happy and it’s nice to be able to get recommendations from other like minded
indiviudals.
It motivates me to read more often
and more varied books.
Being
surrounded by readers all the time definitely encourages me to read more.
Seeing everyone recommending fantastic books means that I feel more motivated
to get through my current read, so I can start reading the next!
I’ve befriended SO many of my favourite
authors.
Reading
and reviewing a book by one of your favourite authors is made even better when
they actually acknowledge, engage and form a friendship with you! I’ve
befriended quite a few different authors over the years and engage with them on
a regular basis. It’s nice to know that they appreciate your review and it’s
nice to be able to show my own appreciation on a public forum such as Twitter.
The (exciting) perk of getting
books prior to publication.
I’m
not going to lie: getting an advanced reader copy of a book makes me blissfully
happy. Having the opportunity to explore a book before everyone else does and
share my thoughts with the publishers is an absolute privilege and I feel very
lucky to be in the position that I’m in. It’s also really helped me
financially, as I’m able to put money aside to save knowing full well that I
have more than enough books on my shelves to get through the weeks and months.
Obviously, I still make the unnecessary book purchases, but I wouldn’t be a
book blogger if I didn’t!
What do you love about the Book Blogging community?
Let me know!
