Today’s Book Blogger Hop question is: What’s your proudest blogging milestone or achievement?
Huh. So I had to really, really think about this one. Because I did not (do not) find it easy to point to something. I don’t think (that I can recall) that I ever got into blogging with number goals (however many comments, readers, page views, etc). I have been and am proud of some numbers I’ve hit in that regard. They went on my resume, in fact, but putting them on my blog feels…sort of like sharing my salary? It’s that kind of weirdness, because I don’t know how other blogs are “performing” and it feels weird to talk about it in numbers. And those aren’t my proudest accomplishments anyway.
I started blogging to connect with other bloggers, have a place to share about the books I read, and promote my writing. And I do all of those things, so success! But they’re ongoing, hard to point to as accomplishments.
I think I’ve worked it out though. Two accomplishments, sort of. I’m proud that, when my first book was first out, I contacted a number of bloggers I knew online to ask if they’d help me promote my book. That was nerve-wracking. Was I pushy, or asking too much? And of course they were all lovely, and I got to be on a number of other blogs. But I’m proud that I asked, and proud that I had built the relationships where asking made sense.
The biggest accomplishment though, that I’m most proud of? Just that this blog is here. And it’s still here. Even in the last few months, at my lowest posting frequency over the entire eight years I’ve been blogging, I feel like I’m still here. And that’s what I’m proudest of. That I started a blog to begin with, and that I have stayed on it all this time.
A long while back I read this New York Times article that said 95% of blogs are abandoned. (That was in 2009, but it probably hasn’t changed. I somehow must have found it a few years later, because I was blogging when I read it.) I found this extremely validating. Staying with a blog, that’s far and away not the norm. It’s a real thing to do it.
So my proudest blogging accomplishment? It’s blogging.
I think that’s a great analysis. I have no idea how I’d answer that question. But… I do have two abandoned blogs… one I started to promote home composting around 2008, but I had about as much luck with that as my other promotions. The other was my original blog, which I last posted on in 2015. In theory it’s still alive, though, and I occasionally go back there to find pictures I can’t find anywhere else on my more evolved IT systems 🙂
I enjoy your blog. That’s an achievement, of sorts!
I think your biggest accomplishments are: 1) consistency (which you also mentioned – congrats on eight years of steady posting) and 2) quality. Your book and movie reviews are well researched and thought out (a reader can tell you’ve actually read the book or seen the movie before reviewing it) as well as entertaining. Plus, you never give away too much of the plot without a “spoiler alert.” Well done!