I became a book blogger just under a year ago and my reading habits have changed quite a bit. Today I want to tell you how.
Book blogging has given me an outlet to express my thoughts regarding my passion, books. I read many books for school and I was able to talk about them in the classroom, but I could never talk about my hobby reading. Now that I am out of college I do not have that platform anymore and so I decided to start this blog! It has made me so happy to be able to discuss and talk about books with you all here. So let me begin with how my habits have changed since then.
Reading-wise
I read a lot more now. It is not necessarily about the book quantity, but page wise I read more per day. This is because I have a schedule for book reviews. Normally I would read about a book per week, but now I read around two per week. You would think that a book schedule could take the fun out of reading, but for me, it’s a time I schedule into my day. I am able to pick what books I read and so having a schedule is not so stressful (unless I forget to do my reviews before I go on a vacation….but that has only happened once!)
If this is a problem, then I would recommend trying to read books out of your comfort zone. Pick up a new genre, or a new author, just something to excite you about reading again. But do not be afraid of taking breaks, from blogging or reading. Take care of your mental self. Breaks can re-energize you and really help bring back motivation and inspiration.
A great positive thing that has changed is that I read more different books now. Before I did not really YA books, for example. Not because I do not like them, but I did not know which ones. Now I read more YA and fantasy and am able to read more diverse reads. This is my favorite change since I began book blogging.
Other Habits
Another thing that has obviously changed is how much time it takes to write blog posts. I also spend more time on social media, instagram and twitter. Before I did not do much with either of those platforms, and now I spend a small chunk of my day on them. However, I limit myself to 20 mins on instagram because there’s so much content! I could be looking for hours.
If you find yourself spending too much time, try to set limits. I go onto instagram 10 mins in the morning and evening. I wish I could do more, but I do not want to become sucked in. I want to be able to have free time and space to be creative. This is necessary for me and my personal solution.
Let’s Discuss: how have your habits changed?
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The size of my personal library has increased drastically since I started book blogging. I get free books to review but I also buy way more books to keep up with the new releases whereas before I was content reading from the library and at whatever pace the library had new books available.
I totally agree about buying more books! It’s become very difficult :-/
This seems to be true for many of us—I read much more now that I’m a blogger, and I definitely read more diversely!
Yes the pressure to keep reading is high, at least I feel it!
I have read many books that I would not have discovered without other bloggers. To me that is one of the best parts! And I feel I tend to read more thoughtfully — I’m always thinking about how I could describe my reaction. Sometimes this is distracting and I have to turn off that part of my mind to just enjoy the book, but mostly I find it interesting and stimulating.
Blogger recommendations are the best for sure!