Armchair BEA: Developing as a Blogger

Instead of going to BEA (Book Expo America) this year, I’m participating in Armchair BEA. We Armchair BEA-ers may have missed out on this year’s Book Bloggers’ Conference today, but we can focus on blogger development during this virtual conference.

First, pretend you are here, at the Javits Center in Manhattan, mingling with a few hundred other book bloggers:

Instead of going from more personal to more professional, I may be developing backwards as a blogger. My book blog started out as a professional sideline; I set it up to be a communal project for the library I worked at, but it was really more of a personal labor of love and I gradually let more of myself sneak into my posts.

Over the nearly four years that I’ve been blogging about books and audiobooks, I’ve tried to make my posts more personal and less strictly professional, but not too personal. I started out strictly reviewing books, but over the last couple of years have tried to be more of a friend in the book blogging world. I comment pretty regularly on several blogs, and each week I visit many others and comment frequently. This has helped me get more regular visitors to my blog, and more comments as well, which has helped me feel more a part of the greater community of book bloggers and, I think, has made me a better blogger, as well.

And, on a personal note, here’s the very good reason I traveled to Maine this past weekend with my family instead of jetting off to New York on my own this week:

(As an aside, I’ve twice now had would-be commenters mention that they had trouble commenting on some of my recent posts, but I can’t figure out what the problem is. If you try to comment on this post and can’t, would you please send me a quick email at lauriec AT baystatera DOT com to tell me whether you’re getting an error message or what is happening? Thank you!)

Visit other book bloggers who’ve posted about becoming better bloggers here, at Armchair BEA Central.

Armchair BEA is the experience for book bloggers to participate in Book Expo America (BEA) from the comfort of their homes. This experience is created lovingly by book bloggers specifically for our peers who for whatever reason are not able to participate in the main conference in New York each year. We bring publishers, authors, and bloggers together in celebrating our love for all things literary by hosting celebrations such as sneak peeks, daily discussion topics, and sponsored giveaways.

Thank you again to the Armchair BEA Blog Team for hosting this event!

• The1stdaughter
• Chrisbookarama
• Pam van Hylckama Vlieg
• Tif Sweeney
• Florinda Pendley Vasquez
• ChristasBooks
• Jasmine Ko
• Emily

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