Me, My Blog and I

I had always liked the idea of blogging, but once I came to initially trying it out for myself, I found that I was utterly useless at it. I'd set myself up on another blog-hosting site, Wordpress, not really bothered with much designing (mostly because I didn't know how to change any of it), and posted one, fairly average review, that I didn't even think much of. This was September 2009, and this was the first time that the beginning of an academic year was rolling around, and I would not be a part of the educational system - a scary prospect, even though I knew by then that I would be attending University the following year.
I had intended to be blogging so that I could keep my writing skills 'up to scratch', so that when I did finally begin my course, I wouldn't be entirely out of practice. This didn't work out the first time around - which goes to show just how difficult blogging can sometimes prove to be.
In this gap year though, I did start my current job, working as a bookseller in my local branch of Waterstones, and began deciding what it was that I wanted to be doing once I graduate in 2013. Since then, publishing has been my goal, and it still is.

Click this image to visit Pen to Paper

This goal is one of the reasons that I gave blogging another try. I didn't try again for another two years though, meaning that I was now about to start my second year on the English and Creative Writing course. This is when I set up Pen to Paper. My first post was on September 1st 2011, but it took around 2-3 weeks before I settled into a style that is recognisable as mine now.
I joined social networking sites specifically for bloggers, and even more specifically, for book bloggers, and gradually found my way around. I began taking part in weekly posts hosted by other blogs (meaning that you post your own blog post, but following the conventions of theirs, and then link to your blog from theirs each week). I also started my own weekly 'memes', as they're called - Wishlist Wednesday and Friday Recommends, the first being the most popular at the moment. This was what initially gained me followers, but it was slow-going at first.
I soon discovered that hosting giveaways was a great way to earn an initial following. There are plenty of people out there interested in book blogs, all I had to do was draw them in. What better way to gather readers together, than to give away free books? So, I started taking part in giveaway hops. These are hosted by blogs that usually have a particularly high follower count, so once you've joined, you know that you are more likely to have an increase in traffic through your blog and followers.
Once I started hosting giveaways, my follower count kept on climbing much quicker than it had been previously, and generally, once someone is following your blog, if your content is interesting, and you post often enough, most followers will stay with you, even once the giveaways have ended.

Around four months after I posted my first blog post, I hit 1000 followers - a huge number and a great achievement (for which I obviously hosted another giveaway to celebrate). But now I faced another challenge. My blog design had been a template that was free to download from the designer's website, and which I had tweaked a little to suit myself, but I found that I had outgrown this, and needed something that was unique to me, something that made me instantly recognisable. Having absolutely no talent with visual arts whatsoever, though, I needed help. Fortunately, this was less of a problem for me than it is for many other bloggers - my boyfriend is a graduate of BIAD, the art & design campus of BCU, where he studied Visual Communication, specialising in illustration, and received a 2:1 with honours back in June 2011. Thankfully for me, he agreed to work on a new look for my blog, and I recruited the help of a blogging friend in Hungary to stitch it all together in the HTML code for me (she has also been exceptionally patient in teaching me how to tweak the code myself).
The result of all this hard work? Something that is recognisably mine, and something I am honestly proud of.

It was partly because of my success with Pen to Paper that I was asked if I'd like to run this blog for the University. If you'll forgive me, I'm going to send out another little plea here. Although I do love running a blog, and writing the posts etc, this blog is not something that I can do alone. I need you - BCU students - to come along and write something for the blog. Writing something like this can be a fun and really rewarding task, and I urge you all to give it a go!

So, where has Pen to Paper taken me to date? I now have over 1300 followers through google friend connect, and more than 200 more through Networked Blogs (a facebook-based follower app), and have hit nearly 30,000 page views since I started the blog, which is rapidly increasing with each day that passes (my daily views record currently stands at a little over 870!).
I also review books through a website called NetGalley, where publishers advertise the eBooks that they have for review, and the website's users, such as myself, request the titles that we are interested in. It is then up to the publishers to accept or decline your request. Being a bookseller as well as a book blogger means that I have rarely been declined for this, and so I work hard to review as many of these titles as I can. I have been doing this pretty much since September though.
However, not only am I reviewing eBooks, I'm also in contact with various publishers including Hachette, Hodder & Stoughton, Simon & Schuster, HarperCollins, eBury, Bloomsbury, Pan Macmillan, and now ATOM. The publicity contacts at these publishers send books out to me for free in return for an honest review on my blog, but I also post these reviews on Goodreads (a great social networking site for readers, if you've not already heard of it) and recommend the titles at work, when possible.
This is a great initial relationship to have with the publishers, but also something I really enjoy doing.

Along with interest in the blog from publishers, I've also found that more authors are interested in it too. I have been posting author interviews since I first started reviewing for NetGalley, but these were mostlydebut American authors, whose work is not widely known in Britain. As the blog has grown though, I've been in contact with more authors, and last month posted an interview with New York Times bestselling author, Gail Carriger, who wrote the urban fantasy/Steampunk, Parasol Protectorate series.

I'm also currently working on organising a book blog tour for an author I've been in contact with from America, Michelle Scott, to promote her self-published urban-fantasy series, the first of which I reviewed when the blog was still a fledgling. I know I have a huge job ahead of me, especially as more and more bloggers sign up, wanting to take part, but I'm really excited about the possibilities that this is opening up for both me, and the extremely talented author.

Back in 2009, or even when I started Pen to Paper in 2011, I didn't ever consider that it might be possible for my blogging to have gone this far in such a short space of time, or to become as successful as I have done so far. I know that I will continue to develop Pen to Paper, and open even more possibilities for myself in the future.

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Over the next couple of weeks, I will be posting hints and tips about blogging - how to set up a blog, keep it interesting and gain followers. If there is anything anyone would like me to include in these posts, please contact me by emailing bcuenglishdelight@hotmail.co.uk