Armchair BEA: Blogging About Blogging

As with yesterday’s topic I am not sure I a qualified to blog about blogging but I will anyway . I thought I would use some of the questions from the Armchair BEA blog to get me started.

How do you utilize social networking in relation to your blog? What may be the pros and cons of doing so?

As I said in yesterday’s post I have been very bad of late at leaving comments on blogs and most of my contact with other book bloggers is through twitter so I would say that to me social networks is very important to me. I don’t use facebook for blogging because to me facebook is private. I mainly keep it to people I have met in real life and I have it locked down pretty tight (I don’t want my students finding me) but on twitter I don’t feel the same need for privacy.

For me the negative aspects of social networking sites is deciding which ones to be on. I have decided to, for blogging purposes to limit myself to twitter and my blog. I do have profiles on several other sites but I don’t maintain a communicative presence there. I just don’t have the time. With work, family, reading, the blog and other interests I just don’t have time to check them regularly and then I forget about them. It just isn’t worth the timesuck they represent.

What are your tips for balance life and blogging?

Oh I am so so so not the right person to ask this! I have not been able to maintain any sort of balance of late and the blog has definitely suffered for it. I am slowly starting to find what works for me right now and that is to schedule posts in advance. I usually set aside time on Saturday or Sunday and write a bunch of posts (this post is being written on Sunday and so far today this is my 12th post). The problem with this is the weekends when I am insanely busy or suffering from one of my all to frequent writers blocks. When that happens nothing gets written. There is also the fact that some posts take a lot of time to write. A typical review can take me most of the day to write because I tend to have to walk away from the text in order to remember everything I want to write about a particular book (most of the posts I have written today have been for the 30 day challenge).  If I am suffering from writers block I find that sometimes it helps to do blog maintenance such putting in the facts of future review books (title, publisher, book cover etc.) I think the most important thing is to find what works for you.

There are quite a few book blogging events out there. Which are your favourites and why? How do they affect your blog directly?

Well I obviously love Armchair BEA! I would love to one day go to the real BEA but since it always seems to be at the end of May I don’t think that will ever happen (as I work as a teacher it would be difficult for me to get time off this time of year with the school year wrapping up). I think it is a great idea to have an event that highlights and unites book bloggers.

In this vein I also love Book Blogger Appreciation Week (BBAW) as it also brings book bloggers together and highlights what I feel is excellence in blogging. I refocused my blog from a general knowledge seeking blog to a blog about books primarily due to what I saw in BBAW in 2009. I also like that it doesn’t just highlight different blogs but also the thing we blog ABOUT books.  It is an event I will always try to participate in (and I hope that in the future I can get some students involved in).

Banned Book Week is another event that is dear to my heart. I know it isn’t exclusively book blogging event but it is an event that many book bloggers promote and participate in. To me the banning of books is an abomination. Yes I understand that there are some books that should not necessarily be read by everyone, for example, all though I enjoyed the Twilight series, I have some reservations about recommending it to certain teenagers as I feel that it can promote an unhealthy view of relationships. If I ever have children of my own it is a book that I would discuss with them, but certainly not ban.

Last but certainly not least the bi-annual Bloggiesta hosted by Maw Books Blog. This event never fails to help me get organized. It is always filled with great blogging tips as well as a way of being kept accountable for blog housekeeping.

 

Copyright ©2011 Zee from Notes from the North. This post was originally posted by Zee from Notes from the North. It should not be reproduced without express written permission.