Danielle’s recent post on Negative Reviews got me thinking. I don’t know about you, but I tend to read more books per month than my posting schedule allows. (What a wonderful problem to have!) But I’ve found myself almost “playing favorites” for deciding which reviews I post and I wonder if there’s a better way… and I am interested to hear how you all decide which books to review widely.
It’s important to post consistently but also protect against burnout
I’m a very passionate person and that means that I get waves of inspiration and want to do ALL THE THINGS. One thing that I have learned in my years of project management is to protect my future time because situations change. The last thing that I wanted was to commit more time than I was comfortable estimating if my situation changed.
I settled on my four posts per week schedule because that’s I wanted to be sure that I wasn’t stressed for coming up with content and that I had the time to read and write reviews; 2 per week is a comfortable number for me — but sometimes I read almost twice as many books in a month!
I tend to play favorites with my review choices
Just in the past week, I have read four more books that I do not have room in my posting schedule for on the blog. As much as it pains me to say this: if I don’t like the book and it isn’t on a lot of people’s radar it might end up just reviewed on Goodreads and retail sites (which is still helping). But I wonder if I should be posting these book reviews here.
Coupled with my generous ratings for books, I worry I’m not critical enough
I am pretty critical when it comes to my reviews, but my M.O. is to round most 2-star books to 3-stars if I feel that the reasons I didn’t like the book was more personal preference and probably won’t suck the joy from other readers en masse. The content of my reviews are constructive and balanced so I don’t think it is as big of a deal as I’m making it out to be, but I feel like I rate a LOT of books 3 stars.
Better TBR management
I kind of wonder if this hell that I’m currently in will be alleviated once I get my ARC Mountain under control. After August arc obligations, I am limiting myself to 4 arcs per release month so that I can also read backlist titles… because my TBR Tower is a problem and I would like to get off this book ban sometime this decade.
I am moving to posting five times per week as a test for the month of August because at this time I do not have a lack of content to create and am currently fully scheduled through September with adding one most post per week! But even then I don’t think I will ever have time for everything.
❓ How do you decide which reviews do you post on your blog?
I am really interested to hear how you decide which books to review on your blog. Do you review everything? If so, is that because you have better self-control than me and don’t have a bunch of arcs each month? If you don’t, how do you determine which ones will not be posted on your blog?
I personally try to review every book I read. Obviously I can’t post all of the reviews in the same month that I read them so I don’t even try I just post them whenever I can. The only time I don’t post a review on my blog for a book I read is when I literally don’t have much to say about it.
I try to review everything, but I do have a strict book review policy. Unless I’m obligated by contract to review an awful book (poorly written, beyond dull, prejudiced), I won’t. I will give less than stellar reviews, though, with the understanding that we all have different tastes. I only post twice a week, but that’s because I’m cleaning up old posts and monetizing. It’s a ton of work and I’m working on all social media platforms. My goal is three posts maybe in the fall/winter.
Yes the review policy DEFINITELY helps with expectations and ensuring that I have the freedom to be honest with my review! You do so much beyond just writing your posts so I totally understand… it’s amazing you can read as much as you do! Thanks for sharing your experience!
I review everything–but that’s mostly because my reading speed has slowed since starting a new job earlier this month. Maybe you could add a “mini” review post twice a month? A post where you sum up the plot and your feelings about 2-3 other books you’ve read, but maybe don’t want to devote a whole post to!
Mini reviews is definitely a good idea, and one that I am considering as a way to solve this “problem”! Thanks for sharing your experience, and I hope the new job is going well!
I feel you 100% on reading more than you can post reviews for! It’s a good problem, but it can be so frustrating. I mean, technically, I try to post every single day, and I typically read about 20 books a month, so I *can* post them all, but it leaves almost no room for memes or lists. I feel like I do *eventually* end up posting all of them, but sometimes I will compile a few mini-reviews into one post, or I will put off a review for a month or two until I’m having a “slow” reading month.
Good luck with moving to 5 posts per week! I have faith in you. ♥ Just make sure to step back if you need to, nobody will judge!
I am so relieved that I am not the only one!!! And that’s a good idea to just keep some of them on the backburner for slow reading months (totally bound to happen), especially since I review everything on Goodreads anyway!
Thank you!!! I almost made the change in July but wanted to have one more month of the 4x to gauge that I could keep up the quality and ideas. Considering I have 70 WIPs and ideas right now… I think I am good. I definitely will step back though if I start feeling burned out!
Right! It especially works well for me with my classes, because you know how in summer I had the assigned reading, well I also have one class in fall and one class in spring that will have assigned reading lists – and those make it hard to read things I actually want to post reviews for! Especially since my fall class will be mostly picture books and MG. My spring class will be YA though so you guys will probably get to see the finished reviews for a lot of those. It’s just hard to motivate myself to review those because I also have to write mini reviews for class for each book and if the teacher sees the same text on goodreads or something, I can get in trouble before the class ends (after the class ends, I guess it wouldn’t matter to them).
Understandable! 70 WIPs, holy crap!! I’m only just now getting into the habit of having WIPs at all. I tend to write blog posts all in one sitting from start to finish but lately I’ve been trying to get in the habit of drafting a few here and there and I think it’s helping me not feel overwhelmed. 🙂
Oh yea I can see how that would come in handy during your classes for sure! I couldn’t imagine blogging during school, I didn’t read for pleasure for years because I just didn’t have it in me or the time.
Drafting the little idea when I get it in a WIP is really helpful for me – usually it’s a sentence and rough title so I can jog my memory when I feel like fleshing it out into a full post. I am a mood writer and find that a day or two a week I feel like working on all the things! Definitely helps.
I don’t blame you! It can be so hard to juggle school and blogging/reading/EVERYTHING lol. But yeah, I can see that for sure!
I try to review every book I read. I was doing this on Goodreads before I started my blog. There’s not too much extra work to put it on my blog as well. But I only read 2-3 books per week, so it’s not that bad of a time commitment.
Thank you so much for sharing your experience, and I also read about 2-3 books a week on average!
This is such a great post! I generally only post 2ish reviews per month, which is generally less than what I’ve read in the month. But I also have months where I don’t read, so it’s good to have reviews stockpiled for when I’m busy.
But I tend to post the reviews that are the oldest. That being said, I still have reviews I have to write for books I read in January/February. I always plan to review every book I read, just not necessarily when I read it.
Thanks so much for sharing your experience, and you aren’t the first one to mention stockpiling reviews! Interesting that you do oldest first; mine tend to be newest but I think that is largely because my reading has been so heavily arcs lately. And wow… if I don’t review a book close after reading it will never be reviewed, kudos!
I am currently reviewing every book I read and some of my DNFs but I sometimes I opt for mini-reviews. Sometimes my thoughts are not that in-depth. But then again, my blog is mostly reviews and sometimes other posts, so for me my “post around every second day” schedule works out. (but I have just written a post for the first five books in a series because I seriously bingeread them and could NOT stop to write proper reviews)
I don’t think you have to worry about not being critical enough. I think your reviews are great (and believable) and star ratings are super subjective anyways.
I love your mini reviews, and I like the idea of also including DNFs in them! It’s rare that I DNF something permanently and if I do it’s because I have some THOUGHTS but I feel bad about dedicating a whole post to it. I shouldn’t, but I do.
Thank you so much for sharing your experience and for making me feel better about my generous star ratings!
Thank you!
I do love DNF reviews when other people write them – it helps me decide whether it’s something that would annoy me too. I sometimes feel bad about posting them which is why I opted for the mini-dnf-review format.
I have a similar problem.. I read a lot more and very fast… but I only write reviews for those books where I feel I have something to say… and I don’t have a set schedule at all.. I pretty much write my posts spontaneously, so I think it works out for me…
That totally makes sense, and it is so hard to write a review on those meh books where you don’t really feel much one way or another! Sounds like you have a great system for you.
Ikr… some books are just too unimpressive and I never know what to write…
my system does work for me but it makes my blog very unpredictable 😊😊 there are weeks when I have nothing to post coz I’m in a slump… but I still love it.. I’m not the scheduling type 😜😜😜
Ah yea, that is why I rely on my schedule because I am a mood writer! I get tons of ideas but waves of inspiration to flesh them out don’t always coincide with the idea. If I wrote as the mood struck me I would probably post 5x one day and nothing for 2 weeks!
Haha… that’s impressive… I don’t get ideas much, I’m just reviewing most of the time… so I post whenever I read a book that me feel …
I only have time to read 6-8 books per month and I’m a little sad to say they are all review books, which means I post them all. I wish I had your problem! I often post 5-6 times per week but that’s including other things beside reviews.
6-8 books a month is still wonderful, especially if they wind up being good reads! I know I won’t always have this problem and I should definitely enjoy it while it lasts haha. Thanks for sharing your experience, Tammy!
I haven’t had this sort of “problem” yet, but I don’t read as many books per month as others. I review nearly everything I read, the only exceptions are those I just can’t think of anything to write about. Often times, those are the ones many, many others have already reviewed. I may not feel like I have anything to contribute to the conversation other than “me too.” I’ve been posting 5 times per week, but that’s because work is slow right now. I will have to adjust my schedule in the fall. Each week, i post one top ten list, a review of a non-fiction book and a review or two of fiction books. Good luck figuring out what will work best for you!
Thank you so much for sharing your experience, Amy! It is really interesting to see how different bloggers decide what reviews they will post if they read more than their schedule allows. It makes sense that if you don’t have a lot to say to skip it – I have the hardest time with meh books!
I have a notebook with me always. I log books I’ve read in it. So, every after a book is read I write down all my feels about it the later on work on a draft with a laptop. So, I just look at the log and see the date which goes first goes first in the blog. I guess what I’m saying is yes, I review everything I read hahaha
That’s such a good system to have a notebook with you to log your thoughts!!!
I’ve been wondering the same things about decide what to review. I’ve had a 1star book that I decided not to review and then another that was good but I didn’t write my thoughts down timely enough and now I might not remember enough to give it a thoughtful review. So I guess I just use my discretion, if I haven’t been jumping to review it and I didn’t make any notes on it then I’m probably just going to move on. But I’m think I’m going to try harder to review most of what I read.
That definitely makes sense, and I am the same way — even when I annotate my thoughts while reading, if I don’t review close to finishing chances are I will forget enough and be unable to write a review.
I tell myself that I’m going to review everything, but it never actually comes to fruition. Normally, I just review the books where I have enough to talk about to warrant a review. Sometimes I read a book, it’s good but didn’t stand out in any particular way, and I just leave a goodreads review and copy/paste to retail sites and leave it at that. The reviews I post on my blog are about books that I have strong feelings for or have a lot to talk about. But, like you, I do end up playing favorites and not giving attention to some of my other reads.
I find that I do pretty much the same thing as you do! I review everything on goodreads for sure. Thanks so much for sharing!
I try to review every book but lately I’ve been finding Throw back Thursday mini reviews for books I forgot to review each month helpful. I do those either on a Thursday or Friday towards the end of the month.
I don’t always review a DNF book because I don’t always feel comfortable because the author put a lot of work into it. I’ll try to leave at least one good thing about it even if it wasn’t for me. I know I just didn’t feel comfortable reviewing The Kiss Quotient because that was such a popular book and the middle part of the book just made me so UGH. So I didn’t review that because there were reviews that summarized how I felt.
I didn’t review The Hate U Give because I liked it so much and all the other reviewers also said what I felt too. It just depends on how it goes for me.
Thank you for sharing your review process, and I think mini reviews are such a good way to go! I like the idea of doing it monthly, sounds like a good compromise, especially for books that I don’t have a ~lot~ to say about.
They really are! I might start doing that at the end of the month for DNF ones too. That way it won’t be just one post. You had a great idea there!
I definitely think I would feel less guilty if there were more than one… we’re onto something here!
This is a really interesting post! I tend to go with the reviews that match my blog — I say I’m a YA book blogger so I tend to stick to YA but then I get ARCs of adult books and I review them too. I tend to review one book a week and post about other things for the rest of the week.
That’s a good way to go about it, thanks for sharing your process!
Hey, don’t burn yourself out. Five times is a lot! Remember what happened to me? I barely even got my motivation back.
I actually don’t post anything that’s less than 3 stars on the blog anymore. Because with my perfectionism, the damn formatting takes wayyyyy too long. I can never schedule more than two posts in one evening. So going through all that trouble for a book I didn’t love? Nope nope nope. Plus. It’s so liberating to just post a tiny Goodreads review and be done with it 🙂
That also makes writing the actual 5 star reviews sooooo much more fun!
Thanks for sharing your experience, and I am so glad that you found something that works for you!!!! Five times a week works for me, and I thankfully have found that reading more books than my posting schedule allows helps for my reading slumps & am not reading! I write reviews for almost everything I read anyways because I enjoy it and just post them to GR, and when I don’t read for 3 weeks and need content those backlogged reviews are there for me!
Five times a week is impressive! Respect! Yeah, I also thought that those GR reviews are there like a secret cache just in case 😀 but I’ve never had to use them, thankfully.
Thank you so much!!! It works for me, I need to keep myself busy to keep the depression somewhat at bay! I’ve only needed to tap into the GR cache once or twice, but it is definitely nice to have!