I've only been doing this for two years, so I certainly don't consider myself an expert (in fact, I frequently feel like quite the noob when I see other bloggers talking about blogging things), so I can't say definitively what makes every book blog work, but I can definitely tell you what makes this one work.
It takes a fine balance of caffeine, wine, and candy to keep this ship afloat (and by this ship I mean my fat butt.) But without keeping myself afloat, the blog would go down with me, like the captain. So I'm essentially saying that the blog is my master, and that's really not far from the truth. Outside of my household adult responsibilities (cooking, cleaning, keeping the children alive), the blog takes up most of my free time. Granted a lot of that is spent reading, which is what I would be doing in my free time anyway, so it's not all bad. But there are times when I feel like I'm not giving the blog enough attention (like when I haven't checked the messages on the page in three weeks and I have 70 of them waiting for my attention, right now.) I do sometimes have to remind myself that it's okay to ignore those things (and yes, I feel like not checking the messages for three weeks is perfectly acceptable because this is not my job. Do I regret doing that every time it happens? Yeah, cause checking three weeks worth of messages is murder, but I keep doing it anyway.) It's when I go an entire week without posting a single review that I really feel like I'm neglecting the blog though, because reviews are what I really want the blog to be about.
There are other things that are necessary to keep the blog running though. The biggest is my husband (what can I say, I'm a good cook.) I'm fortunate enough to have a husband that has come to terms with supporting my book habit. A husband that doesn't mind when I say "Can we just order out for supper, I don't feel like cooking tonight?" (Because I really just want to keep reading the book that I've had my nose stuck in for the past half hour while my kids FaceTime with my mother). Even though my husband isn't a reader, so he doesn't really understand this facet of me, he does understand that it's important to me, and does what he can to support me, and he's probably more understanding than I deserve (but don't tell him I said that, because we don't do sappy on social media.)
You guys are important in keeping the blog running too. Without readers, I'd just be talking to myself and that would make me a crazy person (I'm probably a crazy person anyway, but at least it's not obvious in this aspect of my existence.) But seriously, when you read and comment on my reviews, when you like and or comment on my Facebook posts, when you retweet my tweets (do you follow me on Twitter because you can!), all of that makes all of this worthwhile.
And I think that's pretty much it. That is what it takes to keep this particular blog running. - Katie
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