First of all, Happy New Year! I hope you can achieve all your goals and you can be an even better version of yourself this year!
When I first started blogging, I tried to post every day, and also every book I read, I reviewed. I guess a lot of people with this system do just fine. Unfortunately, soon I discovered posting every day wasn’t my thing. This was one of my first big blogging revelations. It took some more time for me to stop reviewing each books as I read it, but now, I’m glad I did it.
It placed stress on how fast I had to read
I don’t consider myself a slow reader, but sometimes, it does take me days to finish a book if it’s a physical copy. Teachers tend to notice you’re reading a big, gorgeous hardcover very easily. And when you’re reading an ebook, they just love to send tons of homework so that your reading doesn’t take priority.
But books don’t analyze themselves, which means reviews don’t write themselves. And seeing as the blog revolves mainly around books, a review a week was the minimum I’d set for myself. Not easy either if I took too much time reading a book.
I had to wait until I had reviewed the book to start a new one
Because I’m not perfect and sometimes I didn’t take notes about what I was reading, I couldn’t start a new book without reviewing the previous one first or I’d forget the details and end up with a really short review. WHICH WAS VERY FRUSTRATING. You know when you’re on a roll, and have several books lined up to read and can you imagine having to press [label type=”default”]pause[/label], in order to write a review. I DON’T POSSESS THAT LEVEL OF SELF CONTROL.
Or if I didn’t, I would have a lot of pending reviews
Given my above-mentioned condition, of course I read one book after the other and most of the time I don’t wait to review. Anddd that means a whole queue of pending reviews. Reviews about books I’d soon lose my interest in reviewing the more they piled up.
For this 3 main reasons now I feel free to decide which books I review, and which I don’t. My reviews are short by nature, and if I continued sometimes reviewing books I don’t feel up for reviewing, they’d end up being much shorter; but not because I’ve said all I wanted to say, but because I can’t think of anything else to say!
Field Work
I made a poll on twitter to see how people felt about reviewing each book they read. These are the results!
The options explained:
Option 1 -> Yes, I review each book I read and I love it!
Option 2 -> Yes, but it’s pretty hard to keep up.
Option 3 -> Nope, aaand I should.
Option 4 -> Nope! And I regret nothing!
Based on this, most of the ones that do review each book they read, feel quite great about it! YOU GO PEOPLE! And, the ones that don’t, they try to.
*Sorry! Not a very reliable number of people to make conclusions, but hey! I find this really interesting anyway 🙂
But what if the problem is simply that you are in a Reviewing Funk?
I’ve been there. In fact, I’m there like 99% of the time XD I like reviewing books, but man do I just want those reviews to write themselves and then still feel proud and happy afterwards!
Download a a free PDF with a list of 5 things you can do now to get excited about reviewing again!
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How do you feel about reviewing each book you read? Which of the poll options would you have chosen?
When I first started blogging, I didn’t have a specific schedule in mind, so I only posted reviews right after I finished the book and completed my review. I didn’t even think of scheduling them! However, these days I’ve stuck to one review a week, and I’m quite enjoying it. I do review every book I read from now on, because I just don’t have time to skip reviewing one book and risk not having any review to publish for a specific week. >.< It can be quite stressful at first, but then I discovered different kinds of book reviews and I'm having fun with trying them out when I don't feel like doing a classical book review for a book. 🙂
Great post, Pamela!
Mara @ Mara Was Here recently posted this awesome thing…5 Things My Family Often Tells Me (Because I’m A Bookworm)
Found your blog through the Feed Your Fiction Addiction discussion link up 🙂 I actually don’t bother with reviews at all anymore. With my old book blog I wrote reviews for every book I read and I also posted 7 days a week. What followed was major burn out and losing my joy for blogging and reading. I deleted my old blog and walked away for about a year. During that time off I spent time just reading, for the sake of reading. It was an amazing experience and I’m now back with a new bookish themed blog, but I’m doing things much differently this time, including no more reviews and only posting 2-3 times a week 🙂
Sara@LibraryHuntress recently posted this awesome thing…It’s Monday! What I’m Reading, Some Blogging Adjustments & A Family Situation
I don’t review every book I read, and I have no regrets. I don’t have time for that (I’d rather spend more time reading!) and also sometimes I just don’t have anything interesting to say. I don’t want to get bored of my own blog.
When I started my blog I also decided that I would only review books I could positively recommend. I’m not an official “review publication” so I don’t feel obligated to give my opinion about everything. I want to spend my limited time on books I love and want to share with my readers.
Lory @ Emerald City Book Review recently posted this awesome thing…Do you write reviews?
:3 That sounds like a good strategy! The common concensus seems to be that no matter what you do, you just have to make sure you enjoy it, and I 100% agree with that!
When I started blogging, I had this idea that I would review every book I read, and it never ended up happening. I read pretty fast, and since a lot of my reading is on Kindle or audiobook, it’s much easier for me to find time to read and review. I also don’t necessarily have a lot to say about every book I read. Sometimes it’s as simple as, “This was a really fun book!” or “I’m surprised this book didn’t bore me to death.” That said, there are still some books that I have A LOT to say about that I end up not reviewing because of lack of time or motivation or because I let it go too long and by the time I can finally write it, I don’t remember what happened well enough. One of my goals this year is trying to find a comfortable balance between “stop worry about being a *good* book blog and blog in a way that’s fun for you” and “get everything you want to do done” and so far I’m pretty happy with how it’s going.
Polina recently posted this awesome thing…Top Ten Tuesday: Top Ten 2015 Releases We Meant to Get To But Didn’t
First of all YOUR BLOG IS REALLY PRETTY *heart eyes* okay so about your wonderful post- I related hard core to all of this. I’m at the stage you were at right before you decided to not review everything. I do review everything, but it’s HARD. I just now wrote up the review for a book I read over a month ago. The thing that I find difficult with picking and choosing which books to review is- well, WHICH BOOKS DO I REVIEW? I have thoughts on all the books I read, and I want to share them. How do you balance that out?
SJ Bouquet recently posted this awesome thing…CONQUER THE GOODREADS CHALLENGE || A How To presented by a lazy person
Very interesting poll results. I’ve also given up on reviewing every single book I read. It takes away time that I could be reading!
C.J. @ ebookclassics recently posted this awesome thing…Book to Movie Challenge 2016 – Our First Winner!
I review everything I read since I started my blog, and so far this is working for me. However, as you said, sometimes I put off reading a new book in fear that I’d forget details about the one I finished but haven’t written a review for, which could be annoying! Perhaps when the semester starts next year I’ll cut back and only review about 80% of the books I read instead. 🙂 Thank you for sharing this discussion – this is giving me something to consider about my blogging habits!
Cilla recently posted this awesome thing…Book Talk: What Makes A Great Retelling?
And that’s the point 🙂 I’m glad it was useful for you, and good luck!
I pretty much review every book I read because I review makes that read feel … complete. The only books I don’t review are a few that I read for my homeschooling or for Bible studies (and that’s just because those just don’t fit in with my blog for the most part). Sometimes I do mini reviews for books I don’t have as much to say about, and that seems to work well for me. But I think everyone needs to just have their system and handle their reviews the way THEY want to. If you don’t want to review them all, that’s you – and that’s totally fine!!
Nicole @ Feed Your Fiction Addiction recently posted this awesome thing…The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch – Readalong Review
When I started my blog, I never intended to review every book, so I regret nothing! Lol. But I think it all depends on what each blogger’s personal reasons for reviewing are, because my reason is that I think good books deserve to be known and read, and good writers deserve to have those books read. So I mostly review books I really like or that have certain good things I want to talk about even if I didn’t love them. If I dislike a book, I just don’t feel a need to review it, so it doesn’t bother me to not to. So I say if you’re happy not reviewing every book and it fits with whatever reason you started in the first place, then you’ve made the right choice 🙂
Kristen @ Metaphors and Moonlight recently posted this awesome thing…Discussion: What Do You Listen To While Reading, Writing, and Blogging?
Yay! Regret nothing! That’s a good approach! I feel almost guilty I take a secret pleasure in writing negative reviews (only the ones that enraged me for some reason tho), but that means your blog is full of positivity and book love! :3
I do not review every book I read too especially if it is released a year ago or so. 🙂
Yani recently posted this awesome thing…Review: Every Ugly Word by Aimee L. Salter
Happy New Year! I totally get what you mean! At first, I reviewed every book I read but I did find it super time-consuming and stressful. Now, I mostly just post reviews on ARCs or other books for review and controversial/ hyped up books. I actually like this better because those reviews get way more views than, say, a back-listed book. Sometimes, though, I like to throw in mini-reviews. One of my goals this year is to actually read and review 52 books!
Yeah, I think most of us use that method. At least the ones who focus on the more trending books, use mini reviews to give some space to the others. And yay! I hope you even go over your goal!
Since I started blogging, I began reviewing all the books I read. I make sure to post it on Good Reads or Amazon, and sometimes I also post a longer review on my blog. I began reviewing more consistently since authors stressed the importance of reviews for promotion and building a book presence. So I think I basically do it as a way of helping out authors to get more attention and feedback, though I understand what you said about the list of reviews to do getting too long XD
That’s great! I wish I was better at keeping up to date the reviews at GR D: Yikes, I haven’t crossposted in a while! I like to think about reviews the same way as well! Not only as means to connect with people may like, or like certain books, but also to help authors themselves 🙂
Pamela Nicole recently posted this awesome thing…Review: These Vicious Masks | Everything They Say is True!
What’s strange for me is… if I didn’t have to review books, I probably wouldn’t be reading them again. My life kind of took over my reading, and while I probably would’ve picked up a book here and there–I probably wouldn’t be reading them. I didn’t really have a lot of friends who read books and so the option of nerding out with friends was out. I didn’t really have the time either so… book reviewing kind of saved my reading. So I review every book I read.
HOWEVER, I do know where you’re coming from when you talked about feeling pressured. I felt that recently when I had to post my review of Heir of Fire. I was like, “Oh my god it’s Saturday and I’m not even halfway done!” So I pretty much sped through that book so that I can have a review up. It was actually kind of stressful, haha. I read and read until my eyes hurt and I had to turn on the lights so that I wouldn’t be looking at a bright screen in the dark.
I think everyone has their own method and whatever works for them, works. What am I to say?
Alexa @ Words Off the Page recently posted this awesome thing…Review: Heir of Fire
Of course! Reviewing each book we read may not work for some people, but I think it’s pretty awesome that you do and enjoy it most of the time! It’s great to see a different perspective!
I used to try and review every book, but like you I would just end up with so many pending reviews so I gave up. Now I try to review at least one book out of three I read (:
Ana @ Ana Loves recently posted this awesome thing…Ana Talks: The Best Year of My Life
I do review the majority of books that I read. I wrote a discussion post recently about why I review books. It’s more than just so I have a blog post. If I read 50 books in a year, and don’t do reviews, I find I have trouble remembering the book, what happened, characters etc. In school I’d forget what we read in textbooks unless I took notes, so I find it similair to that. Also, by reviewing books it gives me a chance to really figure out what I thought about it and to work on my writing skills. I read 50 a year, so I imagine if I read 100 a year, it would be impossible to review them all.
Yes, I guess that at some point, if you read a ton of books reviewing each of them would become a problem!
I started out blogging trying to review every single book I read but it was a huge pain in the ass, tbh. The biggest problem for me was that I just didn’t have a lot to say about some books, and/or just wasn’t feeling like writing about them because they were completely neutral to me. Now that I have a co-blogger I have to review even less which I LOVE because I can finally only review the books that I do have something coherent to say about. I’m planning on creating a monthly feature on my blog that’d contain mini-reviews, though, just to state why I rated that way a novel. I’m very lazy, so I’m not sure this will ever happen lol.
Great post! 🙂
Veronika recently posted this awesome thing…Our 2016 Challenges
LAZY PEOPLE ROCK. It’s good you got a co-blogger to help you out! That sounds like a fun, and very useful solution to reduce stress!
I started my blog with the hope of reviewing every book I read because I hoped it would make it easier for me to remember the books I had been reading.
That never happened. It started out that way all right, but I gave up fairly quickly as classes continued and I got a little overwhelmed, or I would read a book and not be sure what exactly I wanted to say about it. Now, I review the books that I have to and the ones that I want to, which leaves me room to post other things (like my favorite: discussion posts) without being too stressed out!
Blaise recently posted this awesome thing…Quarterly Goals #2: January, February, and March 2016
Same here! I’m glad you’re not overwhelmed by reviews anymore! It’s best to enjoy what you do 😀
I’d love to write about every book I read, but you’re right, it just adds so much pressure! Sometimes even when I LOVE the book, I’m not sure exactly how to go about reviewing it and I end up just not… but I’m going to try to be better at reviewing at least *most* of them!
Emma recently posted this awesome thing…Should any topics be off-limits for children’s books?
I HAVE THE SAME PROBLEM! Sometimes it’s especially those books I absolutely adore that are the most challenging, since I’m so blinded by love, I can’t find any faults and I don’t have the ability to make my gushing about a book be fun. I’ll try to work on that too!
I do not review all of the books that I read, and I honestly do not feel bad about it. I blog for fun and to share my thoughts about books. Sometimes I do not have that many thoughts on a book, and it is not fun to sit at my computer and struggle to make words suddenly appear on the screen. So, I just do not write a review about it. I agree with you wholeheartedly–reviewing every book is not worth the stress. I would rather write less reviews, but have them be more thoughtful and fun than forced myself to write a short, drab review. I still try to write a mini-review for most books, just to simply state whether or not I liked it, but I do not believe that full-blown reviews are necessary for every book that I read.
Tessa recently posted this awesome thing…Looking Forward and Looking Back 2015
I don’t think I’ve done mini-reviews before (on purpose), but I’m trying to find new ways to feature the books I won’t review. There are some that I’ve greatly enjoyed but, like you say, I don’t have anything thoughtful to say about them :/
I review a majority of the books I read, but there has been a few since I’ve started blogging that I just haven’t felt as if I have enough to say about to write a review, so I haven’t bothered. I only post a review every couple of weeks anyway (I don’t really enjoy writing reviews to be honest, not in comparison to writing other posts), and I tend to read at least a book a week, so a few haven’t been reviewed at all.
Laura recently posted this awesome thing…My Top 6 TV Shows
There have been some books that I have been really excited about reviewing, but for the most part, I agree that reviews can be a pain to write. Some reviews of mine are really short because I did use to review everything, but just recently I’ve started letting go of that.