Reflection | December 7, 2018

This week’s schedule got shifted around, so I’m using today’s post to reflect on the journey from Scintillating Reads to Kait Plus Books (and everything that’s happened since then). 

So way back in September (which alternately feels like yesterday and four years ago) I wanted to get back into book blogging, but I wanted to do it differently than I had been.

When I first started, I mostly knew that I loved books and wanted to be in a community with other people who loved books. I jumped in before doing any research or figuring out exactly what I wanted. The results were… less than perfect. I was never blogging consistently (there were either 28 posts in a month or 2), I was awful at reading and reviewing the books I requested from NetGalley (I think my feedback ratio was something like 14%), and despite my desire to join a community I didn’t really try and do much. Then this past April, I hosted a Mini-Challenge for Dewey’s 24-Hour Readathon, and it was AMAZING! I felt like I was a part of this community that I wanted to join, and I wanted to feel like that every day. I made a plan to review a bunch of the books I had read and… nothing. Everything was overwhelming and I just ignored my plan and went back to not posting. 

Fast forward to September, and I wanted to make a change. I put up polls on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram asking people to help me decide- should I stay Scintillating Reads and force myself to get better, or switch to Kait Plus Books and start fresh? I’m guessing you know which one people voted for, because Scintillating Reads is dead! Long live Kait Plus Books! (sorrry, couldn’t resist.)

Since I’ve rebranded, I’ve tried to keep things consistent. I’m now @kaitplusbooks on everything that you would format that way, I’m trying to post at least 3 times a week (although this week I think it’s 7 because I have 3 blog tours), and I’m trying to do better at being an active part of this book blogging community. I visit links from Top Ten Tuesday and Waiting on Wednesday, reply to my comments, do more than retweet giveaways and share my post links on Twitter, and I’ve even gotten to be a tour host for a few different blog tours! It wasn’t instant, but I finally got everything looking nice and put together, too. I’m using Canva for most of my graphics at the moment, and I have a color scheme that I’m trying to use for everything. I’m trying to post at least one review every week (and I think I’ve succeeded so far…), and get a mix of bookish memes, guest posts, and personal posts up there as well. 

All in all, I think I’m doing pretty well right now. Do you have any suggestions for how I can be better or more active? Is there anything you want to see me posting about that I haven’t been? Let me know in the comments!