If you haven’t already, please check out the first part of this ‘series’ by clicking here.  Read it?  Good, let’s get started on Part Two of my completely unplanned, irregularly scheduled series.

There’s lots of advice for bloggers out there, but very few of it applies to book bloggers.  I know I was learning things on the fly as I started The Mad Reviewer and I want some resources to be available out there so not everyone has to learn while they’re going like I did.  Here are some pieces of advice I really could have used:

1.  Don’t obsess about free books and ARCs, especially when you’re just starting out.

Although I had no idea it existed until a month ago, there is apparently quite some envy and conflict among the book blogging community when it comes to getting review copies from publishers and ARCs (Advanced Reading Copies).  Not because getting free books in exchange for reviews is controversial, but because people get jealous of reviewers who brag about all of the free stuff they get.  They make it seem like all of us get sent dozens of books per month from publishers, which most of us don’t.

When you’re just starting out you need to focus on learning the technical aspects of blogging as well as improving your writing and connecting with other bloggers to build up your statistics.  There is no reason for you to obsess over free books when you’re already doing all of these things.  I mean, truly?  Free books are awesome, but they’re not the be all, end all of book blogging.  I’ve been around for almost a year and a half and I’ve been sent 3 books by publishers—and one of those was by accident.

Seriously people, it’s not that big of a deal.  It’s nice when it happens, but if not it’s not the end of life as you know it and it certainly doesn’t mean you have a bad blog. Continue reading →