While this is not exactly the “New year, new me” moment, I just wanted to talk about the 2021 plans for Elgee Writes to give you an idea of what to expect during this year.
I also consider this post as a part of my goal setting process that will help me following it more consistently. So fingers crossed, eh?
Reading Plans
Without a reading plan and schedule I am inclined to slide into a reading slump. And that’s why I join up as many reading challenges as I can, just to keep me motivated.
Goodreads Reading Challenge 2020
I have been reading 45 books or so for the past few years. So I think I can safely increase it to 52 in 2021.
I know it doesn’t sound like much when you compare the 100s of books that other bloggers read in a year. But it is definitely a challenge for me to reach this number considering how busy I get around the mid year.
Target: 52
2021 Nonfiction Reader Challenge
I read non fiction books once in a while. But I want to make it official in 2021, and I will participating in the Nonfiction Reader Challenge hosted by Bookdout.
I will probably read more of Self help and essay collections under this category.
Target: Nonfiction Nibbler – Read 6 books, from any category
Books in Translation Reading Challenge 2021
Another reading challenge that I am participating this year would be the Books in Translation, where we read translated books (from any language to any other language, not just English).
I have been wondering why I have not read as many Indian regional literature as I would like to have, and I would be correcting it in 2021.
Target: Conversationalist: 4-6 books
Reading more classics
I have been trying to do this in the past few years but I have not covered a lot. So I think 2021 might be the year that I actually read more classics, including children’s.
Anyone has a good reading list or guide to follow? Please do share.
Blogging plans and actions
After a tumultuous year that broke most of us emotionally and mentally, I just need an action plan to go forward. You know, an attempt to make things more normal. So here comes by blogging plans for 2021.
Blogging content
I have a fairly regular blogging schedule and I hope I don’t have to change it – because it works for me and you guys, based on my statistics.
Sunday – Personal and blog related updates
Monday – Book reviews
Wednesday – Discussion posts related to books, blogging or self development.
Friday – Listicles, quotes and quizzes. An occasional guest post.
I love how far I have come in making the schedule consistent, despite 2020, and I hope it continues.
I will be joining Nicole and Shannon’s Book Blog Discussion Challenge in 2021 as well, and it has become a staple in my yearly challenges. Nicole and Shannon, thanks for hosting it.
Action plan
Do a series on quotes, again
Create a resource page for authors and bloggers
Increasing blog engagement
Just like every other blogger here, I love getting comments and shares on my posts. The more the merrier.
I started the Comment 4 comment challenge in 2019 and it turned out to be a success. And then 2020 happened where we struggled to just float.
Learn to care about the follower counts and blog statistics.
Final note
Though it is 2021, we are still under the throes of the pandemic and we are not yet normalcy. I am not going to be trying too hard or be stressing myself with these plans, but using these action plans as guidelines and take it as they come.
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Let’s talk
What are your reading and blogging plans like? Do you engage in a yearly planning process? Tell me more about your 2021 plans. Let us chat.
I might be a little later than usual but I am excited to announce that the Comment 4 comment challenge is back on for 2021! It is time to get back on the wagon as a conscious effort to increase the engagement and commenting on our blog. Are you ready for this?
Blog engagement is the key!
Despite what we tell ourselves about how we blog for ourselves or how it is just a hobby, we love getting comments on our posts and meeting new likeminded bloggers.
Without such validation via comments or shares we may as well be just screaming into the void. Trust me that is just a sure shot way into blogger burnout – something that we all dread.
The comment 4 comment challenge has been greatly successful in the past (2018, 2019). I am sure the participants gained quite a number of blogger friends who not just commented and shared on their blogs, but also gained a good support system.
Let’s rebuild that one. Welcome to C4CC-2021 edition!
What is the Comment 4 Comment Challenge (C4CC) 2021?
The major issue for any small blogger is building an audience and increasing their blog engagement. And that means getting more visitors, comments and shares on your blog. If that sounds interesting to you, this challenge is for you.
The goal of C4CC is ‘leave no comment un-replied and un-returned’.
What do you have to do?
Replying all the comments you received on your blog
Visiting the said commenter’s blog to leave a comment
If you feel you are up for this challenge, SIGN UP right away.
What is the goal anyway?
If you have any of the following as goal for your blog this year
Be more social
Increase the number of comments on your blog, organically
Make more blogging friends
Improve blogging engagement
Increase your blog followers
Finding similar blogs
Then this Comment 4 Comment Challenge (C4CC) for you!
How can you participate in this challenge?
Sign up for the challenge here
Grab my button and add on your blog
Follow my blog and leave a comment to this post.
Share the news on social media
Bring in your buddy and as they say, the more the merrier.
Have you signed for the Comment 4 Comment Challenge 2021 edition? Were you part of the past years’ challenges? What are your blogging goals this year? Let us chat.
As many of us would agree, book review posts draw the least traffic and engagement in a book blog. Despite this notoriety, many of us don’t want to stop posting reviews as many of us including me started our book blogs initially to talk about the books we read and how we feel about them.
What makes a visitor comment on a post or not is not easy to understand. While it is not possible for us to satisfy and engage with every visitor, it is possible to tailor our review posts to suit their needs. And in the process, motivate them to create engagement and increase traffic.
Make the summary more interesting
Do you still copy the blurb/summary of the book from Goodreads or Amazon?
The plot summary is something that is usually placed on the top part of the review. When the readers come across something that they can read elsewhere, they tend to skim over them and lose connection with the post.
Skip the copy paste. Write the summary in your own words and keep it as short as you can. And that reminds me of something else.
Avoid including spoilers
One of the reasons that your visitor is skipping reading reviews on blogs is to avoid spoilers. Repeat visitors usually remember these bad experiences in a blog and may avoid their review posts altogether.
Make sure that you don’t spoil the reading experience for anyone else. And if at all, you can’t avoid a spoiler or two ensure they are hidden unless they are specifically clicked open.
Make your star rating stand out
The first thing most readers look at is a score or star rating when they visit a review post. So make sure your rating stands out from all your other texts. Explain why you rated the book as you did and obviously be fair in your rating.
Anyone with a blog can write a review. What makes yours different from the thousand others? YOU. People visit your blog and your review to know what YOU think about the book. They are not at a blog to get an impersonal, critique review. (But if you think that is what you want to do, please continue to do it with style.)
Try including your life and emotions into the review posts, just like you would in any other discussion or tag post. Be the fangirl that you are (or the snarky ray of sunshine as it might be), people like that kinda genuineness.
Improve the aesthetics
It is no secret that people love seeing beautiful and colorful things. Make your reviews pleasant to look at and maybe pepper in a few relevant GIFs just to hold in their attention.
It is often a criticism that bloggers are so focused on hyping up a book they like that they shy away from talking about the negatives in a book. This is especially true when they review a book they received from an author or publisher.
In my opinion, our duty as a blogger is first to the reader – to tell them what our honest views about the book. If you also share that opinion, please do share both the positives and negatives you may find in a book.
But be gentle and professional about your critique – say what worked for you and what didn’t. Remember you can be critical of the book, not the author.
End with a question or two
Another way to motivate your readers to comment is to pose questions at the end of your review. Ask both book specific questions, for people who have read the book already, and generic questions for others so that there will be something for all the readers to mull upon and answer.
Relate to other books
At the risk of annoying some readers when you get it wrong, comparing and relate the book you review with some other book or movie may help your reader to take a decision about the book.
More importantly, now the other Bridget Jones’ fans might be interested to comment on how true your comparison is..
Read popular books
When all else fails, people search for reviews of book that they read or want to read. Thus reviewing popular and trending books may improve your chances of engagement in book review posts.
You do not have to go out of your favorite genres to do this but reading popular ones in your genre is a good idea. And getting off your comfort zone may work for you as well.
What do you think makes a reader motivated to read and comment on your review? Or what do you as a reader would want in a book review to make it useful to make a decision? How to improve engagement in book review posts? Let us talk.
As many of us did, I started my blog to talk about the books I read aka book reviews. At some point, people in my real life could only take so much of my nerdiness and were glad that I found a place (where they weren’t required to be present) to do that.
That is why, despite what the statistics say and constant murmur about how “nobody reads book reviews”, I can’t give up writing on book reviews on my blog. Yes I agree they bring fewer comments and likes, if at all, but it is something I do for myself – even if it has shifted being a rant review from the initial days to a more structured format now.
It is true that many book bloggers have reduced the frequency of posting book reviews. And a few have even stopped posting them altogether on their blogs and publish them on Goodreads instead. Well, that is never happening on Elgee Writes.
I am good at over-analyzing things and sometimes I do make sense. I have been wondering why book reviews don’t get engagement, despite the fact that just few years ago, that was all the book blogs were doing.
Why book reviews don’t get engagement, actually?
Why aren’t book reviews getting the attention they deserve? Especially considering they are one of the hardest type of posts to write on a book blog. Well, let me over-analyze that for you.
“I want review of *insert hyped book title*!”
The popularity of the book reviews is almost dependent on how popular the books you review are. But as a reader/reviewer, I can not always read books that are popular because
I may not have access to all the popular books due to geography and duh.. money.
I may not be interested in those books, bringing me to the next point.
“I don’t read historical romance!”
Every reader/blogger has a favorite genre of books. And not everyone will love to read all genres. I for one, read very few Science Fiction and fewer Fantasy books.
I am definitely losing on readers who are looking for reviews of Sci-fi/Fantasy books. For want of more readers, I don’t think I can spend time reading what I am not interested. I know that goes against everything blogging stands for, but sorry.
“Reviews are very subjective”
More often than not, book reviews in blogs talk about what WE THINK of the book, as blogs should be doing. We end up talking what WE liked in a book and what WE didn’t. We do not talk about what was good and bad in an objective manner, nor many of us aim to do that too.
Obviously, we like that kinda subjectivity and prefer to keep that way. So unless the reader shares our tastes and preferences in choosing books, they may choose to ignore our reviews and we can do nothing about it.
“Part three? I have not even read the first!!”
Trilogies are all the rage currently. And when you review a book that is part of a series, you have a fairly smaller audience because unless they have read the other books the readers may not be interested in yours at all.
Sometimes readers might hold out on reading your review until they read other parts so that they can avoid its influenced.
“Have I heard of this book?!”
If your reading tastes are anything like mine, your reviews will be books that very few people have heard of. My reading list rarely consists of popular books, though I am trying to change that and begun reading more Young Adults and romances last year.
So it goes without being said, those book reviews have fewer engagements. As a reader of “not so popular-yet” books, I have to take that chance.
“Reviews are not honest enough”
Of late there has been a shift in the review field, that bloggers are shying away or refraining from giving a negative or even a moderately critical review for any book.
Yes I understand why they decide to do that (saving their mind’s peace is one of the main reason) but still as a reader I might want to know what went wrong in the book by reading a review.
So when that doesn’t happen often they might tend to quickly dismiss reviews as mere promotion tool for the author.
“What to comment?!”
Many a times, readers are genuinely stumped, not knowing what to say. Unless your reviews stand out and make them want to talk about them, book reviews usually do not invoke much response. What could they say about your thoughts about a book they have not read yet?
I usually throw them a lifeline asking something generic at the end of my post so that it might help to comment, even without reading that particular book. But beyond that, there is nothing else I can do about it.
Can we make book reviews better?
On an average, I follow about 50+ book blogs on a regular basis and if each even posts one book review per week I read about 150 book reviews approximately each month. I am sure many bloggers do more than I do.
That makes it quite understandable that people skip commenting on book reviews, which let’s face it, are a drag compared to other posts like tags or discussions.
So it is on us as a blogger to make the reviews more engaging and interesting. I will post more on that in the coming weeks.
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Let us talk
Do you still post book reviews on your blog? Why do you think book reviews don’t get engagement at all? If you are a reader, let us know what do you expect from a review to make it more useful? Let us talk.
One of the most asked questions that new bloggers have is how to get more comments on their blog post. Especially when you have not yet made as many friends in the blogging world it might seem like a difficult task. I talked about how to comment on other blogs, even if you are an introvert on my earlier post, so I promise this is gonna be much easier than that.
How do some of the bloggers get so many comments and have so many friends who dote their posts?
Let me break it out for you right away. There are no shortcuts to receiving 100 comments per post. It takes time, patience, and efforts to build those relations. Commenting and blog hopping goes much beyond ‘I will scratch yours if you do mine’. And that is why many ‘follow for follow’ groups fail.
Get More Comments On Your Blog
Here are all the small things that we all can do easily to motivate, help and enthuse the readers of your blog to comment.
Let us face it, not all of us want to leave comments on all the posts we read. And most of us are still too anxious to start a conversation on the internet with a stranger, even if we love their content. So why not make it easier for them right?
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End with a question
Many of us write posts between 500-1200 words and our content is usually so awesome that we often leave the reader baffled on to what to say. I am not even exaggerating. Okay maybe a bit. But seriously it is on us to prod the reader to leave a comment and then tell them what to comment about.
My posts usually end with a ‘let us chat’ section where I ask some relevant questions for the reader to answer or share their thoughts on. Of course they are welcome to talk about anything they want, but a little guidance never hurt anyone, right?
Just make sure these questions are generic and open ended so it is easier to get a variety of comments.
Make it a dialogue
Do not forget to respond to those comments when you receive them. Do not leave the other person hanging, make it a dialogue. This will help the other blogger to remember you and maybe visit again. If you can you should visit their blog and leave them a comment as well. As I said earlier, this is beyond being reciprocal. Who knows, you might make a new friend even!
If this is something that interests you, you should consider joining the Comment 4 comment Challenge. The goal is to make sure we return every comment we receive on our blog. You think you can do that?
Make use of relevant plugins
Okay this is kinda specific for self hosted bloggers, but hey it might be useful for others as well some day right?There are nifty little plugins that I love and I know a lot of bloggers who swear by them. I am gonna keep the descriptions short and will provide a link if you wanna read more about them,
A lot of bloggers use this plugin to let their commenters leave a link to their latest post. I love how some of them have set it up to bring up the last 10 posts so that the commenter could have a choice.
This small plugin sends an email to the blogger when you respond to their comment on your blog. This helps them to continue the conversation by hopping back to your blog, if they want to.
Thanks to Evelinah for recommending me this plugin and I totally depend on it these days. This plugin adds another tab on your WordPress comments section and shows only those comments that you have not responded to.
I am too ashamed to show the number of replies pending.
If you don’t have these plugins, do consider using them. They make the commenting life much simpler.
Build relationships
Find out who are your regulars and form a relationship with them. Of course you don’t have to force yourself to do that. But the fact that they are visiting your blog regularly means you have something in common with them, so why not explore that?
You might want to take a look at Bloggers’ comment junction if you are interested in forming long standing blogging relationship and a community that will support you through comments and shares.
Make commenting easier
This sounds like a no brainer but it is kinda very important. Make it easier for the other bloggers to comment on your blog. Ditch all the things that complicate their lives. I mean Captchas and excessive authentication questions.
As I have mentioned on my earlier post, blog engagement is a two way street. Commentors may not flock to your well written post just because it is up there you actively promote it on your social media and keep linking it everywhere. You will still have to make an effort to talk to other bloggers through their comments.
I love how responsive Cait from Paperfury is to her comments, even when she must be receiving 100+ comments on each of her post. We should all make a start somewhere and just start leaving comments, despite what our introvert self says.
What are your secrets to receiving lots of comments on your blog? Do you use these plugins? Are you struggling to get more comments on your post? Share us your favorite plugin or trick to boost the number of comments on your post. Let us talk.
