Welcome to my second ‘Meet The Blogger’ post! I hope you enjoyed yesterday’s blogger, Hannah! Today’s blogger is Jade from BookMuffin (www.bookmuffin.wordpress.com). I actually know Jade in real life, so I know she’d really appreciate it if you followed her blog! As the name suggests, BookMuffin is a book blog and so Jade reviews all kinds of fiction books and gives them a rating. She’s currently at University, studying graphics, but is hoping to get back into blogging more actively after she graduates. She also has an Etsy store, The Literacy Artisan, where she sells handmade bookmarks. However she is currently taking a break from this. I have previously done a review of one though, you can see it HERE. Anyway, without further ado, here is our interview:
Meet The Blogger
QUESTION ONE: What is your blog all about?
I blog all about books! My blog posts consists of book lists, reviews, and tag posts in which I can share my bookish life with my readers. Book to movie adaptation reviews also make an occasional appearance!
QUESTION TWO: Why did you start blogging?
About 4 years ago now I applied for a review copy of a new book release from Waterstones. It was a free book in exchange for an honest review. I read the book and wrote the review (don’t read it, my first review is awful!) and realised this is a thing that people actually do, write reviews and post them online, and get sent books by authors and publishers. So that’s when I decided to give it a go. It was so daunting at first because there a hundreds of amazing book blogs which I started reading, and I though wow, yeah this something I really want to do! It was a slow day at work, I didn’t have a lot to keep me going, so whenever I could, I would jump on to WordPress and carry on setting up my blog. It took a lot of time, I didn’t realise how much promotion and interaction would be involved, but it was amazing to be part of such a big, book-loving community, and to share my love of books with other people like me! I also built up a massive list of books I wanted to read (I now have about 400 books on this list, and it’s forever growing!) and discovered new and amazing authors, as well as building connections with publishers who send me books to read.
QUESTION THREE: What are your current blogging goals?
I’m in the final year of my degree at the moment, and I’m really busy, so my current goal is to just get one post out a week, just so my readers know I’m still here and haven’t disappeared off the face of the earth! I take part in a blog ‘meme’ called Top Ten Tuesday, which is where loads of book bloggers come together and make their own lists of different books under a new heading every week (for example, the latest topic was Top Ten Books To Read In Spring). The posts are really quick and easy for me to put together, so my aim is to get my list out every Tuesday!
QUESTION FOUR: What would you like to achieve from your blog in the future?
When I graduate, I want to start blogging properly again, with an actual blogging schedule, and proper discussion posts and reviews to get a bigger following and make my blog known a bit more to other people. I also gave up receiving books from publishers and authors, as I wasn’t getting any of my own reading done, so I’d really like to get back into that when I get the time! I don’t really blog for anything, apart from being able to connect with people in a community that is a big part of my life and that I’m proud to be part of.
QUESTION FIVE: What’s your number one blogging top tip?
There’s two main things I would say to someone who is just starting out blogging: having an amazing blog identity, and save template posts in your drafts. I like aesthetically pleasing blogs, with a nicely designed logo and an easy to navigate home page with a decent colour scheme. Honestly though, it’s so important your page is easy to read and look at in general, take the time to do some research and put a really nice theme together. There’s loads of free software available to use, and it doesn’t have to crazy complicated, just make it look nice (and if you’re really struggling, hi, I’m a graphic designer too, I can help you!)
Making templates of posts you know you frequently use will save you so much time! For example, I have my Top Ten Tuesday post all laid out, so all I need to do is duplicate the draft post and input everything. The post is already formatted, so it saves you time, as well as keeping a consistent formatting style across your blog. Just make sure you don’t overwrite your template otherwise you’ll have to make the whole thing again, and from experience, I can say it’s not fun!
I hope you enjoyed this interview! You can follow Jade on Twitter and Instagram @bookmuffin and you can also follow her blog on WordPress, I believe! Come back tomorrow to meet another amazing blogger!
Thank you for reading!
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