On tips and tricks for better blogging

Someday, I'll write my own guide to being a new blogger (which we already talked about a bit for The Bibliotaph's birthday). Right now, though, I need a little more experience to be superhelpful to bloggers everywhere. In the meantime, here are some helpful guides to being a new blogger and how to start on the right foot.

• Avalinah's Book #NewBloggers 101 Guide - This series of posts on various aspects of being a blogger (and how to do things right) is being worked on by a handful of very experienced book bloggers. Covering topics from the importance of scheduling posts to getting more comments, from knowing where to request books from to writing a review policy for your blog, their goal is to cover every aspect of blogging in order to help book bloggers everywhere. It's in-depth, it's immensely helpful, and the bloggers working on this series are so kind and sweet. This is the first place I would recommend reading when you're starting a book blog.
• PaperFury- Cait from PaperFury is a blogging with LOTS of experience. She's got a lot of good stuff to say. Her posts with tips are a little harder to track down since she does it infrequently. To start, here is her post on getting people to read your blog. She also has two (yes, two) lovely posts on getting more comments (see here and here). And here is another post on thinking of good discussion posts! PaperFury has a depth of experience (and HUNDRED of posts), so dig a little deeper for even more blog tips.
• Book blogging ideas - There are so many places to get blogging post ideas, but this post by the PJV is a helpful start. Here on the Bibliotaph, I also have a list of A-Z blogging topics that are a good jumping off point.

These are the resources that I most recommend for starting bloggers. What other posts would you recommend new bloggers check out? What helped you when you were starting?

Happy 1st Birthday, The Bibliotaph!

This month marks one year since The Bibliotaph began and what an exciting year it's been! I've learned so much about books, the blogging community, and my own tastes since starting (and I'm so excited that I've followed through on a project for this long). In honor of this one year anniversary, I'd like to share a few lessons I've learned this year:

• Be mindful about how many books you request on Netgalley - This has been one of the biggest and most painful lessons this year. I requested WAY too many books and got approved for far more of them than I thought a new blogger could be. It was intimidating and I still have a ton of books to catch up on. But I've learned my lesson - I currently have 5 books approved that are coming up in the next few months and I refuse to request any more until I finish most of those. 
• Taking a hiatus is a okay - Over the holidays in December, I simply forgot that I didn't have very many posts queued up. Once I came back at the end of the year, I was horrified to learn that I'd had two weeks without any posts - how had I let this happen? Had finals and holidays occupied my time so much that I couldn't even post something about taking a hiatus? But it was okay - I got back into the groove of posting and missing those two weeks didn't kill my blog. It turned out alright. Learning this means I'll be more mindful about taking breaks in the future - especially during times when I know I won't be able to give the blog my full attention.
• Don't worry about posting every day - When I originally started, I felt like I was bursting with post ideas and I was excited to post as often as possible. I had months of material queued up when I realized that I was starting to run out of ideas and that blogging might be more difficult than I'd thought. It also took me some time to realize that posting several times a week was fun, but so much work - way too much work for a student. I started this year with posting twice a week (and occasionally throwing in blogging meme posts) and it's been so much easier to keep up with.
• Blogging memes are lifesavers - I didn't fully understand this until a couple months ago. When I started (and when I was full of ideas), I felt like blogging memes were kind of lazy - it was just bloggers working off of each other's ideas. Now, I feel differently. Blogging memes help me to connect with other bloggers and get an extra post or two in when I haven't had time to work on a full post. Also, it's fun to have short posts about what I'm currently reading and the music I'm into lately - they're easier for casual blog readers to connect with and comment on. And they're so much fun to think about.

I'm so excited that I get to apply these lessons in my next year of blogging! As part of this next year, I'm going to be testing out redoing past blog posts by discussing how my opinions differ after a year and what new books I would add to various book lists. I'm looking forward to this new part of my blogging adventures and thank you for taking part in them!

What blogging lessons have you learned in your time as a blogger? What's been the biggest lesson you'd want to pass on to less-experienced bloggers? How long have you been blogging?