[LET’S CHAT] Is There A Pressure To Be A Creative Book Blogger?

Most book bloggers expect and admire creativity.

It isn’t really a bad thing. Most people search for originality everywhere – whether it’s in the form of a book, a movie, a television show, music, etc. – so it’s no surprise that most book bloggers want a blog that can introduce them to something new rather than the same old-same old. But I’ve also realized that with people wanting and asking for new content comes other people who feel anxious and uncertain because they’re just not creative or original enough.

I thought it’d be nice to go over the pros and cons of being a creative and original blogger, for those who are trying to figure themselves out, and to maybe ease the pressure on those who feel like they’re sucky bloggers because they can’t churn out content three times a week!

1. You’re more likely to stand out. This is definitely true! If I asked people about their favorite bloggers and why they liked them, said person would probably name a quality of them that if I went to their blog to check it out, I’d probably understand what they’re talking about. Whether it’s their discussions, their blogging voice, their expertise in a certain topic, their reviews, etc. if you stand out in a certain part and people notice that, more people will probably be more likely to check out your blog over the one that posts the same thing over and over.

2. It will create more attraction to your blog. When most people list the reasons as to why they follow a blog, most of them say “originality.” Even I mentioned it in my own post about following blogs. I feel like if you have original content that you enjoy making, people will eventually find your blog and start enjoying it. I know that I felt that that was the type of experience that my blog had, and it took a few months, but it was worth all the hard work I put into it.

3. It’s easier to find an audience. I personally think it was much easier to find an audience when I started writing discussions that people can easily relate to and comment on over the memes, tags, and reviews I did in my first month of blogging. Yes, it was my first month of blogging, but the stats for my tags and reviews were much lower than the one discussion post I posted that month, and when I went from tags and reviews to lists in February, my stats definitely did go up, and the more I dove into original content, the more my blog grew and the more people find me, so I think an audience is easier to find when you’re posting discussions and tutorials over the same old book tours and blitzes that people can find on 280284 other blogs.

1. You might end up like everyone else. On the other hand, some people can be original, but still be like everyone else. There are some discussion topics that can get old, so a discussion about ebooks versus audiobooks versus physical books is something that might get people talking, but is also a super old and overused discussion topic so it’s not really SUPER original. Honestly, it goes both ways!

2. It’s much harder work. Trust me, blogging is fun, but constantly having to come up with ideas and actually WRITING out the posts is a lot of work. It’s definitely not as easy as it seems. And I’m also a huge perfectionist, so sometimes a post will be just fine, but I’ll still mess with it anyway, such as this post, which was actually much shorter, but I decided to write EVEN MORE, because I felt like it wasn’t good enough. SOMEONE HELP ME.

3. It’s hard to come up with ideas. I feel like the main problem with those who want to be creative is that they feel like they can’t come up with any good ideas, which I can understand! I know I’m constantly thinking and always in my head, so I easily can come up with ideas from nowhere, and that’s always how I’ve been, but I know some people just can’t, and that’s really the basis of originality and creativity, and pressuring yourself to keep up with that might be unnecessarily stressful on a certain blogger.

1. It’s easier to create content. It’s definitely true! I know that the couple of weeks I was doing memes, it really wasn’t that taxing. Of course, it might differentiate depending on the meme, but I think it’s safe to say that most of them are pretty simple and don’t take that long to write. I personally did WWW Wednesday, which was pretty easy to put together, and sometimes it’s nice to just only take a couple minutes writing a post that’s basically already made for you over something that will take longer to write and you have to think about what you want to talk about and how to format it, etc.

2. You’ll find an audience among regular bookworms. Though I’d say that most of our audience is other bloggers and we’re more likely to target our content towards them, I know I do have some e-mail followers that I assume read some of my posts, and might enjoy it when I give recommendations or when I review books or do fun tags! I know that a large majority of my Google searches are from people searching for reviews of a book, and some of mine pop up, so there’s definitely an audience for that content.

3. There’s an infinite amount of ideas out there. Obviously. If all you do is reviews, all you have to do is review books (and there are a lot of them). If you mostly do memes, most have topics set out for you, and if not, you provide the material by yourself (like WWW Wednesday or Teaser Tuesday or Stacking the Shelves, etc.), so it’s pretty hard to run out of. There are lots and lots of tags out there, and even if you do run out, you can create your own! Basically, if you don’t have the pressure to be creative, there’s tons of material that you can use without wracking your brain for ideas, which will work better for some people than others.

1. You’re pretty much like everyone else. I mentioned this in the previous post a little, but when you sign up for fifty blog tours with fifty other bloggers that are also a part of it and the only work you put into the post was copying and pasting HTML, it’s not really going to draw people to your blog. Why see your cover reveal of a certain book when ten other bloggers are doing the same cover reveal on their blog? What makes it truly stand out? There’s definitely a market for that, but I know I get bored with a blog easily when all it seems to do is have a million blog tours that speak positively about every single book they’ve read. It sounds way less genuine and seems like a move to look popular with publishers, but maybe that’s just me.

2. The content can quickly turn repetitive. I know that I always find myself really disappointed when I go to someone’s Reader and all I see is review…after review…after review. It gets really boring after a while. Obviously, too much of a thing can get tired after a while, but I’d much prefer someone posting discussions and lists over and over again rather than reviews or memes.

3. Finding an audience among bloggers is harder.  As I mentioned earlier, bloggers are looking more for quality over quantity, so posting the same old, same old every day a week might be good for stats, it might be hard to build a true following among followers, since most seek diversity in the posts they read (or I assume they do). I think this one really depends on what you want your audience to be and what goals you have for blogging!

Do you feel like there’s a certain pressure that comes with being a creative blogger? What are your thoughts on the whole subject?

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