Book Blogging is hard work and I almost quit and deleted the lot.

I decided to post something a little bit different today because I am behind with my reading and to be honest I have no current read books to review.

When I started this blog back in May I initially thought yeah, this will be easy.  I read loads of books anyway so hard how can it be to read a book, review it and then post it? Well, actually very hard. I started putting myself under pressure to read more and more when the reality was I wasn't enjoying the fact that I felt like I had to use every free second just to read a book. It stopped me loving to read and it started to feel more like a chore.  I needed to post a review regulary to keep people reading my blog and gain followers when the reality is I sometimes just don't have the time

I then discovered Netgalley where I could request proof copies and happily clicked away requesting more books than I needed and finding that actually I was requesting books that are not really my thing and then I have to review a book that I don't actually like.

I found myself feeling guilty for not reading enough books and reading books that I don't actually enjoy, just because it's the book that everyone else seems to be reading and so I should read it and love it to.  Truth was I don't even like some of them but I was trudging through them just because I felt I should.

Don't even get me started on the use of twitter.  Book Bloggers that have thousands of followers, blogs that have thousands of followers.  I am barely starting out and have managed to accumulate a grand following on twitter of 100 and followers of my blog zero. I felt like a failure even though I was new to this. I kind of assumed people would see this and like this and start interacting but nope.

Does that mean that my blog is rubbish? Why is no one liking my posts? Why does no one interact with me?   I post and comment and try my hardest to gain page views and receive very little in return.

I've had a good hard think about why I wanted to start this blog in the first place and that was to spread the love for the books I read and enjoy. So why then am I reading books that are not actually my cup of tea? Why am I getting hung up on followers?  That was not the reason I wanted to do this at all.

I took a step back and pondered whether to just delete the lot and forget all about it but there was this little niggle inside me that really doesn't want to do that.  Truth is I still love reading and reviewing, yeah it is more than a little addictive.

I have realised that I need to just be myself. Read the books that I love to read.  Not because I have to but because I want to and then post my little review.  If no one reads it or comments, so what.   Is it the end of the world if I don't have a load of followers? I actually don't want thousands of followers as that would put even more pressure on me.

I have decided that I am continuing because I want to.  I have and will always read and nothing will stop that ever.  I will post reviews when I get the chance and when I have no time than nothing will get posted.  The one thing I am doing is stopping getting fixated on page views.  If no one reads it, that's fine.  I am doing what makes me happy and that was the whole reason I started this blog.