Tips on Finding Time to Post and Maintaining Your Book Blog

My first attempts at taking artsy photos. Yes, that's me.

For most of us in the blogging community, blogging is a huge amount of work. It is definitely something that can only be accomplished with blood and sweat, and most importantly, commitment and dedication.  But we have lives (although for some of us, blogging is our life), school, work, and families.  So how do we manage what happens in our daily lives, in addition to blogging? With school starting, here are some tips for bloggers to maintain our blogs.

Being a book blogger myself, here is a breakdown of what a book blogger has to complete on a regular basis:

• First, we must set aside time to read (it's a book blog after all). 

• Many of us are active GoodReads and Twitter users, the two most effective social media platforms to promote our blog and interact with other bloggers. Time spent on social media goes very quickly. Sometimes I get so caught up chatting with other bloggers that I become behind schedule. 

• We have to write meaningful posts and reviews, and spend time formatting them as well. 

• Visiting other book blogs! The book blogging community is wonderful and there are so many things we can learn from other bloggers and we meet so many more people as well.

• Some of us like making our blog look pretty and spend a lot of time doing it (which was me a few months ago, and I barely got anything done haha.).  

That's quite a list, isn't it? Here are some tips on finding time to manage our blogs.

1. Schedule posts. I've recently just come back from my hiatus so I don't have many scheduled posts as of now, but scheduling posts is one of the best ways to organize your blog, so you aren't working your butt off during your free hours. Have some backup posts as well, just in case if your blog is in need of a post when you haven't had time to write one or you haven't posted in a while. I usually go for at least one post a week, two if I have time. Neverthless, quantity does not mean quality; posting too much can annoy our readers with emails and because there are so many posts, there's a huge chance that some will be disregarded or unread.

Here's another tip: Don't flood your blog with book memes. Of course, they're fun to do once in a while, but posting one review is worth ten book memes.

2. Schedule yourself. Make sure something happening on your blog isn't overlapping with something going on in your life. Create mental notes of how much time you're going to spend on social media and make sure you don't go tweet overtime. Time is of the essence; if you have a busy schedule, you must keep everything organized and orderly to make sure that your tasks are accomplished (sounding a little general here but make sure you have yourself in check).

3. Read. We have to read a lot of books to be able to review them, so unless you're a very fast reader (and if you are one, I envy you), read in your spare time, in the shower, during car rides, etc. But don't make reading feel like a chore. Reading is something we love doing, so this step shouldn't necessarily be a problem for most of us.

4. If you're not doing much, why not whip up a post? Better earlier than later, right? We know you have it in you, so drop the TV remote and start typing.

5. Co-bloggers! Not only do co-bloggers help lift off the stress block on your shoulders, but you get to become long lasting friends with your book buddy, and two brains are better than one! It's also a fun experience; they're the first ones we can go to and explode after finishing an amazing read. Cody has only recently joined Fictionally Obsessed, but we have so many ideas and things we'd like to do that I would have never thought up of myself. With a co-blogger, we're allowed to relax more than we would have been able to as a solo blogger.

6. If it's not working out, go on a hiatus. We understand how stressful life can sometimes be, and if we can't manage blogging and our lives, take a break from blogging until we can sort it out. Remember: blogging is a hobby and you should always put school, work and your lives first! There isn't any shame in leaving your readers for a while (and I've been on two myself), everyone will welcome us back with open arms regardless.

Do you have any tips on maintaining a book blog? What are your do's and don'ts?