Reflections on Blogging

It's now been a little over a year since I wrote the post To Blog or Not To Blog in which I explained all the reasons I love blogging. I followed up that post with a mission statement of sorts called Becky's 5 W's. This was soon followed by posting my review policy in the sidebar of my blog. My review policy has gotten a little lengthier over the past year.

But my blog has gone through some transitions--amazing changes that I hadn't expected--and so I thought I'd update everything.

My purpose is still the same. I blog about books because I love books. I love reading. I love talking about books. Books are my passion, my obsession. Here is the "official" purpose:

To promote the love of reading by providing teens, tweens, parents, teachers, librarians, fellow bloggers, and booklovers of all ages, with reviews of current books published for children and/or young adults.

I love helping readers connect with books. I want to help promote reading. I want to introduce books and authors to readers. The site helps me do this. It is also immensely satisfying to do this. It helps me keep track of what I read. It helps me connect with a community of readers.

I am a reader, first and foremost. I am a reader who happens to have a background in English literature and library science. I have a BA and MA in English literature from Texas Woman’s University. I have a MLS degree from Texas Woman’s University. My specialization is children’s and young adult literature. This is my calling in life to promote the love of reading, the love of books, to connect books with readers, to encourage lifelong reading habits.

What has changed is that I've expanded my blog to include some adult titles (both contemporary and classic), and I've moved my reviews of picture books, chapter books, board books, activity books, etc. to Young Readers.

I've also discovered the world of reading challenges. So now almost every week--or every other week--you'll find mention of me either creating, updating, or completing reading challenges. While I know these posts won't be helpful to every reader, the challenge-addicted community is a valid percentage of my readership. So I don't feel too guilty since I'm still providing at the very least five reviews a week.

My reviews can be found on this website Becky's Book Reviews.
My reviews of books for the under ten crowd can be found at Young Readers.
I also contribute (about 2x a month) to Young Adult Books Central.
Reviews of my ‘clean reads’ can be found on Deliciously Clean Reads.
You'll also find me over at Favorite PASTimes.
I have participated (and plan to do so) in reviewing books for The Edge of The Forest.

So I've added a few (three) more places on where to find my work but it's no big deal.

I'm happy, super-thrilled, to feature author interviews whenever I get the chance. These most likely will always appear on Monday. I haven't had one for every Monday. But I've accumulated a good many since introducing the feature last fall.

Another feature that I was happy to introduce was TRAVEL THE WORLD Wednesdays where I focus on books (picture books to novels) with an international perspective.

The biggest change over the past year has to do with WHERE my books come from...what my SOURCES are. When I wrote the original post in April 2007, most of my books--half at least--were library books. The remaining sources were borrowing books from the TWU review center and my own small collection of books that I've bought new or used. So the first nine to ten months of my blog, the amount of review copies I was receiving was small. Last summer, however, publishers and authors began responding to my review policy, responding to my blog, and I began receiving review copies, ARCs, and catalogs. It started small. But it steadily grew (and grew and grew), steadily increased. Within six months, most of my books were review copies provided by publishers. Now fourteen months later, about 80% of the books I review on my blog came from publishers and authors. Library books are about 10% and borrowed TWU books are the remaining 10%.

While some of my reviews are better than others, I like to feel that they all have a certain degree of integrity. My goal in blogging is to be honest and direct. Just me being me...talking about books. Free book or not, I'm not going to pretend to like something. Here at my blog, you'll find positive, negative, and mixed reviews.


© Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews