Book Blogging For Beginners (10 Truths You Need To Hear Right Now)
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Book Blogging For Beginners (10 Truths You Need To Hear Right Now)
Have you always wanted to start a book blog but you’ve felt overwhelmed and never just got to it?
Well, here’s 10 truths on book blogging for beginners that you must know before starting your own book blog.
These 10 truths on book blogging will let you know if you’re ready to become a book blogger or not.
Disclaimer: This blog post may contain affiliate links that are of NO EXTRA COST to you. Thank you for supporting my blog and I hope this post has helped you in some way! 🙂
If you need more resources to kickstart your book blog, checkout the following resources that has gotten me to 50,000 readers a month:
- How To Start A Book Blog (and make money from it!)
- How To Create Content For Your Blog
- How To Write SEO Optimised Blog Posts (ranking on Google gives you thousands of readers every month. SEO is very important to become a successful blogger)
- Pinfluencer Academy (drive traffic to your blog from Pinterest – book blogging is an extremely low competition niche on Pinterest)
- Canva (blogging pictures and thousands of Pinterest templates)
10 Truths On Book Blogging For Beginners
1. Know Your ‘WHY’ When Starting A Book Blog
Many book bloggers quit book blogging shortly after they start having their own book blog.
The reason why most people quit is because they do not know their ‘why’.
Why are you starting this book blog? And is your ‘why’ strong enough?
It doesn’t matter if you want to start a book blog, you just have to always remember why you’re doing it whenever you feel like giving up on your blog.
Here are some reasons why readers start a book blog:
- They enjoy writing and want a platform to write longer book reviews.
- They want to start a book blog to make money online.
- They want to get free books from authors and publishers.
- They don’t want to show their face on video platforms like Youtube and Tiktok.
Read More: How To Know If Blogging Is Right For You? (10 Signs)
2. Your Blog Aesthetic Does Not Matter As Much
I see so many book bloggers trying to make their blog look pretty and aesthetic. Of course, there’s nothing wrong with that – feel free to express yourself creatively through your blog design.
However, here’s the TRUTH – a pretty theme won’t be of any use if your blog takes forever to load.
Do not overload your theme. Make sure your blog is user friendly.
Some of the most popular book blogs out there have very simple themes that are light-weight and fast to load.
Google also ranks blogs that are fast to load because they want their users to have access to information instantly.
Restored316 has some amazing themes that are aesthetically pleasing and they load pretty quickly. The one I’m using on my blog is called Sage.
Feel free to check out all their themes here!
3. Majority Of Your Traffic Is Not Directed From Social Media
When you start book blogging as a beginner, you’ll realise quickly that your blog has barely any visitors.
Even if you have thousands of followers on your bookstagram, booktok or booktube, they’re not going to be directing much traffic to your book blog.
Social media is not the best platform to get traffic to your blog – instead, try search engines like Google or Pinterest.
I have a little over 2000 followers on Instagram but get almost 50,000 visitors a month to my blog thanks to Google SEO and Pinterest.
If you want to learn how to SEO optimise your blogpost so you get thousands of visitors from Google, checkout these courses:
Another great way to get traffic would be Pinterest. With over millions of users – many bloggers have been getting hundred thousands of pageviews just from Pinterest.
Here are a few courses that has helped me out in my Pinterest journey:
Don’t have the funds to invest in a Pinterest course? Checkout this free masterclass – Skyrocket Your Pinterest Traffic.
4. Always Look At Other Book Bloggers For Inspiration
If you want to succeed at something, learn from people who are already successful doing it.
There’s not much information out there on book blogging for beginners. What you can do is look at some successful book bloggers to inspire you in your book blogging journey.
Here are some best book blogs (and also my personal favourites):
Take these book blog examples as an inspiration, do not plagiarise their work!
5. Book Blogging Can Make You Money (If You Strategize)
Did you know that you can start a book blog and earn money from it?
However, it’s not as simple as you think it is. To make money from your book blog, you first need a fair volume of traffic from either Google or Pinterest.
Once you have the traffic – now you can think of monetization strategies.
Here are a few ways you can make money from your book blog:
- Display Advertising (you can start earning right away with Ezoic ads on your blog)
- Affiliate Marketing (join Book Depository’s affiliate program here)
- Sponsored Posts (reach out to brands and authors)
- Digital Products (sell book templates, book spreadsheets, ebooks)
6. It’s Not Always About The Metrics
While making money from your book blog or getting a high number of visitors are instantly gratifying.
Think about the intangible aspects of book blogging – providing value to others, documenting your reading journey.
A tip that really helped me in creating content for my book blog and bookstagram is to “document, don’t create”. It makes content creation way easier.
If you’re having difficulties coming up with book blog post ideas, I came up with 70+ ideas you can use for your own book blog posts.
7. There Is No Correct Way To Review A Book
There’s honestly so many book review formats on the internet – there is no write or wrong ways to review a book.
My favourite way to review a book is to provide details about the book, a summary, why I liked reading the book and things that I disliked in reading the book.
You can check out my book reviews here.
8. Book Blogging Can Get Lonely
Book blogging can get lonely at times, especially in the beginning.
Unlike social media, there’s no direct way of communicating with your readers.
There’s a comment section on every post, but people rarely comment on posts these days.
However, it is rewarding to provide valuable information such as extensive book reviews – this is something you can’t really do on most social platforms because of word count limit/time limit.
If you’re someone who isn’t bothered by the lonely journey (especially at the start of your book blogging journey), then go ahead and start your book blog.
9. Book Blogging Teaches You Multiple Skills
Book blogging has taught me so many new skills.
These skills are something that I use to earn money out of my blog – such as having a fulltime job as a content writer and freelance writing clients on the side.
Some skills i’ve learned from book blogging:
- Writing Articles
- SEO optimization on page and off page
- Editing Articles
- Photography
- Photo Editing
- Project Management
- Pitching
- Email Marketing
10. Others May Not Understand You, And That’s Okay
Like almost everything you do in life, there will be people who support you and then there are people who don’t.
Book blogging can be one of those things. People who dislike you might think you’re showing off or are full of yourself – when really you’re just doing what you love.
If others don’t’t understand you – here’s your reminder that it is okay! Do what brings you joy.
I hope these 10 book blogging for beginners tips (or truths) have inspired you to start your own book blog.
Don’t hold back doing something you’re passionate about because of others or the fear of failure. As cliche as it sounds, you’ll never know unless you try.
