Believe it or not, blogging isn’t exactly easy. It can be exhausting, it can be stressful. It’s you trying to deliver quality work with enough creativity to make it stand out from all the thousands of book blogs out there. It’s hard, honestly, because it’s like everything is already said. Everything’s already done, and you need to wrack your brain extra-hard to find something new. It’s easier for some than others, but that doesn’t mean it’s a nice walk in the park. Blogging is a labour of love -- and it's got a couple of myths that needs dispelling.
It’s the easy way to get ARCs
Stop.Stop.
If you got into the blogging scene because you want an easy, lightweight way of acquiring ARCs (otherwise known as an Advanced Reader Copy), you’re in for a rude awakening. Because here’s the thing: ARCs aren’t that easy to get.
To start with, ARCs are marketing tools. For marketing. Naturally, publishers will gravitate towards the bigger blogs with bigger followings and an overall larger pull in the community. Of course, to get a respectable amount of real followers (so basically not the ones gained from ‘follow for follow’ or spam accounts) there’s quite a bit of work involved. It could take anywhere from months to a year to garner enough followers so publishers will think of sending ARCs to you, effectively making ARCs still a bit harder to get.
Follower numbers determine your success
Okay, fine. Maybe they play a part in it, but I’m part of the group that doesn’t believe followers make the blogger. At least, not entirely.It’s not a simple case of comparing two blogs by their follower count and deeming one better than the other. ‘Success’ is a definition that varies wildly from person to person. Maybe the owner of this blog wants to be an edgy, obscure/underground-type blog. That would mean being a famous, front-and-centre blog wouldn’t be their goal and thus not really count as a ‘success’ to them.
Take numbers with a grain of salt - being top-end blogs with millions of followers is the be-all, end-all. If you’re happy where your blog is at, I think that counts as good of a success as any.
If you keep on writing, your readers will come to you
Okay, I’ll admit, I believed this one.
“Just write whatever you want,” they said. “People who like what you write will come,” they assured.
LIES.
Well, sort of.
“Write whatever you write” - true.
“People who like what you write will come.” - not so true.
Sure, people will come within time, but that’s typically because they hear about this blog that seems just right for them. How do people discuss your blog? By actually knowing about it. And how do people know about your blog? Definitely not by sitting there, posting your schedule yet ignoring the promotional aspect of running a blog.
You got to promote and spread the word. Then, when you have enough people to buzz about your blog, will the followers come rolling in.
