How To Avoid Blogger Burn Out: Take The Team Approach
It’s time to talk about an issue that loads of bloggers run into at some point.
We’re talking blogger burnout. It can happen for different reasons and happen in different ways. You might find it’s harder to summon up the enthusiasm to write new content. Or you struggle to think of new topics to share with your readers.
Most book bloggers start out with huge amounts of energy and passion. But somewhere along the way they lose that energy. It might happen within the first year. It might take a few years.
Several bloggers who were very active when I started out just over eight years ago, are no longer around. Either they just weren’t as enthused about writing reviews and chatting about what they were reading or looking forward to read. Or their circumstances had changed and they simply didn’t have enough time to do justice to their blog.
How can you stay fresh and inspired with your blogging?
One way is to share the load of blogging with other people. Instead of struggling all alone, maybe you could find a partner, like the duo behind paperprocastinators blog. Or you could go further and do, as Rosie Amber has done – and recruited a team to help make sure you always have new content to share with readers .
As part of my A2ZBookBlogging series, I asked Rosie to share her experience of running a blog with multiple contributors.
How It Works
I started my book blog eight years ago. For the last six years I’ve successfully run a review team alongside my own reading list.
The team idea came about because I was getting many submissions for books in genres that I was less keen to read. Also, I wanted to encourage more readers to write reviews. I created a book review challenge project, which was a great success; I then asked several of those who had taken part if they would like to join a team. Happily, most of them said yes!
The team consists of an international mix of fellow book bloggers, writers, editors, creative writing tutors and people who just love reading.
We focus on indie and self-published authors and mainly use e-books which can be sent as mobi or e-pub file to us. This involves little or no cost to the author. Once a month or so, I send a list of accepted submissions to the team, and they pick which one(s) they would like to read. I ask that they review the book within 4-6 weeks, but I don’t give deadlines.
The reviewer will post the review on at least two sites; Goodreads and Amazon are where most authors like to see a review, but some also post to other sites like BookBub. Most of the team have their own book blog (though this is not a requirement) where they post any team review; they will also send me a copy to post on my blog at a later date, with full credit to the reviewer.
How do I do it? Lists! I have lots of spreadsheets and a desk diary. I try to answer all book submission requests within 48 hours, either with acceptance or a decline. My team know I will always try to answer their own messages the same day. I enjoy what I do, so it’s never a chore.
The Benefits of Team Blogging
From the author’s point of view, the benefits of submitting to my review team are many. Often, a book will be chosen by more than one reviewer, which saves them having to apply to multiple book blogs. Once read, an author will have the review of their book posted on up to six sites. As for the team, I am delighted to say that we all get on so well, and some of us have met up a few times in real life. I never anticipated that running my book blog would make me some great new friends – this was an unexpected bonus!
Potential Issues
I won’t deny that it’s a lot of work, but I enjoy the contact with my team and the reward for all of us is seeing readers discover a new favourite author through our reviews. The positive responses from some of the authors we’ve featured makes it worth while too. When we got this message from Lizzie Lamb, author of romantic comedies, for example, we all went around smiling:
Rosie Amber and her team of reviewers/bloggers are professional, dedicated and fair minded. As an author, I know that I will receive a fair critique of my novels from them. I am happy to use them as go-to reviewers for any new novel I publish. I am also happy to recommend them to other authors.
Professional and fair is exactly what we all try to be.
The team is constantly evolving; over the years members have come and gone; sometimes life gets in the way and a person may not have the time or headspace to review for a while, but obviously I understand this and there is never any pressure. I am lucky to have a core of supportive, reliable reviewers who have read for me month in, month out, over the years.
Have you ever thought about partnering with other people to build content for your book blog? Share your experience and your tips by adding a comment below. Don’t forget to check out the other articles in the A2ZofBookBlogging series page.
Pingback: Celebrating 6 Years Of Rosie’s #Bookreview Team #RBRT With Team Member @OlgaNM7 | Rosie Amber
Pingback: #TuesdayBookBlog Rosie’s Book Review Team is 6 years old and we’re celebrating #RBRT – authortranslatorOlga
so many people disappeared over the years
It is sad, but hopefully new friends might also appear?
It’s a good plan, for sure – definitely one to take off the pressure. I must admit I tend to have to drag guest contributors screaming to my blog, and they tend to be family members… Most of my other bookish friends are also bloggers already! So I think I will need to carry the weight for a while!
Perhaps a series of themed posts with another blogging friend would work at some point?
That’s a nice idea – I do themed weeks with Simon from Stuck in a Book but we end up just posting on our own blogs and gathering links to other people’s posts which is probably more additional work than relief!!!
I’m having the same issue with my two contributors…. need to nudge them again I think
Thank you very much. I can relate to all this and it’s comforting to know I’m not alone❤️
I hope it has inspired you.
you are definitely not alone in having times when we just can’t summon up enthusiasm. If you’re struggling with anything at the moment, just ask – book bloggers are incredibly helpful people
Thank you
I like Rosie’s model, it means she stays in control. I don’t do much new fiction so I don’t have to deal with all those new releases, and I’m happy to post as I have time. I have found though that running ‘weeks’ is an excellent way of sharing the load and of covering much more ground than one person could on their own – in my case, in the field of early Australian women’s writers.
I agree running a special week or even a month can be very rewarding. Early on in my blogging days I created a month long romance feature and one featuring mystery books with another blogger in America. Each day we featured one author, but gave them two different posts in different time zones. It was very popular and we ran it for three years.
Tomorrow – it’s getting late here, Australia is another time zone again – I will look up your months. I typically get 10 or 12 posts from fellow bloggers or sometimes guest academics, over a week and post one per day with links to the others.
No rush, they were several years ago now. Do you re-post ones you enjoy or do you write specific posts for them?
They are always new posts. The writers we cover don’t get much attention, but I make sure there are links back to any previous relevant posts. We are building up a good database of reviews of old books.
Another blogger – Whispering Gums – and I have recently begun reposting and commenting on a selection of her old posts of 10 or 11 years ago, following an earlier A to Z suggestion from Karen, and that is working well too.
I’m so pleased you are doing this for Sue – it’s such a generous gesture to help her deal with some family issues. Plus we get to read posts that I completely missed, maybe because I wasn’t following Sue then.
That must have taken a fair amount of effort – blogging every day is quite challenging
Lots of planning and more of my lists!
The “themed week or month” is a great idea Bill. I’ve read quite a few of your posts during those weeks and though I don’t comment because I don’t have knowledge of the topicI’m picking up ideas for authors/books for the future
Thanks, Karen. As a member of Rosie’s team, I can confirm it is a fantastic team and has helped me keep going with my own blogging over the years. ♥
That’s great to hear, sometimes we need help from others to get us over a hump
Karen, thank you so much for inviting me to write a piece for your A2Z of Book Blogging series, I hope that it inspires your readers.
I hope so too Rosie. Thanks for sharing your experience with us all