Let’s Talk: Is there a sense of pressure on book bloggers?

Posted on by Ashleigh

title

If you’re sat reading this, then there’s probably a 50% chance (or maybe higher) that you’re also a book blogger. So ladies and gentlemen, this one is about us.

Blogging is hard. There so much that comes with it. But…is there a sort of added pressure? Is there something making blogging just that little bit harder?

Is there a sense of pressure on book bloggers?

hobby

Sure, for the majority of us, blogging is a hobby. We do it because we want to. But that doesn’t mean we don’t feel pressure.

It seems to be human nature for people to compare themselves to others. Whether it be looks, personality, general success. Anything. Well, blogging can fall in that category too.

You could be happy with you blog. But looking at other people’s, or seeing other bloggers on twitter/instagram/any social media can give you that sense of doubt. The feeling that you’re not doing as well as others. The feeling that you need to do something more, something to improve.

The pressure is there, in quite a few ways.

read-more

We’re book bloggers. We MUST read. It’s what we thrive from. It’s the very foundation of our blogs.

So we have to read, right? And we do. But that feeling of needing to read more can always be there. We see people reading books in what seems like a ridiculously quick amount of time. We see people upload review after review. We have a huge amount of books on our TBR, no doubt a lot of them really popular so the NEED-TO-READ feeling is even stronger.

And if you’re a blogger who is sometimes sent books to review, that can be added pressure. Of course, you’re the one to agree to it. But other things can come up to make it harder, because you need to read and review the book as soon as physically possible.

design

I’m pretty sure a lot of people find designing the hardest part of blogging. Which is completely understandable, because all those codes and links and numbers just look like the devil’s own language.

And you look at other people’s blogs and to put it simply – they’re stunning. They have beautiful graphics and amazing layouts. It can look incredible, and you want your blog to look like that. You can feel like your blog isn’t good enough because it’s not as professional looking or organized. You see the blogs of people who are hugely popular, and then look at your own only to feel a bit disheartened, like you could do better.

upload

You’re a blogger, so you need to blog. And there’s so many people out there who post so many times a week, it can get to a point where you feel like you don’t post enough. Or you’re scared of missing a day in case your readers are disappointed. Or you should post more so that your name is still recent in the blogging world.

But uploading that often would then add pressure to come up with new ideas. New ideas that are up to date, entertaining, interesting….it’s endless.

loved

Okayy so this one isn’t literally. But you’ll know what I mean.

You know how there’s just those bloggers that seem to have everything right. The people who have a huge amount of followers – who actually talk to them! – on all social media. The ones who upload blog posts, only to have them shared by loads of people and receive hundreds of comments. The ones who are just generally popular. Of course it’s hard not to envy how successful they are!

I genuinely get so happy whenever someone talks to me on twitter, or comments on my blog posts, or even snapchat me. Just the idea that someone wanted to chat to me fills my heart with joy. So seeing those accounts that are just insanely popular can add to the pressure of doing well yourself.

So yes, blogging is a hobby. But does that cancel out the fact that pressure is involved?

Are we just too harsh on ourselves? Should we stop comparing ourselves to others so much?

I think that pressure is there. But not enough to be overwhelming. If it ever gets to a point where the pressure of blogging gets too much, you need to stop. It shouldn’t be that way. Take a step back and realise that your blog is run by YOU. You run it how you want.

So now it’s your turn!

Do you feel any pressure when it comes to blogging?

Is there any part of blogging in particular that you feel more pressure for?

How do you handle that pressure? Maybe you ignore it? Or use it as motivation?

Join the discussion in the comments!

Until next time…

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62 thoughts on “Let’s Talk: Is there a sense of pressure on book bloggers?”

  1. I agree, I do feel slight pressure when it comes to blogging, but it’s more because I am trying to do everything too quickly. It’s definitely not an overwhelming pressure, but it’s pressure because you want to upload because it’s something you love to do, but then there is full time work, part time uni, reading, updating bookstagram, updating booktube and maintaining a blog! I don’t know how some people do it, but for me it’s a tell back out of my numbers focused reality that I want to do but wish there was more time in the day to do everything!

    I need more hours in the day 🙂

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    1. I feel the same! It’s so hard to keep a balance between everything – and for me, I’m only in college 3 days a week! Yet somehow it’s still hard sometimes. People who study everyday and work I just admire them for being able to do that!

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  2. I definitely feel pressure when it comes to reading fast and getting the reviews up. Sometimes I’m reading up to five books at once, so when I’m starting them all it can take awhile to finish them, then put all my thoughts into a review. Especially when I have other work and responsibilities. I usually counteract it by creating other posts and scheduling them up so I still have an active blog in between finishing books.

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    1. Yeah I’m a fan of scheduling posts too, it’s so much easier then trying to write them on the day. At the moment I’m reading three books at the same time, which is probably the most I’ve ever read at once. Usually I finish one a week though, so I have no problem with reviews every week. 🙂

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  3. Awesome post, right in the feels. I don’t have a big blog and i definitely don’t belong in the same list with the big bloggers out there. However, I do feel the pressure sometimes, especially when I feel like I should be reading more books. At times I notice the frequent posts of other bloggers and then I feel the pressure to post more often. Usually I try to handle the pressure by not only writing reviews, but also writing about things that I like, places I’ve been and school stuff. Mixing things up keeps me going and I just want to share my enthusiasm with the people who want to read my blog 🙂
    You’re definitely right when you say that we run our blogs, we should take care of ourselves as much as we take care of our blogs. It’s of no use to keep on blogging when you don’t feel like it, people will notice. I always try to keep in mind that it’s of no use to posts when I don’t really want to. I do it or fun, for myself, and not only for the readers 🙂

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  4. I am newer to the blogging world and definitely feel pressure at times. Everything you have mentioned makes sense. However, when I step back and look at it all, I realize I am the one putting the pressure on myself. I started my blog because of my passion for books and reading. I wanted to share that and in the end I am. When I feel too much pressure, I step back for a minute and remind myself that I am setting standards based on others, but this is my “blog”. It is definitely different for everyone. This is a fantastic post 😀

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    1. Thank you!
      Yes definitely! The only people putting pressure on u is ourselves – no one is out there telling us we HAVE to do it this way, or we HAVE to upload this many times a week. If we ever feel overwhelmed, then we do just need to step back and remind ourselves that it’s only us being the judge of ourselves 🙂

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  5. Great discussion, Ashleigh. I know there are too many bloggers that put too much pressure on themselves. I see it in tweets or other blog posts about how they stress over reviews or posts. It may be because I’m older or just because at the time I started, I was working full-time, but when I made this blog I promised myself that it had to be on my terms and no one else’s. I know that if I ever look at blogging or reading as something I HAVE to do then it’s going to become a chore that I quit. Yes, of course I’d love to have 50+k followers on social media and 100s of people commenting on my blog, but I’d rather just enjoy it for what it is now and let whatever happens happen. I genuinely like being a part of the book community and interacting with other readers/bloggers, but I have to keep my joy. Some months that might mean reading 7-8 books or more. Sometimes that means I only read 1 book for the whole month. I’m only going to do something if I want to though. I will say I do feel pressure to review books that authors and publishers send to me in a reasonable amount of time, and I feel extremely guilty when I don’t, but that’s about it.

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  7. Great discussion. I feel some pressure to finish a book because I want the review up as quick as possible. Also keeping up with the weekly memes and the pressure to post those. But I really love blogging and getting to know other bloggers who have similar views of books. I sometimes have to realize that some days I may need a break from blogging to catch myself up.

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  8. I can relate to most of these. I kind of can relate to feeling the need to post often, but I usually post once a day so I don’t feel pressured for that as much anymore. But the reason I kind of started doing that was because I really like doing Top Ten Tuesday or Teaser Tuesday and WWW Wednesday and felt like I needed to post other content that’s original to kind of “make up” for the fact that I post those things. I 100% feel the pressure to have a better design and to read more often too. I read every day but I still don’t get through nearly as many books as some other bloggers. As for design, well I use a free design from WP so it kind of makes me feel as though my blog doesn’t stand out as much as it could.
    This is a really great post, Ashleigh!

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  9. I definitely agree- with everything you said. I try to work ahead and schedule posts and everything because I technically don’t even have the time right now to take care of blogging every day but once my next semester starts it will be absolutely impossible. I want to keep this up though and not give up on the blog, so working ahead & scheduling is my only option.

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  11. This is a great topic! So much yes to everything. I feel a lot of pressure to keep working on design, keep improving my review style, read everything, post often. It’s exhausting and even though I know that I am the one pressuring myself, it doesn’t make me feel any better. “You are your biggest critic,” is the truest thing I have ever heard.

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  12. Great post! All the feels… I’ve felt pressure for a long time with blogging, mainly with the whole ‘niche’ thing. There’s a few topics I want to blog about. Although they are related in some way, I still feel that I can only stick to one. Because of this, I have changed my blog multiple times and it’s just a mess now. So at the moment I’m trying to figure out how I can juggle these things. From reading lots about blogging and the whole ‘niche’ thing, in my mind it looks like I’m trying to juggle ten things, when in reality it’s probably just three and therefore manageable. I’ll keep trying to figure it out ^^;

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  13. You are absolutely right about the pressure. I only started posting regularly recently and in those first couple of days I would refresh my stats page ALL THE TIME. I was so obsessed with if people were looking at my posts. Then I got obsessed with making nice headers, and adding photos and redoing my layout and I was spending any down time I had at all working on my blog, even though it’s suppose to be a stress reliever!

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  14. Thanks for this, I’ve never been brave enough to admit that I am pressured in terms of blogging, and the main person to blame is just myself. I think sometimes, I put all those negativity in my head that I end up with so much pressure and poor blog content.

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  15. I’m not a book blogger, although I do want to review more books after I recently did an eBook review written by another blogger. But I do understand that there can be pressure there in some sort of way. There’s a lot that you have to do with blogging, and if you want to continue to be part of the community, even if you’re doing it as a hobby, you’re naturally going to think about all the things that you’ve mentioned in this post. I’m a photography blogger and I can’t help but compare my blog to those bloggers who have such amazing photography out there! But I know that i’m still learning and improving my style, so i’ve learnt to be okay with that. As for the layout of the blog, thankfully you can get them for cheap from sites like Pipdig, and better still its going to be a one off cost, but nowadays it’s refreshing seeing bloggers without a Pipdig layout because they are everywhere (even on mine!) As for handling pressure, I’ve kind of learnt to ignore it (but not completely). The thing that I feel the most pressure for is improving my photography and how my Instagram feed looks 🙂
    Sorry for the ramble!

    http://www.yasminqureshi.co

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  16. Blogging can definitely feel stressful, and sometimes it’s hard to handle! I know I haven’t always handled it the best, aka stop posting completely for like a month instead of just saying “hey, I’m feeling a bit stressed so I’m going to bow out for a while.” As bloggers I think we like to believe we’re super humans, and not admit that- surprise, we like every human get stress and have pressure! I don’t know why it’s so hard for us (or at least me) to simply say this. Like you mentioned, you are always your worst critic, which can make those tough blogging moments even harder. This was a fantastic post Ashleigh, I always love your discussions!

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  17. OMG, it’s like you hit the nail on the head! I have a book due the 25th, one past due, and library books due back by the 29th! I am in school so my reading time has been cut, and worked upped my hours. I am so behind on posts (see, I JUST read this!)…so yeah, I feel the pressure. But I also know it’s self-inflicted. I don’t have to be so involved. I could be a laissez-faire blogger, not really caring when I post or when others do. But I can’t do it!
    How do you feel? Do you feel the pressure too?

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    1. The pressure is definitely there! I find it SO hard to keep up with other people’s blog posts, especially since there’s so many. And then, because I always upload my reviews on Fridays, if I don’t have a finished book by Wednesday I feel like I have to rush it. Luckily at the moment I have quite a few ready. And yet I know it’s all on me! No one else would be bothered if I missed a review on Friday or posted it a little later 😆

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      1. That’s true: our pressure is totally self inflicted, isn’t it? No one would really notice if we didn’t post all the time, but we sure do try.
        I just wish I had time to do all the tags I get nominated for, lol! 😂

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  18. I totally agree with you about comparing ourselves with others, I am happy with my blog until I start to look at the comments and likes that other people get (which are usually a lot more). So I try to focus on being happy for my friends rather than seeing it as my own blog doing badly. I don’t feel the pressure to have a fancy blog because I know that I can’t design one, so I try to stay content with my theme. I definitely feel pressure when it comes to reviewing books so that’s why I made sure my blog doesn’t revolve around that!! Great post Ashleigh!

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    1. Thank you!
      It’s so hard not to compare ourselves to others. But everyone has different situations, we can’t really help that. I think just as long as we make our blogs the way we like them, we can’t do much more 🙂

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  19. Blog envy is def. a thing. To me, it’s like: I’m busting my a*s over here and some bloggers just swan in and get all the followers and all the page-views for a post or two a week!

    But then, they’re probably working a lot harder than it *looks* like they are. And their followers might be looking for different stuff to my followers. I’m never going to be happy doing promos, blog tours, excerpts, cover reveals, etc. I don’t like reading them, and I don’t like writing them. So if someone wants a lot of that, they’re not going to find it on my blog – and that’s ok! Because I know that if I did constant cover reveals etc., I’d just make myself miserable.

    Sure, it’s healthy to see what other people are doing. But comparing yourself directly to people with something so personal as a blog is just going to bring you down (and dude, I’ve had enough of that to last a lifetime.) 🙂

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    1. Exactly 🙂 I don’t do blog tours or excerpts either (or at least I haven’t yet) and I only blog about cover reveals when it’s a book I’m really looking forward too – and even then I’m not the one doing the revealing, I just talk about it after. I’m really bad at keeping up with news and things, so I’m not going to put myself out of the way to blog about that kind of thing when I don’t want to.

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  20. I reckon there’s a perceived pressure? Because I know that whenever I guiltily admit I’m going on hiatus, everyone is really chill and supportive of it! It’s just me pressuring myself…which I should work on! But there are definitely so many aspects to book blogging to feel pressured about…so it’s a hard task!

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    1. I’ve noticed that too – literally no one will attack a person for going on a hiatus, or not having amazing graphics, or a review every week, so this pressure has somehow just come from ourselves!

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  21. GOD YES. Ashleigh, you hit the nail on the head. There is ALWAYS pressure. I always feel like I’m not reading enough, that my blog isn’t good enough, that I’m not active enough. It’s definitely a pressure and sometimes that pressure can get to be too much that I lose all motivation to even blog at all. I know not everyone will like what I post or how my blog looks and I AM okay with that, but I do want to be consistent to the people that regularly read my blog and I do want more readers (that’s kind of the point, making friends, you know?) So the pressure is real haha

    Molly @ Molly’s Book Nook

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    1. There’s so much that comes with blogging, it’s not just a case of writing a post and then being done. It’s writing a post, making sure the layout works, taking photos, making graphics, running the social media pages linked, replying to any comments, and THEN going through hundreds of other people’s posts. It’s no wonder there’s a pressure!

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  22. Great post! The whole way through I was all: ‘Yes, yes, and more YES!’ My tummy flips every time I look at my TBR. I wish I could read everything RIGHT NOW. It’s a nice problem to have, but I’m tempted to race through one book to get to the next, and that’s not a great way to read, especially for reviewers.

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    1. Thank you! I’m glad you agree 😀

      It’s hard to accept that we won’t have time for every single book on our TBR. And the fact that we still try is probably what makes 99% of us have overwhelming TBRs ahaha 😆

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  23. Hi although I am new to this and have only just got back in to writing I do feel some degree of pressure. There are so many critics out there. Bloggers who use really long fancy sentences to explain the most simple concept and seem to go in to this soo deeply I feel that my common northern way of writing may not be up to par.. I am glad in a way that it is not just me that feels that way…

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    1. I think as long as we all remember that comparing ourselves will be of no help, we’ll do great in our blogging 🙂 We all do things differently – I definitely don’t write in fancy sentences!

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  27. Tbh, the biggest pressure for me is to review on time.
    Sometimes I’m just not in the mood to write reviews and I wait, and then the day of releasing is approaching and I really need to write that review.
    I try to tell myself that it’s just a hobby, not a job and that it’s better not to write shitty review and wait until you feel like it and write the good one when it hits you.

    Ohh, and for design, For me it was so hard to put everything together when I started, now it looks okay, it could be better, but in whole honesty, I’m kind of afraid to change things around bc I’m afraid I’ll messed up something.
    I hardly put this one together, because I know nothing about web design.

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    1. A lot of the time I don’t have to reach a deadline on reviews, but when I do I get what you mean. As soon as there’s a deadline, it suddenly feels like a chore.

      And I’m the same – I daren’t change anything on mine because if anything goes wrong it’ll take me ages to figure out how it works!

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