The Challenges Of Book Blogging & How To Conquer Them

Google keeps shoving its Gemini AI in my face, so I took the bait and asked Gemini for a blog post idea. The robot requested "The Challenges Of Book Blogging." I don't want to upset our robot overlords, but that idea kind of sucks. It sounds too whiny. I'm adding "And How To Conquer Them" to put a more optimistic spin on the robot's request.

I hope the robot forgives me and doesn't murder me in my sleep.

Okay. Why is book blogging hard? Let's talk about it.

😰  The Challenges Of Book Blogging

And How To Conquer Them  😔

1. Nobody cares about blogs

I started talking about books on the internet way back in 2005. I was still a teenager in high school! The internet was a very different place back then. Except for Myspace, social media didn't really exist. Blogs were queens and got all the attention from authors, publishers, and readers. It was a good time to be a blogger. The book blogging community felt huge and endlessly creative.

Then, things changed. First we had BookTube, then Bookstagram, then BookTok. Bloggers started getting a smaller and smaller slice of the attention. Now the slice is so small that I feel irrelevant.

I actually remember the first BookTube video I ever saw. I think it was in 2014. It was a teenage girl doing jumping jacks while literally screaming about books. I could barely understand her because she was shouting and struggling to breathe. The video had way more views than my blog posts had been getting. When I turned off the video, I felt confused and slightly devastated. I had zero interest in YouTube. If the internet wanted me to do jumping jack book reviews, I couldn't deliver.

Watching your work become irrelevant is difficult, but it's also freeing. If nobody is paying attention, then I don't have to be scared of judgment. I can be honest, and silly, and imperfect. I can blog for myself, not for the views or free products. That's what has kept me going for so long. I'm having fun.

2. Money? What money?

If you're starting a book blog to make money, then I'm here to crush your dreams. I've been blogging for a long time, and I've never earned enough money from blogging to quit my day job. Even when blogs were popular, I didn't earn enough to support myself.

A lot of bloggers earn money from affiliate links. The blogger earns a commission whenever you click a link on a blog and buy a product.

Here's some perspective on affiliate links and books. A paperback book on US Amazon usually costs around $10. Amazon pays 4.5% commission on the sale of physical books. That means I earn around 45 cents for each paperback book I sell. You have to sell a lot of books to support yourself.

Don't get into book blogging for the money. You'll quickly become frustrated. Do it because you love books and want to be part of the community. It's not about the money; it's about the friends you make along the way.

3. I want to read everything

Making money is hard, but spending money is not! Book blogging constantly introduces me to new books that I want to read right now. Learning to control my impulse buying was a challenge because I could easily spend an entire paycheck on pretty books.

Pinterest and the library have saved my bank account. Whenever I see a cool new book, I open my library's app and check if they have it. Sometimes they do, and I get to read the book right away. Yay! Usually, the library doesn't have it. Then I pin the cover to my "Books To Read" Pinterest board and wait. I wait weeks. Or years. If I'm still interested in the book, I'll buy it.

4. Comparison is the thief of joy

It's tempting and easy to compare your blog to other blogs. Don't do that. There will always be another blogger who is smarter, funnier, more successful, or more creative than you. Focus on developing your own skills. Don't worry about what other people are doing.

Blog posts are similar to social media posts. They're a carefully curated version of the blogger's life. You're probably not seeing the failures or the boring behind-the-scenes bits.

Don't compare your real life to anybody's online life. Everybody lies in public.

5. Nobody has time for that!

The most challenging part of blogging is finding the time to write posts. When I first started this blog, I posted something new pretty much every day. Then life happened. Now I struggle to write two posts a week.

I had to accept that blogging is a hobby. Sometimes I have time for it. Sometimes I don't. That's just the way life works.

6. We're experiencing technical difficulties

Finding time to blog is the most challenging challenge. Solving technical difficulties is the most frustrating challenge. I'm (obviously) not an expert on websites, and I've had several experiences with things going horribly wrong. I once changed the layout of the blog and broke the formatting of all 1,500+ posts. Changing the layout back didn't fix them! I'd have to fix them each individually. Yeah . . . that's not happening. They're staying broken.

Some technical difficulties are catastrophic. Most aren't. I've had good luck with Googling problems and teaching myself how to solve them. Technical difficulties are frustrating, but not insurmountable. You're probably not the first (or last) person to encounter a problem. Help is out there.

Do you have a blog? What's your biggest blogging challenge?