2019 Blogging Wrap-Up & 2020 Goals

Hi everyone! A lot has happened in 2019 in all of the aspects of my life from school to the blog to my bookstagram! January of 2019 was the deciding month for my blogging career because I had been using Wix as my blogging host, and it just was working for me, so as one last attempt at the whole book blogging thing, I decided to switch to WordPress. And, I’m glad that I did because I’ve been able to share my thoughts about books I’m the form of reviews and book tags, different aspects in the YA book world, and most importantly surround myself with book loving people on the internet.

Stats

I don’t typically talk about the stats of my blog because I don’t want people to be like me and compare their numbers with mine and go through the why isn’t my blog doing like that person, but I’m going to talk about the, in this wrap-up post because I’ve reached some huge personal milestones! By the end of the year I had:

• 272 Posts for the Year
• Just over 450 WordPress followers
• 4,100 Post Likes
• 15,640 Views
• Countless Book Friends & Supporters
• More Self-Confidence

Never in my wildest dreams had I imagined all of that would happen to me in the course of the year. When I started blogging this year, I didn’t know where it would take me, or honestly, if I would even stick with it. But I’m glad that I did because it has taught me that writing really it’s as easy as people like to think it is and makes me appreciate all of the books sitting in my room.

I’ve always been a self-conscious person when it comes to my writing and anything in general that puts me out of my comfort zone, so just putting myself out there on the internet for people to judge is a huge thing. I’m forever grateful to all of the people over the past year who read, shared, and followed my blog because y’all are the reason I didn’t give up blogging!

Posts

In the past year, I kind of dabbled in all sorts of posts from wrap-ups to bookstagram related things to Top Ten Tuesdays to working with different blogging origination for tours and cover reveals. Most of them were book related, but there was a couple of none book posts. I don’t consider myself to be a ‘natural writer’ where the word flow from my brain to the screen. I have these really great ideas that hits me in the weirdest moment like when I sitting in lecture or washing my hair, and I never stop to write them down *sigh*. So, I often spend more time than I care to admit writing things from review to tags to discussion type posts. Then, when I do publish them, I often feel like there could have been more added to the post to make it better, or it just wasn’t interesting.

One of my first kinda off the wall post was To Spin Off Or Not To Spin Off which was me talking about if books would have been better with the spin off series or without it (and now looking back on it, it could have been a lot better). It was fun to write this post because it was the first time that I sat down and had a bookish discussion that made me think about how I saw some books.

I’ve learned that I had to kind of push myself to become more personal with my posts because I’ve always been a slow to warm up person and telling things about myself is hard when I don’t know the majority of my reads. I’ve opened up in posts like Things I’ve Learned as a Teenager, Adoption and Foster Care in YA, and my Reintroduction post. Then, there were posts where I talked about Blogging Tips, Things I Learned as While Blogging (about blogging), and some of the Struggles I have as a Blogger.

Then, there’s posts where I spilled the tea about some things in the bookish world from some of my Unpopular Opinions about books to Not Sharing My Review of a Book I Received to Review to Disappointing Books of 2019.

Another thing that I enjoyed was my unboxing and weekly release posts! Over the year, I was able to post many OwlCrate, Fae Crate, Luminary, and LitJoy posts in addition to a few special edition boxes such as Defy Me, Capturing the Devil, QoN (OC and FC), Tunnel of Bones, and some enamel pins and candles. Even though it was a lot of work making sure the titles are still set for that date and all of the other little necessities that goes along with those posts, I enjoyed posting the weekly release posts because it helps my readers find or remember the books coming out that week.

Some of my favorite tags from the year was 50 Things that Makes Me Happy, The Coffee Book Tag, The Jonas Brothers Tag, and The Identity Crisis Book Tag. I was also nominated for a number of different blogging awards from The Versatile Blogger Award, The Sunshine Blogger Award, The Real Neat Blog Award, Liebster Award, The Awesome Blogger, The Mystery Blogger, and The Blogger Recognition Award! Plus I had even made my own book tag!

Lastly, are my favorite reviews for the year. This year I wrote 40 reviews and these were some of my favorite: Sorcery of Thorns, The Bookworm Crush, Feather, As She Fades, You’d Be Mine, When Summer Ends, Dare to Fall, and Match Me If You Can.

Hello 2020

For this year, I’m going to try and write more posts where I analyze things about ya books. I want to talk about things that are lacking from many of our books to the things that authors are doing write. I want to give more recommendations to y’all and write better (which is always a goal of mine).

I’m also thinking about creating a TBR jar with titles of books on my high priority TBR. I feel like this is a fun way to let fate try and help decide the books to read when I’m at a road block.

I want to comment more of y’alls posts. It’s the introvert in me that makes it hard for me to comment. I find myself overthinking everything that I could say. You know how it is.

I really want to slow down my book buying as well, but I don’t know how well that’s going to go!

Here’s to another year of blogging and friends!

Happy reading until next time,