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| Time for an update! |
Hi everyone! Sorry I haven't posted a review this weekend, been a bit more flakey than I anticipated (I'm blaming Thursday's migraine, although my body just likes throwing a tantrum). It's probably no bad thing it's happened this way, as it's cemented something I've been thinking a lot about lately. That thing is called reviews.
I love reviewing. I love discovering new authors, getting reacquainted with familiar ones through the books I'm given to review from publishers. I love getting to know publicists - I'm becoming fairly good friends with a few of them who support me through everything. Most importantly of all I get to share my thoughts and feelings with all of you, something which I will never stop doing.
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| Books are awesome! |
Can you tell there's a 'but' coming? I am shortly changing my review policy. I wasn't going to make it public, but recently I've set a permanent out of office reply on my emails, the account I use mostly for reviews. Some of you may have seen it already, the gist of it is while I try to reply within 48 hours, it may be a longer wait since my health is so unpredictable. It seems to be super unpredictable this year. I frequently can't read when I'm super flakey - for those of you who watch/know of PriPara I'm definitely Sophie in fancy mode with her pushuuus!
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| Sophie crashing hard after a performance. |
Not reading means that my review books back up a little, which adds pressure on me to be well enough to read and review them, especially if I'm doing tour dates. So after a lot of thinking and chatting with other bloggers and writers, I've made a decision.
From October 1st 2016 I will be reviewing 1 book a week, more or less. That's one shiny new book which I get from a publisher. Just one.
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| I'm going to be a 1 book a week blogger! |
It may be that I review 2 in a week, if I really love the look of a book, but primarily just one. I've been book blogging since 2009, a total of 7 years. I'm in a position I dreamed of when I started blogging, being able to request books I love and getting them from a lot of publishers often if I ask for them, and I'm frequently alerted by the publicists who know what I like to read of a fun book they're promoting soon, all because of the effort I put into this blog. I'm not being big headed by saying that either. I'm predominantly a regular book reviewer so am reliable for publishers and authors alike. I may not get many comments, or have a huge following, but I do my best to offer quality reviews.
When I'm flakey I mostly watch anime and play video games when I've got the brain power. Lately I really want to review some of those games and anime because I love them so much, and reviewing less newly published books will mean I can do that.
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| Often I want to read but don't have the energy. |
Also, I have a lot of books in my personal collection that I want to read. I love reading reviewing books, but equally lately I want to reread those in my own library. I currently can't easily do that because when I am up for reading I've got review books to read. Reducing my review books to just 1 a week will take the imaginary pressure off me, leave more time to share what I'm doing (gaming & anime watching) with you, as they are just as interesting and fun as books are, especially since there seem to be so few people blogging about playing with Japanese games, at least the ones I play.
Just because I'm looking to review 1 book a week doesn't mean there will only be 1 post a week here. There will be several! On not so good weeks it's probably just going to be links to my other blog, Nayu's Crochet Dreams, or cute pictures, but on good weeks it will be anime reviews and game reviews, with some 'human drama' shows thrown into the mix.
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| I've said it! |
I was feeling a bit nervous about this decision, which is why I wasn't going to say anything to you. The last few weeks I've honestly said yes to less review books (although September has turned out quite busy...), and knowing I've got less has made a huge difference. Tomorrow (I'm too flakey to do much blogging today), I'm going to put up a notice on the side menu saying I'm not accepting any reviews until late September (I will give a date) so I can catch up with the books I've got. Writing reviews isn't a quick scribble of my thoughts. That's the easy part. I have to look the book up, add the cover image, find it on the publisher's site, add it to Twitter and Facebook. It's more work than non-bloggers realise, but other bloggers will understand the effort that's needed, which lately I simply haven't had.
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| I forgot I use Pinterest too, so that's 3 social media accounts to keep updated. |
I am signing up to Hootsuite so I can get social media notices pre-scheduled/automatically sent out for me, which will also take some pressure off. Posts go up, but sometimes I'm not up for spending 10-20mins composing a tweet with the link to the review, and Hootsuite looks like it can help me with that.
I flatly refuse to give up blogging, both book reviews and general blogging - I love it too much! The new 1 book a week policy will be on a first come first served basis: so if I get a request one day which I schedule for the 2nd week in November, and the next day an absolutely amazing book request gets sent through also for 2nd week in November (I really will be allocating slots to books), then I'll say it has to go in the 3rd week (unless it is super duper special (ie by a favourite author).
I hope this all makes sense, and you understand why these changes have to take place. The email auto-reply saves me having to say sorry for replying late due to my health. Emails take energy too, and I have precious little of it as part of my health condition. Apologies if you email me frequently and keep getting the email, it's one of those things :)
I'm looking forward to sharing some of my favourite reads with you, and yabbering on about anime and games! I hope you'll all continue to read my blog. Please don't be put off sending your book requests to me, I will still say yes to a lot, it's more the timing of the reviews will be changed.
Have a happy rest of the day!
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| This is what I'm doing! |
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