Sunday Musings #54: Blogger Burnout Ahead

Sunday Musings #54: Blogger Burnout Ahead

Last week was not great for me, especially in terms of blog and blogging. I reached a burnout in terms of writing and blogging. And that has added to my woes related to my already decreasing page views.

I am writing this post at the nick of the hour as a vain attempt to get off the burnout to get back to blogging. Despite that I am not really motivated about my blog. So how has your week been?

I am writing this post as a vain attempt to get off the burnout to get back to blogging. Let us talk about our weeks and other blogger issues on #SundayPost #weeklywrapup Click To Tweet

What I read this week

burnout

I read just one book last week and I enjoyed reading it. So I am gonna call that a win. Now I have to watch the movie version soon, especially for the director Justin Baldoni , Rafael from Jane the virgin.

I have started with Unmarriageable, a Pride and Prejudice retelling. I am gonna live vicariously by racing against the clock to finish it before the midnight.

What I watched this week

burnout

Ahana from To Heart’s Content recommended me this wonderful K drama called Two worlds and I am adoring it. If you have watched Dramaland, this one might seem similar but it is so much more than the usual sweet romance I am used to in the Korean TV.

Is anyone else as disappointed with the new Annabelle movie as I did? I am so fed up these cheesy jump scares without any strong storyline or character development.

On my blog

As I was talking about earlier, I have not been regular with my blogging schedule and I posted only twice. Do take a look at those post from last week.

Sunday Musings #53: Meet Ups And A Surprise Find

burnout

I reviewed The Clockmaker by Paromita Goswami on Monday

burnout

I will be linking today’s post with Caffeinated reviewer’s Sunday post Meme.

Around the blogosphere

I am slowly getting back to my blog hopping routine. I am happy I could get around reading all your wonderful posts. Here are few of my favorites.

  • Nyx from Drizzle and Hurricane shared what makes her fall for a character and majorly agree with her pointers. What are your top five reasons to love a book character?
  • What do you think is the purpose of stories? Is there more to a story than entertaining us? Let us talk with Holly from Nutfree Nerd via her post on the topic.
  • Read The Orangutan librarian’s post on whygenre snobbery is a b*tch. I am sure we will all get something to say about it.
  • Since I am undergoing a blogger burnout currently, I wanted to share this discussion post on the topic by Vicky on her blog Roaring bookworm. What about you?
  • How much do you trust book reviews by other bloggers? Are you cautious about the paid / fake ones out there? Join the discussion with Jo Linsdell on her blog.
  • Finally, if you have not yet signed up for Indian Lit readathon for the first weekend of July, do it right away. The prompts are out already.

From the Insta-world

Pin me!

burnout

Let us chat

Do you follow your page views on your blog? Do they affect your motivation to blog? What else did you watch this week on TV and cinemas this week? Let us talk.

Sunday Musings #54: Blogger Burnout Ahead

Book review: Clockmaker, The

How far would you go for some peace and stability in your life if you have a family heirloom that has a life changing magical power to it? Would you choose to take the risk for the betterment or will gamble with the known problems of your life? The protagonist of The Clockmaker faces the same questions. Find out how it turned out for him!

clockmaker

About the book

Book Name: The Clockmaker

Author: Paromita Goswami

Genre: Fiction – Paranormal

Characters: Ashish, Latha and Vikram Gupta, Bauji.

Setting: Delhi, India

Disclaimer: I received the copy for free from the author in exchange for an honest review. And it has not changed my opinion on the book any manner. 

The protagonist of The Clockmaker finds a heirloom that has magical capabilities. Should he use to change his life? Read my book review on how it fared for me Click To Tweet

The plot

Ashish is a passionate clockmaker who runs his family legacy business. His not so happy family consists his financially demanding wife and a son who has no interest in his business. He finds a family heirloom that has magical capabilities and a history of its own. 

With his wife trying to impress her arch rival Rashmi and his son falling in love with a girl who is not interested in him, he is now having trouble sleeping due to recurrent nightmares and hallucinations. He is not sure if he should use the clock’s powers for his selfishness or continue suffering.

How his decision affects his family and its legacy forms the rest of the story in The Clockmaker. 

My initial thoughts

Though it has some supernatural themes, for me The Clockmaker was essentially a family drama. I was thoroughly intrigued by the premise and the prologue was bang on. I enjoyed reading the familial issues and the differences in the attitude of each character towards those issues. 

My problem was with the execution of the plot and the lack of uniformity in the pacing. For a horror novel, it felt kinda dragging and not suspenseful. 

Things that worked for me

  • I liked the family drama part more than the horror element.
  • The intriguing premise and the prologue deserves a mention.
  • The simple narrative style might work for most of the readers.

Things that didn’t work for me

  • The pace was not uniform and it disturbed the flow of the plot.
  • If you picked the book for want of supernatural stuff, you might be left wanting. 

Bottom-line

If you wanna read a Bollywood style family drama, with a bit of supernatural elements, The Clockmaker might be a good fit for you. 

Pin me!

clockmaker

Let us chat

Do you read books that focuses on slow moving family drama? What would you do if you have a chance to turn your life with a snap of your finger? What will you ask for? Let us talk.

Sunday Musings #54: Blogger Burnout Ahead

Sunday Musings #53: Meet Ups And A Surprise Find

This week could have been ‘jus nother one’ but for something we found yesterday. We hunted down the couch like the one in the TV series Friends!

My friends and I are currently working on something ‘not so serious’ and we needed a hangout spot and this is where we ended. We literally didn’t get off this very very comfortable couch for more than four hours!

Friends

Now we know why the Friends’ characters spent such long time on such a couch! 

Read on to know more our find about the couch from the FRIENDS and other shenanigans of the week. Let us talk about the week that flew by on my #Sundaypost #weeklywrapUp #UAEbookclub Click To Tweet

And then I hopped off to my UAE book club meeting! I loved my ladies, especially when we get all passionate about things we care about AKA books and writing.

Friends

I can’t wait to meet them again, soon!

What I read this week

Remember me complaining about my reading speed, or the lack of, last week? I am feeling better now, after ranting about it to everyone I personally know, blogger friends and even to other bookstagrammers. 

And also may be because I redeemed myself by reading two more books this week and they are:

  • Queenie by Candice Carty-Williams
  • The Mystery of the Blue Train by Agatha Christie

And I liked both of them, one more than the other though. So stick around until I finally post their reviews here.

What I watched this week

I watched very little TV last week, not that I used the time (gained by avoiding it) productively anywhere else. But hey, I tried!

I watched this old 1991 movie called Cube, because someone recommended it. And I liked it. 

I also have started with Jessica Jones and am taking real slow AKA not binging on it. I will definitely finish it this week.

On my blog

Here is a quick recap of the blogging week that passed by.

Sunday Musings #52: Wondering If Friendships Are Difficult As Adults

Friends

On Monday I reviewed The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-Time

Friends

Here is another one of those not so tough blogging post on  SEO For A Book Blogger – Things You Can Do Today!

Friends

I will be linking today’s post with Caffeinated reviewer’s Sunday post Meme

Around the blogosphere

Did I get to your blog this week? I kinda messed up with blog hop schedule and I do not know where I stopped. So I might have to give it a restart soon. 

Until then show your love to some of these posts that I found this week.

  • I have tried audiobooks and failed terribly because I wasn’t able to concentrate. If you are able to relate to this, you should give a read to Holly’s post on An experiment on multitasking and reading in her blog Nutfree Nerd.
  • I cannot agree more with the Orangutan’s post on the misconceptions about negative reviews. Do you write not so positive reviews on your blog?
  • If you are into horror, like me, then you have to take a look at Beth’s top ten horror books of all time on her blog Before we go. Trust me it has the best books!
  • We all get stuck at that slump once in a while. But how do you cope? Jayati lists her ideas to inspire yourself to write on It’s just a coffee addicted bibliophile.

From the Insta-world

Pin me!

Friends

Let us chat

Have you read any of these books? Do love the Friends series? Or hate? I know there is no in between! Let us talk.

Sunday Musings #54: Blogger Burnout Ahead

Beginners Guide to SEO for bloggers – Things You Can Do Today!

I am glad you are still with me! I was wondering if I had chased of all you guys with those technical (read as: boring) blogging terms. And I am gonna go out on a limb and imagine that you are here for my next post on the series on blogging for non techies. And today let us talk about SEO basics for bloggers, even if you are a newbie.

SEO or Search Engine Optimization are just techniques to help the search engines find your site easily. Do you focus on SEO as a blogger? If not, why? Let us talk. Click To Tweet

Beginners Guide to SEO for bloggers

SEO or Search Engine Optimization are just techniques to help the search engines find your site easily. I know it seems like some sorcery to increase the traffic but it is not so. Maybe it is, but I am only talking about those little things that you and I can do without having to relearn blogging entirely. 

While I still want blogging to be fun and a place to talk about things you love, I don’t mind taking these small extra steps that may not take much of your time. Also, it is not like you have to do them all. Just pick only what you can do and enjoy blogging rather than stressing yourself too much.

[toc]

Choosing the right keyword

Keywords are the search phrases that we type on the search engine. I have discussed more on what keywords are in my earlier post and let us focus on how to put them to use effectively now.

SEO For Book Bloggers

The aim is finding a balance between using an unique keyword (that nobody uses) and using something that everyone uses. Give a bit of thought on ‘What search queries would your post answer to? ‘ and this will help you in achieving a better SEO as a blogger.

For example, let us talk about the keyword for my review on Fahrenheit 451, instead of using just the title of the book, I use the title and the word book review, just to make sure it is not the film but the book that I am reviewing.

This is just to give a basic idea, there are several free keyword planner tools online to help you choose better. But that is a topic for another day!

While I totally support using the keyword three or four times in your post, DO NOT JUST DUMP THE KEYWORD IN EVERY ALTERNATE SENTENCE. Google will punish you for overusing (keyword stuffing) it !

SEO friendly title

The whole objective of a title is to tell the reader (and the search engine) what the post is about. I know it may sound obvious but you will not believe the number of blogs that fail to do this. The easiest way to achieve this is to use the keyword itself, when it is possible. 

I have been using this “book review: title of the book” as a standard format where title of the book is the keyword. Quite recently I found out “Title of the book – a review” works better, the keyword being at the beginning. I will let you know if changing them makes a difference.

Permalinks

Having a strong permalink or URL to your post is kinda important too. Make sure it is not too long or too short. And it ideally should contain the keyword. In case of a review, I usually include the title, the term review and if that is too short I add the author’s name too.

SEO For Book Bloggers

One of the major advantage of moving to WordPress is that I got to change all my permalinks (AKA the URLs) and get rid of those dates from them. The dates do not have anything with SEO, but I personally didn’t like them because they dated the posts and made the permalinks too long.

Use shorter paragraphs and headings

It should not come as a surprise when I say we, readers, have a short attention spans and that posts with shorter paragraphs work better. But including relevant headings to your paragraphs makes the search engine appreciate it better, because you are now telling it see what is important, ie, your heading.

Make an attempt to use headings (H2) and sub headings (H3) in your post, as relevant. If you can, include the keyword in your H2 tags (the headings) without making it too conspicuous.

Meta description

Another place to sneak in the keywords is the meta description, which is like the blurb to your post. Since it is the first few lines that a reader sees make sure it piques the interest of the reader before they click the link. 

SEO For Book Bloggers

In case you don’t write a meta description, the search engine will use the first 160 characters of your post which may not be as good as you write your own. So it is always a better SEO practice to include the meta description.

Attention grabbing first paragraph

Just like in the real world, you get to make the first impression just once. Many people stop reading after the first three lines and if you don’t impress them by then, they would leave your page.

SEO For Book Bloggers

For this reason, I usually avoid copy pasting the blurb content (from Goodreads) as the first paragraph in my reviews. But whatever you add in there, just make sure the keyword is included. 

Put your images to use

With blogging becoming more and more visual, we need to make sure our images are top notch. Be it just using the book cover or a relevant image from Google search, we need to make sure they are not only on brand but also SEO friendly.

Though search engine crawlers are essentially “blind”, we can make sure they index and rank our images with the image alternate text/tag. Including the alt text might seem negligible but it will be so much better than “IMG56784” when you fill the alt text with something relevant like “Blogging terms to know keyword”. 

Blogging terms to know - Alt text Alt tag

While you are at it, follow the same rule when you name your image. 

Interlinking

I may have already spoken about how crucial interlinking the posts in your site was and I think it is worth a repeat. Basically you are trying to hold the attention of the reader to your blog and make them go binge reading your posts. Linking to your older reviews or any other relevant posts is a way to reduce the bounce rates as well. 

Creating an archive page like Evelina has at her Avalinah’s Space or a simple index of your reviews is also a good idea. They offer a bird’s eye view of all your posts to the readers and helps the SEO crawlers staying within your blog. 

While you are interlinking, make sure you fix all your broken links. There are lots of free link checkers like this one that list the error links for you. 

Bonus: Install Yoast plugin

If you use self hosted WordPress for your site, do not think twice and install the YOAST plugin for all your SEO needs as a book blogger. It even guides you step by step. 

If you need any help or have a query about any of these things, feel free to DM me on my social accounts or leave a comment here. I would be happy to help you out! 

Similar topics you might like

Check out this link for more of such posts.

Pin me!

SEO TIPS For bloggers Pinterest

Let’s chat

Do you focus on SEO as a blogger? Are you already doing any of these? Or if you don’t, why not? Which of these ideas do you think will be difficult to follow? Let us talk.

Sunday Musings #54: Blogger Burnout Ahead

Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, The: Book review

Do you ever give a book a second chance? I mean quite literally – like you read the first time and you don’t like it, but then you give it another chance and ending up appreciating it more? Well, that is what happened with The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon.

Have you ever given a book a second chance and then ended up appreciating it more? Well, that is what happened with The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon. Read my review here Click To Tweet

About the Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

Book Name: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

Author: Mark Haddon

Genre: Fiction – Drama, Young adult

Characters: Christopher John Francis Boone, Toby, Wellington, Siobhan, Mr. Jeavons, Mrs. Alexander, Ed Boone, Judy Boone, Mr. and Mrs. Eileen Shears

Setting: England, The UK

Plot summary of the Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

Christopher John Francis Boone, a fifteen year old kid on the Autism/Asperger’s spectrum, is on a mission to find out who murdered his neighbour’s dog, Sherlock Holmes’ style. While he has a gift for math, he has difficulty reading other people’s emotion and hates being touched. 

His father finds it difficult to understand his needs. His mother did it all for him until she died suddenly and now they are left to fend for themselves. Did he find the murderer? What happened to his mother? Read the rest of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time to know more.

Book review of the Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

I rarely give books that I DNF-ed a second chance and I decided to read it because the Classics N Christie book club chose it as the BOTM. And I really wanted to know what happened in the book after I gave up and why everyone goes gaga over it. 

Even though it plays the stereotypical high functioning autistic kid, this book helped me take a look at what happens inside the head of an autistic teen.

If I had to wonder what the difference was between the first time I read it and now, it is that I am more educated about the autistic spectrum, thanks to mainstream media and other books. 

Things that worked for me

  • While I found it hard to get into the first time I read it, I liked the non linear writing style now.
  • I was genuinely surprised when the big reveal came up and I hadn’t guessed it at all.
  • Christopher is a classic example of unreliable narrators, whom I love in general.

Things that didn’t work for me

Christopher falls straight into the holes of the stereotypes of autism in the mainstream media.

Bottom-line

I am glad I gave The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time a second chance and I wish that I liked it more. Sure I didn’t love it, but I didn’t dislike it as much I did the first time.

Similar books that you may like

Pin me!

Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

Let us chat

Have you read the Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time? Or watched the play? Do have recommendations with a better Autistic/Asperger’s representation? Let us talk.