“But, Shruti, you’ve only recently started Shru-ish yourself.”
I hear ya! But I also ran a quite successful — if I do say so myself — book blog for 6 years before I decided to shut it down and take a 2.5 year long break from it.
Back when I was blogging, I did have thousands of followers, at least a 5% increase in organic traffic month on month, and several publishers I worked with on the regular to review advance copies of books.
My day job is also in content marketing which is how I was able to keep a successful website running with all the strategies I’d picked up at work. This time around, I’m restarting blogging with all of my learnings from my previous blogging era and I’m also going to document my learnings here.
So, let’s get started.
What is a book blog?
Are you ready to blog about books and share your love for literature with the world? You’re in the right place.
A book blog gives you the opportunity to share your current reads, reviews of books you’ve just finished, and other articles of the literary kind with the world.
Things you may find on a book blog:
- Reviews: This is why I started my book blog. Most book blogs are primarily about book reviews, filled with readers’ opinions on the books they’ve read. Book blogs are my primary source of inspiration on what to read next.
- Recommendations: While book reviews are the cornerstone of book blogs, the owners definitely love sharing their recommendations too. Yes, a book review also gives you a recommendation, but book blogs also do specific posts like ‘If you liked X, you’ll also like Y and Z’ and listicle after listicle on genre based recommendations.
- Discussions: In my past era of being a book blogger, blogging was very much about the community and opening up a forum on my website for discussion on different literary topics.
6 main reasons to start a book blog
- You become more critical: As much as I thought I had media literacy, it was book blogging that made me better analyze plot, writing, and nuanced themes in books. The 6 years I spent blogging, I saw for myself how much better I got at reading critically.
- You get a community of book lovers: You meet so many likeminded readers from around the world and they even end up becoming your best friends. I got married in 2023 and I had several people I met through blogging on my guest list. That’s how close we’d gotten thanks to screaming together about our love for books in random corners of the internet together.
- You get better at writing and marketing: When I started blogging, I had also just forayed into the world of technical writing. Now I head a content marketing team of 6 at a software company. I really believe that blogging also made me a better writer who knew how to market herself and her content.
- You get your influencer era: No, really. I’ve
bulliedinfluenced multiple people to read my favourite books thanks to yapping about it on the blog here. Another perk? As you grow, publishing houses also send you advanced reading copies (ARCs) of books yet to be published to get early reviews in. Free books and exclusive access early on? Sign me up! - You get out of your comfort zone: Before I started blogging, I was snooty af and stuck mainly to classics, literary fiction, and mysteries. It was book blogging and seeing other bloggers’ recommendations that pushed me out of my comfort zone and got me into romance and translated novels. And now I pretty much only read romance and translated literary fiction.
- It’s so much freakin’ fun: All the perks apart, it’s unbelievably fun to find people from around the globe to read along with you and celebrate the joy of reading together.
7 steps to start a book blog
Ready to learn about how to start a book blog? Here’s everything you need to know!
1. Pick a name
Well, duh!
Choose a memorable and descriptive name that will give you recall value with your readers. Here are a few ways to brainstorm and pick a name.
Define your niche
Yes, you’re going to write about books. But are you going to focus on a specific genre? Choose a name that specifies the genre you’re mostly going to be talking about.
Or go broad
If you don’t want to restrict yourself by genre or any other niche, go for broader bookish names. One of my favourite book blogs (and blogger!) is Bookwyrming Thoughts and I love the name of Soph’s blog. Give her blog a follow while we’re at it because she’s been doing this for way longer than I have and has seen it all in the blogging world.
Make it catchy
Not to toot my own horn, but I always thought This is Lit was a memorable name for its time. Except of course for there being a store by the same name which led to me getting some angry customer emails, a perfect segue to my next point…
Make sure its unique
…and not just that the domain is available. I’ve seen multiple blogs with extremely similar names and just different domain extensions. How are your followers going to remember if you’re shruish dot com or shruishblog dot com?
So, make sure the domain you choose is not only unique but also doesn’t already exist under a different domain extension.
Keep it short and sweet
Many people including yours truly type in the URL to visit their favourite websites. A shorter name lends itself to memorability and makes you stand out already.
Inject your personality into it
I always like when someone has a blog name that reflects their personality. Trust me, the most shrewish woman I know called her blog Shruish.
2. Choose your blogging platform
I’ve only ever used WordPress and Webflow but there are several great platforms out there other than WordPress like Wix and Squarespace.
The biggest question you need to ask yourself right now is how you’d like to host it. You have two options:
1. Host it yourself
WordPress.org gives you full control of your website and it is entirely customizable. If you’re tech-savvy, or like me, in possession of a tech bro husband and a tech bro best friend you can bother ruthlessly, this is the option you should go for.
2. Choose a hosted platform
WordPress.com, Wix, and Squarespace give you a great beginner setup for book blogging with easy interfaces and drag-and-drop builders to make your book blog journey smooth. I initially started out on WordPress.com under the Free plan, moved to Premium in a year, and eventually went fully self hosted.
Also, since I’ve only ever used WordPress for book blogging, the rest of this section will fully focus on WordPress so I can give you anecdotal evidence and advice. If you’ve already settled on a platform other than WordPress, feel free to skip this step.
Some additional factors also come into play here:
- Budget: Self-hosting needs monies. You need to cough up for the hosting provider, the domain, and even the theme if you have your eyes on something pretty. Platforms like WordPress.com have free hosting with limited features if you don’t want to invest money into this hobby right away.
- Technical skills: How comfortable are you with the technical skills a self-hosted platform might require? If you’re willing to be hands-on and learn, self-hosted might work. If not, again a free platform might suit you better.
- Scalability: How much do you envision your blog growing? Self-hosted might help you more with scaling your blog. The Enterprise plan of WordPress.com can also help with this if it matches your budget.
Choose one of the two after fully considering all 3 of these factors.
And hey, I did do both and so can you! Start off with a free plan now and make a decision later if needed. The transition is quite flawless when you do decide to switch either to a paid WordPress.com plan or go self-hosted.
3. Find the right URL or domain
Again, here we separate into two points.
If you went for the free hosting plan, choose an easy to remember and type URL through the platform.
If you’re self-hosted or planning on using a paid WordPress.com plan, find a domain name and register it.
Use this tool to check if the domain name you have in mind is available.
4. Choose a hosting provider
…if you’re self-hosting.
A hosting provider helps you host your website by renting out some space on its servers. There are a lot of hosting providers out there such as Hostinger (I use this), GoDaddy, HostGator, BlueHost, and more. Thoroughly research each of their features, storage space, reviews, and pricing to choose the provider that works best for you.
5. Set up your site
If you’re self-hosted, you’ll have to install WordPress. Irrespective of the hosting method, this is the point where you start thinking of the layout and theme of your website.
WordPress has a ton of free themes to choose from. If you’re looking for paid themes, there are also sites like ThemeForest and Envato.
Choose a theme that you think aptly shows off your personality and get ready to go live!
6. Set up your main pages
What are the key pages you want to be ready with even before you launch?
For a book blog, I’d recommend an About page to start with so the world knows what your blog is about. As you go about your book blogging journey, you can start to add more pages like a Review Policy, a Book Reviews section, and any other category you want to showcase separately on your website.
7. Write your first post
Hello, world! It’s time to meet this reader who just launched their first blog.
Yes, that’s you!
Pick an article to start off with and share it with the world.
Congratulations, you just started your book blog!
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