I’ve mentioned here before that this is not my first go-around with blogging, even though this is a new blog. Before blogging at A Word and a Whisper, I blogged for about 6 years, experimenting on different platforms, but mostly on a WordPress blog you probably haven’t heard of, because I started out as and remained a teeny-tiny blogger for my entire blogging career. I learned a lot through my old, now no-longer-existent blogs about what I like and don’t like and what works and what doesn’t work in blogging for me. I’ve already noticed some things I’ve been doing differently this time around the blogging bend, and wanted to reflect and share some of them today:

• Blogging about what I want. This probably seems like a given and a little silly, but I am much better at writing posts about things I enjoy posting about now. I don’t feel as obligated to consistently do weekly meme posts, which I do enjoy, but sometimes I don’t want to do the topic or something and now I don’t feel like I have to do them which is nice. I am also simply much more in tune with what I want to post and don’t try to follow what other bloggers are writing about as much.
• Not writing reviews. I do love talking about books and recommending books, obviously, but I don’t think of A Word and a Whisper as primarily a review blog, as I used to with my former blogs. I write a lot more bookish discussion posts and casual book recommendation posts that I enjoy more. I do have a couple review-esque posts coming up, but they’re not traditional essay-long reviews that I used to feel like I have to write. I still write about books of course, since this is a book blog primarily, just in different ways that I enjoy more.
• Engaging with the community more. Something that I always felt was totally missing from my previous blogging experience was actually feeling like a part of the bookish community. I always felt that nobody would notice if I stopped blogging because I got so few comments, likes, and didn’t really talk to people online because I was so shy and didn’t think my opinions really mattered or that people would want to talk to me. Since starting this blog, I’ve made an active effort to comment on other blogs, respond to my own comments, and comment back. I think that has already made a difference in how I feel about blogging in terms of validation and also I think I’m already making a tiny footprint impact on the community.
• Following the right bloggers. There is obviously no “right” way to blog or really “right” bloggers to follow, but I feel that I am now following and interacting with bloggers who are more similar to me in personality and in how they view blogging than when I started. I think when I first started, there were few book blogs and a more “big” or “celebrity” bloggers, who I did like, but also made me feel too intimidated by to talk to since they were so popular. I think blogging in general is a lot less serious and drama-fueled than in the past, people are friendlier and want to engage more, and I’ve found bloggers who care about issues I care about in the book world, which makes me feel like I’m on their level even though I’m new versus feeling like I’ll never reach their level of fame.
• Not trying to be like everybody else. This, I think, goes along with writing what I want to write about. In the beginning, I was just so enamored with the concept of book blogging that I wanted to emulate the style and topics of posts that other book bloggers wrote. However, I eventually grew frustrated by this because I felt like I was doing all the “right” things, but not getting anywhere in terms of “success” or in the community. In retrospect, a lot of the blogs that used to exist did sound kind of the same; people even wrote about the same books a lot of the time. It seems to me that bloggers now are much more interested in being individuals and not doing the same-old, same-old in terms of blogging.

Mostly, I think what’s different about my blogging experience this time around is that I’m doing my best to do what I always wanted to do when I used to blog. I’m trying to be braver and less shy online and actually talk to people, which is helping me enjoy the day-to-day of blogging a lot more. I’m putting less pressure on myself to do what everyone else is doing and on blogging a certain way. In general, I’m simply trying to make blogging more fun and use it as an outlet as opposed to making it something I feel obligated to do.

Social media is a huge part of our world, and a huge part of book promotion and talking about books today. There are now so many apps, websites, and other means to talk about books through social media, and sometimes, it can be hard to find one that fits you, what promotes your ideas the best, or what you are good at. I’ve done some experimenting on a variety of social media platforms since I began talking about books publicly over five years ago, and today, I want to talk about my experiences with the ones I’ve tried.

the twitters

I am so, so bad at Twitter. I honestly just don’t understand how to write engaging Tweets or Tweet to other people or anything about Twitter. I don’t really get the point of it? And I like writing long things. Plus, even though I have 600+ followers, whenever I tweet something original, I never get responses, so I simply don’t see the point of it. Some people are really good at Twitter, like Cait from Paper Fury and author Justina Ireland, but I don’t think I personally have enough skill or online charisma to do Twitter right.

Also, Twitter is honestly such a garbage fire most of the time in terms of drama that I can’t deal with. I don’t think I’d do that well with trolls because of my anxiety, and I’m not not-shy enough to really challenge people directly on Twitter when I disagree with them or want to call out something problematic, even though doing that is important to me.

In general, Twitter feels too direct for me and since I’m already kind of shy online, it’s not for me.

bookstagram

I love looking at other bookstagramer’s posts and Insta has become one of my favorite social media things to browse. I recently started experimenting with my own bookstagram account (@awordandawhisper), because I’ve been wanting to try out a new creative hobby. However, I’ve been realizing that I need some more tools to make my account look more professional and achieve an “aesthetic.” I don’t quite understand the whole business of choosing and finding an “aesthetic,” because my creativity is so mood-based, but I’d certainly like to try.

It’s also tough because I had to leave so many of my physical books at home when I moved because I just couldn’t take all of them with me, so now I have fewer physical books to work with. I already feel like I’ve been using too many of the same titles and worry about running out of books to use. However, I have been getting more current ARCs since becoming a librarian, so that is a plus in terms of bookstagram content.

Another thing I struggle with on Instagram is captioning the photos. I want to be cute and clever like other bookstagramers I follow, but I feel so constrained by the tiny amount of words that show up, and I know I personally don’t read captions on Instagram, so I have a hard time truly caring enough to work on that aspect of booksta.

blogs

Obviously, this is my true bookish promotion passion. I just prefer having a lot of space to write and being able to write in a variety of formats. I don’t like being stuck with only one thing. I think I’ve grown a lot as a blogger over the past 5-6 years, and I like where I’m going using blogging as a platform. Sometimes I wonder about the relevance of blogging when compared to the other platforms on this list, but I like it and enjoy it, so I’m trying not to let that get to me too much. The other social media platforms are ones I’ve mostly used to promote blogging versus using them as my only book-talking medium. I’d like to get better at the other ones, but it’s hard to get really good at them when I’m doing so many at one time. In the long run, I think it’s best for me to stick with 1-2 that I love doing and that I’m good at.

booktube

I think booktubers are really the people who have the type of followings that book bloggers used to have now. Personally though, I don’t like watching videos because I like reading blog posts at my own pace, and if they talk about a book I’m not interested in hearing about, I can skip over it in a blog post versus a video. Plus, I feel like there are SO MANY booktubers who just annoy the heck out of me. If I don’t like your voice or if you’re overly enthusiastic and excited, it turns me off and I’m not going to want to listen to you all the time.

I tried booktube a couple times, but I have ZERO video recording or editing skills, and I hate how I look on camera. I also LOVE writing, and am just not as interested in video recording, so there’s really no point to me attempting booktube again.

Which other social media platforms have you tried using to talk about books? What do you think about book blogging’s place in book social media? Do you have any Instagram resources or tips that could help me?