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Discoveries by a Newbie Book Blogger

2019 was the year I discovered blogging. Yes, seriously. I may have been living in my own little bubble up until then, but there you go. So obviously, I have lots to add to this week’s topic, which is bookish discoveries in 2019. Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl.

1. Book Blogging
It all started with me googling a long forgotten topic and stumbling across an article about blogging. I’ve always liked to write, but my realistic self acknowledges, that time and abilities don’t stretch to writing books. A blog, however, sounded like the perfect outlet for my occasional urge to write. And the rest is history as they say. 😉

2. WordPress.com AND WordPress.org
My research into blog hosts and providers pointed to wordpress.com being perfect for beginners. Admittedly, they don’t write the posts for you, but everything else is sorted. A few months into my blogging career, I realised that wordpress.org, which provides less support, but more flexibility, would be preferable. Sigh. I had ‘fun’ moving host, domain specific email address and all the posts to a new environment.

3. The Book Blogger’s Vocabulary
Have you ever tried to start a new job, where the subject-specific vocabulary together with the much despised TLAs (Three-Letter-Abreviations) made communication close to impossible? Little did I suspect, it would be the same, when entering the book blogging community. Sentences like I cut down my TBR by doing several DNFs, but now I have to prepare for my blog tour were decidedly incomprehensible to me. By now, I understand most of the jargon and have realised that blog tours do not involve big busses, WWW isn’t always identical with the internet and TTT strictly belongs on Tuesdays.

4. Book Memes and Book Tags
I thought my blog should consist of book reviews and culture, but I soon discovered, you can play with books! Linking books in chains, finding book titles starting with certain letters and of course doing lists. This is fun! 😀

5. Project Gutenberg
I am still not sure resources like Pigeonhole, NetGalley and Edelweiss are for me. However, I recently discovered Project Gutenberg, which is a library of over 60,000 free eBooks, including classics and older books. What’s not to like?

6. Goodreads
Also, I have come to depend on Goodreads. I am not using it to record my reading, which is probably the general idea, but I regularly look up books which interest me.

7. The Library App
For the first time since arriving in London, I got a card to the local library, mostly to be able to download audiobooks via the app.

8. Free Photo Libraries
I love photography, but quickly realised, that still life photos are not my thing. I am in awe of the amazing photos some bloggers produce, but I, on the other hand, have discovered the joy of pages like pexels.com, unsplash.com and canva.com.

9. A Network of Book Bloggers
When starting out, I didn’t give much thought to the interaction aspect of blogging. But I did search for other book bloggers to see how they were doing things. The first two book bloggers I followed were Fictionophile and FictionFan, who both write about crime fiction (amongst other things) and both are highly recommended. Since then, I have found lots of amazing bloggers, many of whom were commenters on the two first blogs.

10. Last, but not least, BOOKS!
Inspiration is essential, especially when it comes to entice me to try out new authors or genres. Since starting blogging, my bookish horizons have been expanded significantly and I have enjoyed every moment of it!

These were some of the many things, I’ve discovered during my first time as a blogger. Did you do any bookish discoveries in 2019?

67 comments

    • Yeah, I quite like that photo. Although very exaggerated, I’m sure a lot of bloggers recognise the general idea…

    • Ah, so you are quite an experienced blogger by now. Thanks, so far I’m enjoying being part of the blogging world very much!

  4. You know – my home is (almost) a library and therefore I know the feeling “oh good – my books are here” too well! A new bunch is just on its way… And just starting a new job, I am in a steep learning curve about abreviations, although not bloggin ones. Think I read too much and blog too little, but it’s good fun getting som inspiration here. Bookish discoveries in 2019? Well, bought my first ebook but still prefer paper – maybe 2020 will be the year where I get used to ebooks?

    • Hi Hon, good to see you here! 😀 Haha, I know! See, the thing about ebooks, they don’t take up much space! Although, I almost skipped that particular step in the evolutionary chain and went directly from paper books to audiobooks. Hope it goes well in the new job, I am sure you will quickly get the hang of all these darned abbreviations. Personally, I just need to hear each one like a couple of hundred times and I can throw them around, like I have been doing nothing else all my life 😉

    • I would also recommend Daily Lit, which you can sign up for with an email address and have excerpts of novels sent to you as often as you like. You can choose short, medium, or long excerpts. I have mine sent to me M-F.

  6. Also, just a heads up: when someone hosts a meme like TTT, they expect that other bloggers will use the meme they created, as it’s part of their branding.

    • Thanks for heads up! The vast majority of the bloggers I follow use their own meme, which is nice. It offers the opportunity to be creative and I’ve seen some lovely ones for Top Ten Tuesday (much nicer than mine!). I guess, I can add the official one somewhere in the post though.

  7. What a great post; I can’t believe you’ve only been blogging since last year – feels like I’ve ‘known’ you for ages 😄

    • Thanks! Haha, not sure if that is a good or a bad thing! 😄 No, seriously, I feel the same. Time flies, when you are having fun. I also feel, I have learned so much since I have started blogging; it has been a great experience!

  9. I didn’t know about Project Gutenberg and my eyes are open, wow! It sounds like you learned quite a bit this past year that’s so cool!! Here’s to 2020’s new info!

    • Project Gutenberg is definitely worth checking out, if you like reading some of the older classics. And free books are always welcome 😉 . Like with all new jobs / hobbies the learning curve tends to be steepest in the beginning. I started from a very low level though, I had absolutely no clue what I was doing, when I first started my blog. But let’s hope 2020 bring more bookish discoveries!

  10. Ahaha the WordPress thing. I honestly had no idea there was a .com versus .org when I started, and I was sooo confused until I realized there were two different WordPress versions. xD

    You know what? Blog tours *should* involve big buses. We should start a petition! Sounds like 2019 was a great growth year for you. I hope 2020 ends up being even better for you. 🙂

    • Well, I read about the difference between the two WordPress versions before starting out, and yet I still made the wrong decision! I think that might be worse than not knowing the difference at all. 😉

      Haha, I had this picture in my head of bloggers coming out of big busses and lining up at a bookish event. Might be fun, perhaps we should do a petition! Thanks!

      • I mean, at least you were more educated about it than I was, even if you found out the one you chose didn’t work for you. xD

        AND WE CAN DRESS AS OUR FAVORITE BOOK CHARACTERS. Oh yes, I’m totally feeling this. It should be a thing.

        • LOVE IT! I now see a lot of small, enthusiastic Harry Potters buzzing around in the bus, whilst A Man Called Ove is sitting grumpily in the corner, mumbling about young people these days (obviously, I want to be Ove!)

          • Perhaps I should own a laptop because typing on my iPhone 6s in landscape is very difficult. I just had to add that the tour could be called blogger con. 😁

          • This is perfect, we have a name for the tour, we have a theme, now we just need the busses! Thanks for stopping by and contributing to the alternative blog tour concept! 😀 (and tell me about typing on iPhones – I always stick to very short messages!)

    • Yes, I am sure Goodreads is a great tool for keeping track of ones reading – If I could just remember to add my books there! 😉 Glad that it works for you!

    • Yes, I guess a lot of new bloggers go through a similar learning process. It took me by surprise how friendly everyone is. I wonder if that is specific for the book blogging community.

    • Aww thanks, that is so kind of you! 🤗 I love your content as well, and I am excessively grateful to you and a few other more experienced bloggers, who followed me back from the early days, when I had very little clue what I was doing. It really meant a lot! 😃

  14. My first year of blogging was completely confusing and overwhelming. Luckily, I was working in publishing when I started, so I already knew most of the TLAs. Everything else was a major learning experience.

    • Yes, I suppose you must have been familiar with the jargon, if you worked in publishing. Probably blogging is confusing for everybody in the beginning, but on the other hand, I love to learn new things, and blogging has given me the opportunity to do that.

  15. This is wonderful! I love how much you discovered about blogging in 2019. The one about book blogger vocabulary had me laughing. It’s such a hilarious issue in real-life jobs, especially in certain organizations that only function with abbreviations. 😛 Hope 2020 will have you learning even more things about the book blogging universe. 😉

    • Thanks so much, I’ve enjoyed the blogging experience immensely! 😀 I know! Experienced people in some organisations can manage to talk for hours barely using any ‘normal’ words and phrases! It is hilarious, but also makes life difficult for newcomers.

  16. I’m a new blogger too! Luckily I knew most of the lingo from Bookstagram but I’m learning new things every day. And oh man. The WordPress.com vs. WordPress.org. I’m still confused. I had purchased my domain name years ago so I didn’t have a choice, but it’s still confusing. It’s so nice to hear I’m not alone! 😉

    My TTT

    • Hi Dedra, nice to *meet* another fellow newbie blogger! I had my fair share of confusing moments regarding WordPress. Especially when I went from WordPress.com to self-hosted – some of the instructions might as well have been written in Latin! But it was all good fun. 🙂

  17. This post reminds of why I fell in love with blogging and how I was as a newbie! Love it! The part with the whole blogging vocabulary made me laugh. I was the same! What are those people talking about??? What is an ARC? xD I admit I didn’t look into the differences between WordPress.com and org. Too technical for me!!

  18. Aw, thank you for the lovely mention! I hadn’t realised you were a newbie and am thrilled to have been one of your first blog buddies! Haha – the vocabulary is wonderful, isn’t it? Wait till you start thinking that your pseudonym is your real name – I have to concentrate hard when filling out forms or introducing myself to people not to call myself FF… 😂 If you havent come across it yet, fadedpages.com is another great free site for vintage crime and all sorts of other stuff – I use it as much as I use Gutenberg these days, though it doesn’t have as many of the classics. Keep up the good work – the first five years are the worst… 😉

    • 😂 Oh, that is so funny! I haven’t quite reached the stage, where I start to put in stargazer in forms or signatures. I could imagine tax authorities and banks wouldn’t be too impressed – they take all this about identity so seriously 😉 . Thanks for pointing me to fadedpage, which I hadn’t heard of. It looks like there are some good ones there.

      It seems so long time ago, and yet I clearly remember, when I first subscribed to your blog and how intimidating I found it to write a comment to a complete stranger. Luckily, everyone has been so friendly. I can’t help wondering if that is specific for the book blogging community. Good to know it gets easier after five years – just four years and a bit to go! 😉

      • I do think there’s something unique about the book blogging community – it’s so welcoming and supportive. I found those early comments intimidating to make too, and the nerves of wondering whether visitors would ever come back. Loads of the people I first “met” have stopped blogging long ago but there are some that I’ve known for years now, all over the place, and it makes me feel kinda connected to the world… 😀

        • Yes, that is my impression as well. Before I started out, I read about trolls and hate comments, but these things seem to be rare in the book blogging community. One of the things I really like about blogging is that you ‘meet’ other bloggers from different parts of the world, different age groups and different interests, but everyone has the love of books in common. I think that is so nice!

          • I like that there’s no book snobbishness either – no-one ever says oh, you like cosies, or science fiction, or romance, in that sneering tone. Everyone seems able to accept that we all have different tastes and that’s fine. There’s no doubt about it – we’re the nicest people on the internet! 😉 😀

    • I am glad you like it! I still sometimes have a good chuckle over the abbreviations, but at least I understand them now! 🙂

  20. Since I started blogging I have literally been blown away by this whole online bookish community! I work in a bookshop, so I’m surrounded by books all day, but being able to log on to this whole world of like-minded readers is something really special x

    • It is an amazing community and I am quite happy about that extra dimension of blogging, which I hadn’t thought about when starting out. What is it like to work in a bookshop? Endless temptation? Or does it work the other way around, so you get really picky about the books you read? Thanks for stopping by!

    • Yeah, I’m glad I found Gutenberg – who doesn’t like free books! 😉 Thanks!

  22. The abbreviations, oh yes! That took a while to wrap my head around, it’s like SMS lingo for book bloggers. I haven’t been subjected to many tasteful book memes but here’s hoping! I’m a newbie blogger too and I hope we can connect further in the future. Keeping a lookout for your posts.

    • SMS lingo for book bloggers – that is a great comparison. In the beginning, I didn’t want to do memes, but then I stumbled across Six Degrees of Separation, which is so much fun. Since then I have become quite fond of memes, and they are a great way to connect with other bloggers, which is useful for newbie bloggers. 🙂

    • I have learned a lot since 2019. I am sure you will learn a lot as well, but the important thing is to enjoy it!

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