Let’s Talk Bookish: Book Blogging Joys and Pet Peeves

Last Updated on April 15, 2022 by ThoughtsStained

I’m back this Friday participating in another Let’s Talk Bookish post! It was created by Rukky @ Eternity Books and co-hosted with Dani @ The Literary Lion. However, in April of 2022, Aria @ Book Nook Bits took over! For this week, our topic is: Book Blogging Joys and Pet Peeves, suggested by Kristin @ Lukten Av Trykksverte.

Let’s discuss!

Book Blogging Joys and Pet Peeves

Since I’ve started to become a fan of sharing the questions that are posed to help craft my answers, here’s this week’s prompts: What are some things you love about the blogging community? Some things you dislike? When do you feel the most/least connected to the community? What are some things you’d like to see changed?

So, let’s dive a bit into book blogging joys and pet peeves, focusing first on the positives, then on the irks and changes going forward.

Joys

One of the things I love about the book blogging community is how much I feel at home here. When I first started my blog, it was more of an online journal. (I also randomly posted screamo album reviews? Oh my, starting a blog during the teenage years of Warped Tour, what a time. 😅) Once I discovered book blogging was a thing through social media, I found a sense of direction for this blog. But I also found a community, a place to interact and share, challenge myself and grow. I am forever thankful. The friends I made are real and valuable and I adore you utterly.

Another joy is how much the book community (as a whole, but not completely, sadly) advocates for diverse authors and stories. Obviously, not every book blogger does this, but the ones who do, do so with a fierceness that I appreciate and admire. In the past few years, I’ve added my voice to that mission with joy and read some of the best stories ever because of the recommendations I’ve come across.

Pet Peeves

Yet, as with any community, ours is not a perfect one. It’s a community that can be underappreciated by the publishing or book industry at large, often undervalued. We’re not traditionally paid and there is a stigma amongst the community that asking to be so is taboo, which I want broken. Social media can make the book blogging community toxic in a hurry (book twitter, anyone?). There is a lot of self-placed pressure, as I wrote about before. And, to be a member of the community, there are various levels of privilege–from ARC distribution, self-hosting boundaries, lack of opportunities for international bloggers, to reading and book accessibility, amongst others–that are hard to address, in some ways; yet just ignored, in others.

So, it’s certainly not perfect.

Book Blogging as a Whole

But, as a whole, I’m proud to be part of the book blogging community. I hope to see growth in the areas I’ve named as pet peeves, especially in: how publishing professionals view and appreciate bloggers, how we view ourselves and how we can better support marginalized, BIPOC and queer bloggers.

Some changes are systemic and some are personal, but I’d love to see the community as a whole celebrate more, while also challenge itself a bit more, too.

In Sum

Writing about my book blogging joys and pet peeves was fun! I won’t lie: it’s a bit shorter than normal, but I think that’s because I felt this topic pretty similar to a previous Let’s Talk Bookish topic I did recently (read here). I didn’t want to repeat myself too much. But, that doesn’t mean that these discussions aren’t important or I’m not always curious to hear your thoughts about it, because I am!

So, let me know in the comments what your personal book blogging joys and pet peeves are. I’d love to hear them. And thanks for reading!