The Blog Squad - Part 21

We are a group of three book bloggers situated on different continents but brought together by our love for books and a penchant for talking about them. We’ve joined our forces to create a collaborative series of posts about book blogging and we hope you’ll enjoy the discussions.

A MAGICAL WORLD OF WORDS - AmyNikita

BOOKS.BAGS.BURGERS - Uma K

BOOK REVIEWS BY DI - Di Hewlett

Where do you hear all your bookish news?

I’ve always used Goodreads a lot so I still go there to see what people are reading and adding to their TBRs and what is upcoming.

I also get a lot of news from other bloggers - Waiting on Wednesdays is terrible for my TBR but it does keep me informed of books that are upcoming that I may not have seen before. Other blogger’s reviews also keep me informed of books that might have somehow slipped through the cracks, books I might not otherwise have heard of as well as backlisted reads I’ve missed and indie books to look out for.

Buzz Books also feature books to look out for that are about to be released and I always try to get the YA editions to read the excerpts to try and see which books need to be on my TBR and what I should get super excited for.

Edelweiss has some great publisher catalogs that I check out as well whenever I have the time.

I have also signed up to a few publisher email lists by email so I really do have a lot of ‘news’ sources! It’s great though - I love reading about all things bookish.

I typically hear about new book releases from Goodreads.  I’m not on there a lot, but I do check their “new releases” page every now and again.

The Waiting on Wednesday meme is also an excellent place to hear about the latest books and ARCs. Every week when I participate and blog hop, I’m kept up date with the books moving around the blogosphere, and my TBR gets bigger and bigger as a result!  But I love it. It’s an easy way to see what books are new and what’s known about them so far.

But I think Twitter’s my biggest source of bookish news. I’m following more bloggers, publishers, and authors than is possible to keep up with, but it does mean I get to see most of the discussions, latest bookish hot topics, and controversies that are circulating.  On Goodreads I can see what books are coming soon, but on Twitter I see the reception the books are getting and what the majority of bloggers think of them. I love following the discussions and arguments.    

Do you read other reviews of the book you're about to review yourself?

I actually have a strict policy when it comes to books that I’m excited to read: I try to keep away from all reviews, all hype and any conversations about those books until I’ve actually read them - I would hate to get a spoiler or to have preconceived notions of a book before I go into it. Sometimes I have no idea what a book or series is even really about before I go into it and often that’s the best way to start.

When it comes to books that aren’t really on my radar then yes, I do read a lot of reviews before I actually pick it up - I like highly recommended books and I like to know that I’m not going to be investing my precious reading time into something I for sure won’t like.

Then there’s the books that I hear about from people I would call my trusted reviewers - if I see a great looking book and a great review then that immediately becomes a book I’m excited for and I will add it to my TBR and avoid all other reviews/media about it. :)

It’s complicated ;)

Hmmm. I do read them, but I skim-read. And not because I’m afraid of spoilers.

For me, it’s more about keeping an unbiased head and an un-influenced opinion than it is about catching a spoiler. If I read too many reviews there’s the chance I’ll start to think the same as what the other reviewers are saying, and it affects my review and my own thoughts.

I’ll skim-read reviews because I want to have an idea of what other people think of the book. But I won’t read them properly out of fear of getting too influenced.   

How do you use Goodreads in correlation with your blog?

I ALWAYS post my reviews to Goodreads because that is where I really started keeping all my bookish records and reading and writing reviews in the first place. If I’ve received a book for review that I didn’t really enjoy or had to rate negatively I may not post that review on my blog but I’ll still post it to Goodreads because even though I didn’t like it, it’s my own, very valid opinion and people deserve to know that there’s people out there that didn’t like the book and their reasons why.

I personally don’t have affiliate links on my blog so I also link everything directly back to Goodreads from my blog. I try to remember to link all covers (which I get from Goodreads in the first place), all author names, series etc.

It does help that Goodreads has a ‘post to my blog’ function that I use. I will generally post the review to Goodreads first and then let it create the draft post on my blog which I then tweak and develop into my final review post.

I always post my reviews to Goodreads when I post them up on my blog. I also take part in the Goodreads challenge (where you challenge yourself to read a x amount of books per year) and I always track my reading process for the books I’m currently reading. When I finish reading a book, I’ll mark it as read on Goodreads and say “Review to come”, because I won’t necessarily review it on the day I finish it. Then later I’ll update that status when I’m ready to write the review.  

When I post a review on my blog, I’ll also include the book’s Goodreads page as part of its information. The summary is also taken from Goodreads.

Like Di does, I try to include all links to Goodreads when I’m mentioning a book in a blog post, as well.   

Go over to their collab posts to know my answers!:

❤ Book Reviews by Di
❤ A Magical World of Words

We hope you’ve enjoyed the latest in our series of discussion posts! Please talk to us and let us know YOUR answers below. What do you think of our responses? If you have any specific questions you’d like us to address in the future, please let us know in the comments section below.