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Life updates and an important blogging question

Emily Rose

Cough cough sputter cough.

Hi.

So it’s been like 11 days since my last post and it feels WEIRD. What makes it even more weird is that it feels weird – like, before, it would be totally normal to have 11 days between posts. But the in last 6 months I’ve been blogging like a fiend and loving it, so now it’s strange to have such a long span of silence. Here is a note on reasons for said silence:

In short, I moved. Moving is hard. Like, physically. Emotionally this move was not too hard, but it takes time to pack up an entire apartment and then try to unpack it all into one bedroom back at your parents’ house…

I also started my new job literally the day after I moved. What a great decision that was. I’m not tired and stressed at all. Everything is wonderful.

In all honesty, my job/living/grad school situation couldn’t be more ideal at the moment, so I should absolutely not be complaining. I just need to learn to manage blogging among a new library job and new library grad program. Which brings me to my question:

How many bloggers do you follow and how much time do you spend reading/commenting on posts?

Because here is my problem: I follow a lot of bloggers. Like, 112. But not all of them are active, so lets call it around 80. I was off WordPress for 4 days and it took me HOURS to read all the posts I wanted to catch up on. And I don’t even read all of the posts. Heck, I probably read less than half of what is published on my feed. But it’s rather overwhelming and I don’t want to unfollow people. In fact, it’s nice to discover new bloggers! And I don’t want to be the person who skims posts really quickly; I want to read thoroughly so as to be an engaged follower. So how the heck do I manage?? How do you manage, dear reader?

I greatly appreciate your attention to this ragtag post, and I hope to find some sort of stride with everything in the coming months, but warn you that my presence on here or on your own posts with reading and commenting might be sparse while I adjust to a totally different lifestyle than what I had the past 2 years.

Also, this morning I got my 200th follower, so that’s pretty cool! Thanks, all!

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35 thoughts on “Life updates and an important blogging question”

  1. I don’t think you should feel bad about yourself if you don’t read every blogger’s post. If their post is about a type of genre you don’t care for but all of their other posts are tags you love, there is nothing wrong with not reading in depth every now and then! I think all the bloggers know that not all followers will read every post, so it is more important you don’t stress about it. 🙂

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  2. Congratulations on your new job and stuff. I would not feel bad about not reading everything. You have to read what you want. I do wish, when I get busy, I could save a post or my spot halfway through a post, so I could finish reading later.

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  3. Congrats on the new job! What I tend to do is go through my reader in the morning (it’s like my version of reading the newspaper while I have a cup of coffee) But if some of the people are really unactive (and not just on hiatus) I’d probably unfollow. But also like if we read every single persons posts all the time we would never leave our computers lol

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  4. My family and I moved house this winter, so I know what you mean. It’s a lot of work!
    I personally only follow 48 blogs, and I don’t read everything on my feed either. I think I read maybe 10-15 posts every day? I like everything I read (if it’s any good), but I only comment if I have anything specific to say. 😃

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  5. Ask yourself what your goal is: to find a community? To find new books to read? To get people to read your blog? If your goal is readers, unfollow the people who don’t blog regularly. Chances are, they’re not reading you back because they’re pretty neglectful of their blog. If you want community, unfollow people who don’t comment ever. If they’re simply liking your post and that’s it, they’re not engaging with you and may not even actually be reading your blog. They could be hitting like so you feel good and go over to their blog. I got a lot of these people for a while. If you’re simply looking for new books to read, unfollow anyone with a theme blog that doesn’t appeal to you. Why follow a nice crime fiction blog if you hate crime novels. Finally, just in general, I never file blogs that give a ton of plot summary and then end with a paragraph like “I looked this characters and this tightly plotted novel.” Who cares? There is zero evidence for that claim, and that blogger is not a book god who gets to say something and thus it is true.

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    3. I think a lot of this is good advice. I routinely unfollow blogs if I find I’m skipping most of their posts because I don’t find them interesting. If I’m not actually reading the blog, why follow it, especially if they’re apparently not reading my blog either and we have exactly 0 interaction?

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    4. Great points!! That also brings up the whole follow-back issue. I don’t think people should feel obligated to follow back if they aren’t interested in the other’s content. That might be another thing to consider.

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  6. Oh gosh, this post couldn’t have come at a better time- I just got back from a work trip and I’m catching up on everyone’s posts- and like you said it’s so time consuming! I can’t believe I normally fit this into my week! And congrats on all the changes and 200 followers!! 😀

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  7. I actually read 99.6% of all posts. I try not to skip any cause I found I love reading other points of view more than I like blogging my own posts. Not that I don’t like posting. But it does eat into my reading books time.

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  8. I follow significantly more bloggers than I used to. I think the downside is that, whereas I used to follow a manageable amount of bloggers intensely, now I follow more bloggers superficially. So I don’t read all of their posts. If something doesn’t interest me, I don’t read it. But I try to keep reading blog and commenting to a reasonable time limit because I want to keep time for reading books and writing my own blog.

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  9. I’m definitely finding it hard to read all the posts in my reader! I’m following more blogs than you are, but not all of them are active. I try to read all of their posts too, but this is incredibly time consuming – so I’m thinking that I should probably only read the posts that I want to.
    Congratulations on the 200 followers and moving! I can imagine it’s difficult to start working and fit blogging into that busy schedule. 🙂

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  10. All the best your transition, because I see moving back in with parents after living on your own for a while as one. It was bumpy for me but i hope yours is smooth.
    I think I’ll read your comments section for advice on keeping up with posts too. That was a major concern for me a couple weeks ago when I took a break. I like to keep up with posts but as I follow more and more peeps, I find that difficult. Reading posts on my phone has helped though and calming myself by saying I don’t have to read everything also helps sometimes.

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  11. Hope you’re doing well with your move and new job! Gosh, I feel you. I’m actually doing a lot of catching up right now, like 3 days worth of posts and I follow like 200+ blogs. And yes, it is very hard for me because I tend to comment a lot haha. I feel like a bad reader whenever I can’t read most of the posts. But oh well, life is hard and I think we need to learn not to fuss about it a lot. And congratulations on your followers, Emily! ❤

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  13. Congrats on getting 200 followers! What a milestone, and congrats as well on the new job – glad to hear that everything is wonderful. 🙂

    Hmm, I quite often just look at who my last commenters were if I had veeery limited time. These are usually the people I ‘prioritise’ when it comes to commenting back or reading their posts, mostly because I feel like if they’ve taken the time to look at mine, I feel like I owe it to myself to at least give them that same effort and time back. I do scroll through my feed quite often though, so it usually doesn’t get to this extent. 😛

    In general, though, I think no one will hold it against you if you don’t comment or read posts in a while – real life always takes precedence and most people understand that, I believe.

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  14. Congrats on 200 followers and the new job 🎉🎉 I’ve moved over 10 times in 20 years so I definitely understand how hard it can be!

    I definitely understand the struggles you’re talking about in the post. I’m on a semi-hiatus because real life and I’ve had over 500 emails in my inbox 😅 I try to read and like all the posts in my feed, but sometimes it’s just not possible and everyone has been super understanding! I agree with what Reg said too about prioritising certain people. There’s some bloggers who I have a stronger connection with so I’ll always try to make sure I comment/read their posts.

    Generally though everyone has been super wonderful about me being absent from commenting and posting so I’m sure they’ll definitely be able to understand your situation too ♥

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