We all have our individual ways of book blogging. And at the same time, we all have things we like and dislike when we read other people's blogs. There are some things that I find really frustrating when it comes to other people's blogs, and I thought I would share them with you, today.
Reviews
I am a fan of long reviews. Long, detailed reviews that really talk about the book. That get right to the heart and the meat of the book. I'm not so much a fan of reviews that talk only about how the blogger enjoyed - or didn't enjoy - a book. Reviews that give no inkling as to the plot, reviews that don't mention the characters and who they are. I don't really understand how a review is supposed to help me decide whether I want to read a book or not by simply reading about how someone else liked or disliked a book. I need to know why, and to tell me why, they need to go into some detail. If a blog only features short reviews, I struggle.
No Jump Breaks
This only really applies to blogs whose homepage shows their blog posts, rather than links to each individual blog post. Though I may like long reviews - and other blog posts of length - I find long blog posts that don't include jump breaks really bloody frustrating. If I want to see what posts a blogger has published recently, I don't want to scroll for ages to get to each post, because each blog post is so bloody long. Jump breaks make things easier for readers. For those who don't know what a jump break is, they allow you to show only a snippet of your blog post on the home page, with a "Read more" or "Keep reading" (or something along those lines) link which takes you to the blog post in it's entirety. The snippet is all that is shown on the blog home page, which means it's easier to scroll through the various posts quickly, and choose which you want to read in full.
Blog Posts Full of Gifs and/or Images
I get it, we all want to make our blog posts interesting, and images and gifs can help with that (though I am personally anti-gif). Blog posts that are text alone aren't visually interesting, and can feel like a slog to read through. Images and gifs break things up a bit. Paper Fury has mastered the balance, and is an enjoyable and pretty blog to read. But we don't need hundreads of images. When reading a blog post, I'm interested in what the reader has to say. If it's taking me forever to read what the blogger has to say because I'm scrolling past lots of photos/gifs, I'm going to get annoyed. Also, it can take ageeeees to load so many images/gifs, and slows everything right down. Lots of images/gifs AND no jump breaks is just awful.
No Sidebar Link to Reading Challenge Link-Ups or Similar
When taking part in a reading challenge or something else that requires you to link to your own post, I don't want to have to scroll through days or weeks worth of posts on the host's blog to find the link-up post. Most of the time those posts go live at the beginning of the month, but if it's the middle of the month when you need to link up your review? You can scroll through pages of blogs posts to find it (and if those blog posts hve no jump breaks and loads of images/gifs? *bangs head against a brick wall*). Why these blogs don't include a link to the month's link-up in the sidebar with the graphic to the main sign up post, or a little drop down menu with a link, I don't know. It's not difficult to do, and you only have to change the link each month. It's so frustrating to scroll through them all. It would make it so much easier for readers if they could get to the post they want quickly.
No Search Bar
Sometimes when I write a review or a discussion post, I want to reference something someone else said in their own review, or a comment they made in a post which relates to what I'm talking about. Or perhaps someone else's blog post inspired my own, and I want to give credit. Some times, these blog posts were posted weeks or months ago, and I may not remember exactly when. At times like these, when the blog in question doesn't have a search bar, I really could rip a tissue. Sure, I can Google, but that's only really helpful most of the time for reviews; simply put in the blog name plus the title of the book with the word "review" and Bob's your uncle. But with discussion posts and the like, where you probably don't even remember the title of the post, this is so much more difficult. What do you search for on Google then? You're mangled almost-recollection of what the blogger said that you want to referrence, get it completely wrong, and find nothing? It's so frustrating realising you then have to trawl through who knows how many posts just to find the one with the one comment (and if those posts have no jump breaks and lots of images/gifs? *head explodes*). A search bar is so useful and helpful! Even if you mangle what you're looking for in a blog's search bar, at least the results you get will only be for that particular blog, and not other sites Google provides links to in order to be helpful. Please give us a search bar!
These are just my little irks, and there will be people who don't have a problem with the things I do. It all comes down to personal preference, what we all individually like in a book blog, and what we don't. No-one is going to have the most perfect blog that works for everyone. I'm pretty sure my blog is frustrating to some people. I'm pretty sure other people would prefer I had more images, but my talents lie in writing, not in photography and photo manipulation. So while we would like our blogs to be interesting to others, they also have to be the blogs we want to run. We can't please everyone, and nor should we try to.
And how about you? What are some of your blog pet peeves?
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