A lot of bloggers participate in various features every week — Stacking the Shelves, Top Ten Tuesday, What Are You Reading Wednesday… Personally, I kind of cooled on the Top Ten Tuesday themes I was seeing, but there’ve been a couple I liked recently, and maybe I should keep a better eye on that. I prefer to keep my blog mostly reviews, though at the moment it’s kind of half-and-half as I’m not posting a review as well on most days (been reading kind of slow, I guess — I don’t have reviews to post!) that I have another feature running.
At the same time, with features like this I get kind of lazy. I turn out my posts for the regular features and then don’t go and comment on others, and that just feels unfair. It helps if there’s interesting topics and I’m likely to meet other thoughtful bloggers who actually want to discuss (rather than just drop a random comment to get a follow), though.
So, out of curiosity, any you’d like to see me do? And conversely, any that you really hate and wish people would stop posting? I can’t think of any in the latter group for me, though I’m unlikely to participate in any that are just about posting covers.
Really, I’d like to participate in more that encourage talking about books and reading (or sometimes blogging) in a way that promotes discussion and exposure to other people’s thoughts. I do a monthly readalong on Habitica, for instance, and I keep wondering if I should post about that here as well, maybe even come up with some discussion questions, and try and make a bigger thing of it…
I’m too disorganised to manage regular features myself, but it’s good to see what others post about–I suppose it depends on the focus and if that grabs my attention. The Top Ten features often intrigued, though at times it felt like the same or very similar themes were being revisited. The Three Ws is helpful as a summary of where you’re going with your reading.
Mostly, though, I look forward to your discussions as these are more freewheeling though, conversely, no less structured. It’s a little bit like what I attempt, reviews alternating with bookish matters every two or three days, and hopefully generates the conversations that I look for in blogging.
Yeah, TTT got very samey. I need to keep remembering to drop in and check for interesting themes, though.
I’m glad to hear they work for you! I’m always a little unsure if anyone’s going to be interested.
I can’t say that I really hate anything I see on other blogs as I’m very much about people doing what they want on their blogs. But there are a few things I never comment on when I’m visiting blogs I follow-like blog tour posts, reviews of genres I don’t read ie contemporary, kid’s books and romance, these regular weekly things where people post quotes or first lines from books etc, anything to do with art and poetry or fashion and beauty, stuff about celebrities.
I like doing a weekend roundup post and I take part in TTT, CWW and Books from the Backlog which are all good fun and I visit other people’s versions of them like STS/SP etc which are all good for something to talk about! Regular posts like these are fun to follow.
True, yeah, people should feel free to do what they like on their blogs — but some posts just seem like empty content with no point, and I always skip those.
I don’t really like regular features. They seem like filler to me, especially on blogs that have a low proportion of reviews and a high proportion of regular features and advertorials. On the other hand, I have never been very good at being social with strangers, or at doing smalltalk, so it’s quite possible that the reason I don’t like them is that they are just that…
Personally, I take part in a few, but only ones that I think add something. Stacking the Shelves, for instance — I think showcasing new books is a great way to get a chance to talk to folks about whatever you’ve added to your hoard lately… but I switched to doing a weekly roundup instead as it’s more informative (and does seem to help people catch up on what I’ve been posting).
I love features, and though I personally don’t do book tags or comment on other people’s, I do enjoy reading them. I also have a soft spot for Waiting on Wednesdays/Can’t Wait Wednesdays and Stacking the Shelves because I love any feature that helps me discover new books. Top Ten Tuesdays are sometimes too challenging especially when I’m not in the mood to come up with a tough list, but I do try to participate whenever there’s a topic I love!
I’m trying to be quite selective — I need to check on TTT more often, because sometimes there are good topics, but no more of the repetitive ones, I think!
I don’t religiously do those Memes, and use them as emergency filler when I haven’t got a post lined up. But I pretty much prefer writing about things and books that interest me, and that I hope will interest others. And yes, I love me a good discussion, so I do my best to visit other bloggers and try to comment as regularly as possible. If not, at least stop by and like a post so they know I visited.
Agreed! I try and only post stuff now that I think is worth maybe having a chat about. Especially since some of those linkups seem to be just an excuse for some folks to click around and copy/paste the same inane comment…
I’ve always quite enjoyed Top Ten Tuesday, but you’re right – once you’ve done it for a while, they do get repetitive so I’m not as regular as I used to be. I’m also not as good as I should be about visiting other peoples – although that’s not TTT specific; this year has just been very busy, and I’ve generally not blog-hopped as much as I feel I ought to. I’ve never been tempted by the other weekly features before, although I’m starting to wonder about switching out TTT for Can’t Wait Wednesday for a bit of variety. I like features over reading reviews of books I haven’t yet read as a way of expanding my horizons; and I’d much rather read feature posts than excerpts or cover reveals.
I love your weekly discussion – and I doubt it’s a surprise that I’d be curious to hear more about your read-alongs. I do love reading and discussing with company 🙂
imyril recently posted…Mini Reviews: Water into Wine, Rosewater, The Prey of Gods
I’m getting behind on replying to comments, as well as on visiting other blogs. I feel awful about it! Being so busy is just aaargh.
Personally, I skip over the Wednesday memes (what are you reading and waiting on). I feel like I get that information from Goodreads and Twitter. I do like TTT when there is some commentary put into the post, rather than just a plain list. I occasionally participate in TTT when the topic appeals to me. I have a couple monthly features that I post on my blog – a buddy read with a family member and a poll to help me choose what to read the next month. If you posted about your Habitica readalong, I’d be more interested in reading that as an original feature than the more common weekly features.
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You’d have a job getting that info about what I read from Twitter or Goodreads, hence why it’s a good feature for me. 🙂 If everyone followed me on Litsy I probably wouldn’t do it, but… for me I only talk about books I’m currently reading in that feature and on Litsy (and even with Litsy I’m really bad at keeping up and remembering to post!). I do enjoy other people’s WWW posts for the same reason: I don’t follow their reading religiously elsewhere, if they even post about it elsewhere.
Posting about the Habitica readalongs is the plan now, for sure!