Armchair BEA | Day 2 – Blogger Development

Today’s topic is about blogger development. 

This is a fairly hard topic for me to speak about – in the sense that I’m quite unsure of what I should talk about in terms of my own blogger development. Despite blogging for over seven years (and book blogging for nearly six months), I’m still learning.

Here is a bullet point list of my own blogger development.

• Blog layout + design 
  • I am guilty of judging blogs by its layout/design. Looking at other blogs and seeing their layout and design makes me feel envious. I don’t have the talent or the money to create a wonderful layout and graphics. I don’t know anything about graphic design or CSS code. However, despite these “disadvantages,” I used whatever is available to me. For instance, with layout, since my blog isn’t being hosted, I cannot create a layout of my own even if I wanted to. I chose this particular layout (you see right now) out of all the choices that WordPress supplies because I knew I wanted something extremely simple and something that wasn’t going to be an eyesore. And I knew I wanted space for my blog header. That is what this layout provided for me. Yes, it sucks I can’t change the actual coding, but I have to make due.
  • Graphic design-wise is a somewhat harder for me. I don’t have Photoshop or Illustrator, but there are similar (but free) programs that serve the same purpose. My header and all the text pictures I create in Inkscape (which is really awesome). Text pictures are the only thing I can do right now. Lol. I would love for a hermit to be in my header, but I know it doesn’t really change the content of my blog. I just want one. ;D
• Social networking (Twitter + Facebook)
  • I’m rather horrible at maintaining my Twitter and Facebook account. I  admit it. I only tweet and post on Facebook when I have an update (but I don’t feel like those are reaching my audience). I want to interact with other bloggers, but I always feel a bit awkward of how I should approach them. I always feel like what I say won’t be worth a reply. I’m trying to be better at tweeting people. So please tweet me! I don’t bite! I want to be your friend too!
• Content
  • I post whenever I feel like it. I usually pick a book for review when I know what I want to write in the said-review. I can’t write a review for a book that takes me forever to think of what to write. That’s why I never pick the next book I want to review. Sure, there are books I want to review, but I have to actually want to review it or I’ll end up disliking the whole review process and get stuck on my words. 
  • Some far, I post a few reviews and a lot of memes, which is so annoying to me. I get quite critical about the content I’m posting. It’s good I’m posting something, but it shouldn’t just be memes. I want to post a lot of book reviews, but it takes me a while to collect my thoughts, which discourages me. I have a lot to say, but I know I can’t post it all because it’ll basically be an essay about the book and nobody wants to read that! So a lot of time is spent to typing and deleting. I’m never satisfied! I still learning on what’s necessary in a review. I always find it a bit hard to continually churn out content. I can’t do that because I sometimes don’t feel like the content is representative of me. I want it to be true to my own thoughts. 
• Followers 
  • I’m not as concern about gaining followers. I know I will gain more as I continue to blog and forge friendships. It just takes time. I’ve gain a bunch of followers from my birthday giveaway, but I don’t want people to follow me because they want to win a book. (Of course, it’s a start for people to gain interest in my blog.) At the end of the day, this blog is more for me to collect my thoughts about books (and also to share them with my friends). 
• Online Personality
  • I am a bit shy, but I feel that I’ve become more comfortable in my own skin. I’ve found a bunch of communities online that share the same interest with me. I’m not as afraid of creating my own opinions nor am I afraid to “squeal” about books or actors because there are people who adore the same things as I do. I’m pretty open to every topic (more so about books, pop culture, tv shows/movies, actors/actresses – basically all forms of entertainment). 
• Brief Goals
  • When I get used to realm of book blogging, I want to consistently post. At least 3+ times a week. The more reviews, the better.
  • Forge friendships with other bloggers. I want to one day be BFF with all of you so when we meet one day and go book hunting or whatever. That means I need to be better at social networking.
  • I want to own my blog address and be self-hosted.

I’m just taking it a day at a time. I hope every one of my followers continue to visit and converse with me! It doesn’t have to be about books! 

Check out Day 1 of Armchair BEA: Introductions | Classics