Barb Drozdowich - The Book Blogger Platform

Welcome to the third edition of The Book Blogger Platform. The main goal of this book is to serve as a primer for not only new Book Bloggers but also as a refresher for bloggers that have been blogging for a few years. There is a lack of this sort of information in the marketplace, and I wanted to fill that gap with this book. I so enjoy blogging, I want to share my information and help my fellow book bloggers.

The first edition of this book was chock-full of screenshots and instructions on how to do various technical things on blogs. What looks really good on a 27-inch desktop screen, is simply unreadable on an iPhone screen or even a 6-inch Kindle screen. So, I went back to the drawing board and decided to find a different way to create a primer than a whole bunch of screenshots. What Ive put together for this second edition is a series of YouTube videos that walk through the various problematic technical issues that we as book bloggers have to deal with. In addition to that, Ive created a technical section at the back of the book that adds to the information available on the YouTube videos. Finally, a detailed Glossary brings this information all together. All of that combined with pages and pages all about book blogging, I feel that this book is now the go-to resource for book blogging.

Welcome to The Book Blogger Platform. This book is aimed at all book bloggersthose just starting out, as well as bloggers who have gotten their feet wet and are settling into their hobby. I hope that this book can even serve as a refresher for those bloggers whove been around for a few years!

I'm Barb Drozdowich, and I blog at Sugarbeat's Books . I started my book blog in 2010 and quickly discovered that the world of book blogging is the world where I fit in. Everyone in this world loves books, loves to read, just like I do.

I am a lifelong, voracious reader who always has a book at my side. Im also one of those people who stays up late reading, well past bedtime, because I have gotten caught up in a magical world and cant bear to leave it.

Once my new blog was up and running, I started posting reviews of books I had readbooks from my shelves and books Id found at the library. I then ventured out, virtually, to find others like methose who wanted to express their love of books on their blogs. I also needed to find other blogs to read and learn from. And find them I did; they were everywhere! There were so many people who loved books every bit as much as I did. Over the past few years, I have met book lovers from all over the world. I have also found so many exciting authors and been truly overwhelmed with the sheer number of books to read.

Some time after I started blogging, the science grad in me came out, and I decided to do a survey of my fellow book bloggers. I wanted to learn more. I wanted to get their opinions on various topics.

I posted the survey on my blog and advertised it on Facebook and Twitter. To my amazement, I heard from 215 book bloggers.

Overall, did the answers surprise me? Not really. What I found was that bloggers were experiencing the same things in their interactions with authors as I was. What did amaze me was the variety of bloggers. There are book bloggers in many different countries. They span a wide range of ages and reading tastes. Some see themselves primarily as reviewers. Others see themselves as communicators, sharing information about books they have read or books that are available for readingbooks on sale or books newly released.

Book bloggers, after all, are individuals, and their blogs reflect this individualism.

The other main concern that came out of this survey is that there is a need for a basic primer on book blogging. Most of us start blogging without knowing what we are doing. My first blog was created by a student from the local university. He designed it, but I received no instruction whatsoever. I can remember the panicked feeling I had when I realized I was on my own to learn whatever I needed to learn.

Id like this book to serve as a primer, a basic guide, to the blogging platforms, to the types of posts that book bloggers commonly post, and to the other components of the book bloggers platform.

Book blogging is a relatively new hobby. It used to be that a website was something that a highly-trained professional created at a cost. I know the first website I contracted came at a high price! There have been huge advancements in computer software technology over the last decade, and with the advent of WordPress, Blogger, as well as the other low-cost or free platforms, a website/blog is either free or well within the means of the average person.

Blogs reflect the reading taste of their owners. Book blogs, like other blogs, can vary in focus. Many readers will read a wide variety of genres, and as a result, their blogs will feature posts on the genres they read. Some blogs, like mine, are narrower in focus. Since I read romance, the only books featured on my blog are romances of one description or another.

As you go through the various chapters of this book, we will discuss not only who book bloggers are, we will also cover an introduction to the technical aspects of blogging, the types of posts and interactions with authors, and lastly some of the social aspects of blogging. The Tech section at the back of the book is filled with tutorials and sources of information. There is also a fairly extensive Glossary at the end to help with some unfamiliar words. I hope you enjoy what I have to share.

Note: This book will cover book blogging using a website. The website aspect of blogging is the point that many find challenging and require help with. I do acknowledge folks who blog using various video platforms like YouTube or Facebook live as well as Instagrammers who blog on Instagram. These folks dont face as many technical issues as bloggers who use a website.

T he only thing that book bloggers all have in common is that we love books; we love books so much that we have created blogs to express our thoughts about our favorite reads. Book bloggers also have access to a computer. Other than that, we can be male or female (although in my surveys there were many more females than males), we can vary in age, be quite computer literate or be barely able to hold our own as far as technology is concerned. We may be teenagers, sharing our love of Young Adult (YA) as we conquer our high school classes. We may be moms spending our free time sharing our thoughts on our favorite books as an escape from the kids. We may be budding authors using a book blog as a way to experiment with our writing. A book blogger may be a parent/child duo, with the parent encouraging the child to read more. We may be newly retired, looking for a mental challenge and a way to share our lifelong love of books.