The Future of Book Addict

When I started this blog a year ago, it was a great experiment.  I told myself I'd blog for a year and see what happened.  Honestly, I didn't know what to expect, but hoped that I'd be able to interact with people about one of my great passions in life.  A year later, I look back and reflect, not sure how to proceed in 2013.

I started out strong and initially enjoyed the experience of reading and thinking about the books in a way that I could write about.  I looked for meaning in my books and thought about them in interesting and sometimes new ways.  I liked the idea of talking to people about the books I love.  Initially it was fun to watch the follower count grow and get some comments.

But by fall, my interest began to wain.  Sometimes I found that I didn't have much to say about a book.  It was ok, some people might like it, but I didn't have much to report.  Maybe it was just a cookie bookie, a filler book to cleanse my pallet from a more difficult read, or maybe it was really straight forward and didn't lend itself to discussion all that well.  I like letting others know about a fun read or a great author, but sometimes I read the same author several books in a row and don't have much new to say. I also found that I read differently - more publicly when I knew I had to blog about it.  I found myself choosing books with more awareness to what my readers might like or changing genres so that I wasn't telling about the same kind of books each time.  Frankly it started to feel more like work and not so much like fun so I quit blogging for a while.  I felt like I was writing an assignment out there that nobody read or was much interested in.

Well, now its a year later and I'm trying to decide what to do about this blog.  Do I continue or do I shut it down?  My audience is small, I'd like it to be bigger. I sort of thought it might take on a life of its own...it hasn't.  Do I still want to review the books I read, or would it be better to fade off into the blogisphere.

I hadn't looked at the blog for a while, and so today I decided to check and see what was happening there.  Surprisingly I had some page views today, As I look back at what I've read, its fun to see what I have written about and remember how excited I was to review.  Several of my friends mentioned the blog over the Holidays and said how much they like it and have read an unexpected jewel because of it. So with trepidation, I think I will continue....with some changes.

This year, I won't be assigning myself to writing about every book I read, but the ones that are particularly good, bad or thought provoking.  The reviews won't be as long unless they need to be, and may not include a complete plot summary - gets boring and book report-y.  You will still get my unvarnished opinion, and I still will review books that I hated as well as those that I liked.  The point is to help you find some great reads you might not know about and save you from some bad ones.

Finally dear reader, Some of this depends on you.  Writing without feedback is really hard and not particularly rewarding.  If you agree (or don't agree) with what I've written, please let me know.  Instigating discussion was a big part of my mission here, and with a few exceptions, there hasn't been much.  If you have any suggestions or ideas about how to make the blog better, let me know too.  I'm new to this, and am not sure how to get the word out better.  If you'd like to hear more about a particular subject or kind of book or if you want to suggest a book, let me know. Spread the word.  The more people we have here the better.  Invite your book group members, friends and other bookies.  Let's see what we can do together.

Now Let's ring in 2013 and see what reading adventures are in store for us.  Happy New Year!