Today I’m taking part in the Book Blogger Hop, a weekly hop hosted by Billy B at Ramblings of a Coffee Addicted Writer (originally created by Jennifer at Crazy-For-Books). You can see the hop schedule here.“Each week the hop will start on a Friday and end on Thursday. There will be a weekly prompt featuring a book related question. The hop’s purpose is to give bloggers a chance to follow other blogs, learn about new books, befriend other bloggers, and receive new followers to your own blog.”
Question of the Week:
Do you overextend yourself with too many reviews because you can’t pass up a book in hopes you will get them all done or do you carefully plan and be sure you can fulfil the deadlines for all the promised reviews?
(submitted by Elizabeth @ Silver’s Reviews)
This is a great question. I definitely have overextended myself in the past. When I first got into book blogging, I signed up for so many book tours through various different tour hosts and requested lots of books through NetGalley. I kept track of them all on Google calendar, but it got to the point that I just couldn’t cope with the backlog of reviews. Sometimes I had two or more books to review in a week, and as I was working full time, I didn’t have much time to read them. It put me under a lot of pressure and made reading into more of a chore than a fun hobby.
Things had to change! I wisely decided to take a step back from signing up for reviews. I still follow a few tour hosts but I only sign up for tours of books that I’m really interested in and that I know I will have time to read. I’ll only do one a month, at the most. There is just too much going on in my personal life to commit to any more than that. I have lots of older books on my shelves and Kindle that I read and review whenever I feel like it. I’m definitely a ‘mood reader’ so this approach works well for me and I enjoy book blogging much better now that I’m going at my own place.
What about you? Have you ever overextended yourself with too many reviews, or perhaps in another area of your life?
Sounds like you’ve figured out what works for you. I’ve mostly done the same thing with the exception of Netgalley (which is a serious weakness of mine). One of these days I’ll get caught up on review books (in about four years.) LOL. Have a wonderful weekend.
I’m trying to stay well away from Netgalley until I’m completely up-to-date with my reviews. It’s not easy!
Scaling back worked well for me, too. Definitely makes blogging more fun and less stressful 🙂
Yes, it’s just not worth pushing ourselves to the point of exhaustion when it’s meant to be fun.
Good decision.
Glad you found what works for you.
That is what we have to do so we can enjoy all these marvelous books.
I try to make sure that I’m able to meet all the review deadlines – if they have them – when I accept the requests. I usually make sure I have a note of what books need to be read and reviewed by when, where they need to be posted, etc., but the list still adds up. I have difficulty saying no to requesters because I don’t want to let them down but then I do get the odd requester who’ll demand I review a book within a day of receiving the request for it which doesn’t make me feel all that great. Reading at your own pace it much more pleasurable, so maybe I should just step back a bit and learn to say no more often.
I posted a more indepth response on my own blog if you’d be interested in checking it out! http://inkblottings.com/book-blogger-hop-april-6th/
Yes, I definitely prefer to read at my own pace and I don’t accept review requests with an unreasonable time frame. I need at least a couple of weeks notice because I’ve too much going on in my personal life. It seems like you’re pretty organised with your reviews, so that’s good.
Book tours really aren’t my thing, honestly. I *want* to do them, but when I do, I always seem to procrastinate and have trouble actually getting them done on time, and then I just end up all stressed and reading the book the day before the post needs to go up, lol.
Yeah, I used to do that quite a lot-I always overestimated the time I would have to get it read and reviewed. I prefer to do things like cover reveals and author interviews now.
I think i’m at the point of backing up from reviews as well. I’m trying to take on way too much and it’s really messing with my reading vibes. I need to learn to just say no and to not even go on Net Galley etc. haha!!! Loved your answer!!!
Yeah, I think it’s always good to have a limit and only take on what you’re comfortable with. Reading and reviewing is no longer a chore for me now I don’t have the pressure of deadlines.
Snap! In the past I really overextended. Now, I only take on what I can manage. 🙂
Good, I think it’s important for us to look after ourselves and remember that blogging should be fun.