I started book blogging exactly 4 years ago today.
Tumblr was the only blogging website I understood at the time and the only one I really liked, so on July 1, 2013, Musings of a Booknerd was born. When I think of the four years I spent on Musings, I think of it in terms of different parts of one’s life.
Year one, I was a baby. I knew next to nothing about book blogging, followed every blogger I could, and tried to soak in as much information as possible. I reviewed books I had purchased or borrowed from the library and no publisher responded to any of my emails… Which I guess was understandable as I had, like, less than 30 followers for most of that first year.
Year two, I was in my pre-teens. Nothing was weird yet, I was happy, I was reviewing books, and the movie for The Fault In Our Stars came out. Life was good. I reached my first 100 followers, Quirk Books was the first publishing company to take a chance on me, and I felt like I finally knew what I was doing.
Year three, I hardcore entered my teen years with so much angst it was unreal. I started off this year straight up leaving my blog for the entire summer of 2015. I came back that November with the biggest I-don’t-care-what-you-think attitude. The community had become a toxic place, so I sort of became, like, a rebel book blogger?
I straight up published a blog that said I was over putting on an act, I was over trying to integrate myself into the community, and I was over trying to gain followers. I know, yikes, but these things had actually become the norm in the community. You were only cool and respected if you had an immense amount of followers, acted a certain way, read certain books, and had certain things. It was so toxic and I couldn’t take it, so when I came back, I admonished all of those things.
As the months went on, I watched my followers slowly rise and in March 2016 I received an ARC of Highly Illogical Behavior by John Corey Whaley. It was my first unsolicited ARC and it was from Penguin. Needless to say, I was shook.
A month later I participated in my first blog campaign, #DashnerDash, which was a summer-long binge read of James Dashner’s The Maze Runner series in advance of his new book, The Fever Code. Random House hosted the four-month campaign and I worked with them to give away signed copies of each book we read.
Year four began in the midst of this campaign and I would say this year would be the equivalent to adulthood and eventually death. Sounds morbid, but stay with me.
During year four I got a job at my school’s newspaper where I would literally be paid to do what I was doing on my blog: reviewing books. Not something I could pass up.
I focused most of my time on work, putting Musings on the back-burner.
Though I didn’t have the time for my blog, I wasn’t too concerned because I knew once summer started, I was going to revamp the heck out of Musings of a Booknerd. I was going to work on making sure I had time to dedicate to it once the semester started up again and it was going to be rad.
Fast forward to summer break 2017. I sat down to rework everything. I needed a new image. I needed to think about branding. I needed to think about content.
I wanted my blog to be something a bit more professional and it wasn’t long before I realized that Musings of a Booknerd just wasn’t that and there was no way I could bring it back to life.
Speaking from my own experience, being a book blogger on Tumblr is difficult. Today there are so many people trying to book blog on Tumblr alone, that it makes it 100 times harder to stand out. There’s also the case of not being taken seriously by publishers because your blog is a Tumblr blog. Then there’s the temptation of reblogging.
When I set out to revamp Musings, I wanted to stop reblogging things almost altogether because I just wanted my content on my blog. It takes away from your sense of professionalism when you’re reposting things that aren’t yours. It’s fine when you’re using Tumblr because it’s Tumblr, but when you want to be your own brand and set yourself apart, it’s a bit difficult when you have so many different usernames on your blog and barely your own content.
Enter the scary idea of retiring Musings of a Booknerd altogether and leaving Tumblr.
I had to to think of a new name and reteach myself WordPress. I had to get a new email and get in touch with all my contacts. I needed to write a new Review Policy (which took me an entire day) and then I needed to focus on my content and branding and establishing myself as, essentially, a new blogger.
Now it’s July 1, 2017. Selina’s Book Nook is here.
This is my little corner of the internet where I can do and talk about pretty much anything book related. Book reviews, photos, crafts, advice, rants, event recaps. I may even have some guest posts. The possibilities are endless!
I can’t express to you how excited I am about this blog. I’ve been working on it for about a month and it has been so much fun. I know I’m going to have to work a bit harder since I’m starting fresh, but I’m ready for it. So, with all that being said…
Hi, my name is Selina and welcome to my book nook. I hope you enjoy your stay.
Selina Falcon 