Letโs Talk Bookish is a weekly meme, hosted byย Rukky @ Eternity Booksย &ย Dani @ Literary Lion,ย where they discuss certain topics, share their opinions, and spread the love by visiting each othersโ posts.
JUNE 18: APPRECIATION FOR BOOK BLOGGERSย (RUKKY)
Prompts:ย Do you feel appreciated as a book blogger? Who do you think appreciates the work of book bloggers the most? Do you think that bookish social media is aiding in the depreciation of book bloggers or is it supporting them? Is it wrong to want compensation from the book industry for our work?
Welcome to the middle of June, everyone! Time passes by so quickly, honestly. Anyway, this week’s topic is from our very own host Rukky over at Eternity Books!
I think generally I do feel appreciated as a book blogger. When people leave their lovely messages or insightful comments, it does spark joy in my heart, and makes me feel like an integrated part of the community. In addition to the readers, other bloggers will also visit each other and give feedback and interact with one another, and I think this also helps to create a nice sense of community that makes me (and hopefully others) feel appreciated.
As for who appreciates the work of book bloggers the most… I honestly would have to say other book bloggers. It takes one to know one right? Not that readers don’t appreciate the work, but to fully appreciate how long it sometimes take to create a post, or the thought that goes into curating content or even just posting through bad moods…I feel like I only appreciated other book bloggers’ work when I started to do more of it myself. It takes quite a lot of discipline to be a stable and prolific book blogger. Especially those of you out there with huge followings, I can imagine there’s pressure to always churn out (good) content, which is really intense!
Bookish social media I suppose is just a natural progression from book blogging as technology advances and the popular types of social media continue to evolve. I don’t think they’re necessarily contributing to the depreciation of book blogging. They may take away attention, since the trend now is to have short, punchy, clickbait titles and content for readers to consume, as the average attention span is shorter this day and age. In a way though, such social media can also be a good tool in advertising for a blog, which can be seen as supporting the bookish blogging community. Social media, as always, is just a tool, and the way it is used could potentially be used to support or detract from the book bloggers.
I don’t think it is inherently wrong to want compensation for work! Although there is definitely something to be said about the powerful extrinsic motivation of money taking over everything you do. That being said though, if a blogger were to be putting in many hours into creating amazing content that has a lot of followers and ends up making a huge impact, I could see reason for why they might want compensation from the industry. The power of suggestion and a community mindset can really push the popularity of a book up or down in a big way. I am sure that there are many books that wouldn’t have reached as much of a critical mass in popularity without these blogs spreading the word and encouraging others to read and join the hype train.
What do you all think about the way book bloggers are seen and appreciated? May I just have an overly optimistic and rosy view. Sure it may not be the forefront of social media popularity, but I don’t think it’s a dying art just yet!
Down the Rabbit Hole 