Armchair BEA

When I saw that one of the genre-focused topics for Armchair BEA was nonfiction, I got really excited. Reading and recommending nonfiction is what I’m known for around the blogosphere (to the extent that I’m really “known” by that many people), so it’s a perfect prompt for me. The problem I discovered as I sat down [...]

Today’s blogger development topic for Armchair BEA is ethics: We get back into discussions on Friday with the heavy topic of ethics. Do you have recommendations to new bloggers to ensure credit is given to whom/where credit is due? Have you had an experience with plagiarism? How did you deal with it? What are the guidelines as [...]

I’ve been blogging for five years, but I didn’t start earning any money from my blog until about a year ago. I’m certainly not an expert in monetizing your blog, but I thought for today’s topic it might be helpful to share how I make a little money as a way to demystify how it can work (with the caveat that this is only my experience and certainly doesn’t represent the only or even best way to make a little money blogging).

Happy Tuesday! Because of the holiday, today is the first official day of Armchair BEA, a virtual convention for book bloggers who aren’t in New York City of publishing’s big book conference, Book Expo America (BEA). I’ve been at BEA for the last few years (three, I think), but decided to take this year off for some personal and financial reasons. While I already miss everyone I am not going to get to see, I’m excited to jump more fully into Armchair BEA instead.

Today’s blog discussion topic is introductions in the form of a five-question survey:

Please tell us a little bit about yourself: Who are you? How long have you been blogging? Why did you get into blogging?

My name is Kim and I’ve been blogging since May 2008 (five years!). I got into blogging soon before I graduated from college with a B.A. in English because I was looking for a way to talk about books now that I wouldn’t be in class anymore. Book blogging has turned into a lot more than that, but that’s why I started.

One of the conscious decisions I’ve made as a blogger is to minimize the time I spend on background projects — messing with my blog theme, redesigning my headers, updating my sidebars, whatever. I just so sucked into those projects that I run out of time for the things I think are important — writing good content and interacting with other bloggers. As a result, I’m way behind on new blogging technology, tools, and plugins. So here’s my question to you, blogging experts: What are some technology tools you use to make blogging easier? What are some of your favorite plugins? Mobile apps?

I do a good bit of book-related freelance writing outside my day job and this blog. I’m currently a contributor to Book Riot, and before I moved from Madison I was a regular contributor to The Capital Times (you can find links to some of those stories on my About Me page). By no means am I am expert about how to go about getting paid exclusively to write about books, but I have a little bit of advice if you’d like to try and make a little money on the side or use freelancing to gain exposure for your blog.

Although I am off at Book Expo America this week, I still wanted to participate in a very cool event — Armchair BEA — which was organized by a group of bloggers in 2010 to connect book bloggers aren’t able to make the trip to New York City. Throughout this week I’ll be posting on some of the daily topics to, hopefully, supplement post I’m actually writing from BEA. I won’t have much time to respond to comments, but I’m hoping to get caught up when I get back.