When I first started book blogging I was fortunate enough to be hired as an assistant at an author PR and marketing firm. Later on I worked with the author who was my manager from that company. These days I just help her out with stuff as needed.
In my work as an assistant, I often have to do a lot of hopping from one book blog to another. I know, it’s an awesome job. I spend a lot of time looking at blogs to find potential reviewers or to check if a blogger has put up a review or a feature post as agreed. I enjoy it because book blog hopping not only lets me in on what’s happening in the community (what’s new, what’s trending, what are bloggers excited about these days, etc.), but it also helps me discover new blogs and gives me a chance to read about new or even old books.
For work purposes, I tend to zero in on a few things on a book blog. I get giddy when I see a nice design and a clean layout (I’m kind of obsessed with blog design), but those are not the only things that get my attention. Here are a few things that I usually look for in a book blog when I’m looking to connect with bloggers about an author or a book.
1. An “about me” page or widget. It’s always great to know more about the person (or persons) behind the blog. Sometimes it helps to know your background and what you do. It gives me insight on why you blog the way you do or how often. Knowing about your other interests helps me assess whether you’d be a good fit for an author or book. Say, if you’re a gamer I’d like to know what you think about a book written by a video game developer or if you’re into art I’d like to know if you’d be interested in a book about an art relic or something. You know what I mean. As much as possible I want to get to know the blog and blogger a little first before I send them an email. :)
2. A review policy or even just a quick note that says you are open to review requests from authors and publishers. It doesn’t have to be a very detailed or long one. I just need to know if you’re open to receiving emails from publicists. Of course, information about the genres you prefer and format you accept is very useful, too. I like it when a review policy basically let’s me know what kind of books you like to read and review.
3. A way to find all your reviews. Adding a review index or adding a specific tag to your reviews and making that tag accessible can really help a lot. I like checking out a blogger’s reviews to get to know him/her better and see his/her style. It also helps me know more about your take on specific genres. It helps me gauge if you’d be interested in a particular book.
4. A way to search your blog posts or archives. A list of your post archives is good. A simple search bar is even better. It makes things easier when I want to know if you’ve ever featured a certain author or book before or if you’ve blogged about a certain topic before. A search bar or an archive list helps a lot when there’s no review index or cateory/tag list available.
5. A way to contact you, whether it’s via email, a contact form embedded on the page, or via another account like Goodreads or Facebook. I prefer sending an email or private message over leaving a comment on the contact page because I can give more information about the author or the book and I can also talk more about things that are not released to the public just yet. I’ve actually come across some blogs that seem to be open to review requests but don’t have any contact info.
Anyway, these are just some of the things I look for when I go blog hopping for work. They all sound pretty basic and most book bloggers have them on their blogs, but I’ve actually come across a few book blogs that were not so easy to navigate.
Did I miss anything? What do you think are the top things that book bloggers should have on their blogs? :)