Guest Post!

I was thrilled when Chandra asked me to post on her blog! What an honor!  She asked me to post some blogging tips, which I feel a little inexperienced to post anything huge, but I will share what I do know.  I am Karen from Karen's Book Light and I have been blogging around 6 years now.  It began as a journal when my son was diagnosed with cancer. THEN... I began reading Young Adult books starting with Twilight.  I couldn't stop reading.  I began to add some of these books into my blog, recommending them to others.  Soon, I had more and more people asking me for more book ideas and that is when I started my Young Adult Book blog.  

I soon realized what a HUGE place Bloggerland could be.  I met someone who shared my passion, had her own blog and actually had many review requests from authors.  THAT is what I wanted.  I had no idea there were blogs where people read books for free, reviewed them by just writing what they thought!  AMAZING!  So, I went out in search of others.  I joined the social networks; blogger, facebook, twitter, and goodreads.  This has been the best part of my book blog... sharing and getting to know others who love what I love.  They have taught me many things and have helped publicized my blog as well.

Tip #1.  Decide what you want out of your blog.
Depending on what you want to accomplish, whether it's a journal where you only want a limited amount of people reading it or if you want to expand and get your blog "out there".  Some people have had huge success in their blogging to change their life.  I know someone personally who has been invited to the White House, she has appeared on local tv shows, magazines, all because of her blogging.  Another person I know, has had her blog named in a magazine as being one of the most entertaining blogs around.  It's just what you want out of your blog. 

Tip #2. Find your passion.
If there is something specific you love and want to share, focus on that and find others with similar blogs. You can do that by joining blogger or networked blogs, joining groups in yahoo, facebook, twitter etc.  It is so much fun to get to know new people especially when they love what you do. 

Tip #3.  Share.  Share it with anyone you feel you want to, that could be everyone or send personal invitations, depending on your goals.

Tip #4.  Post, Post, Post.  Every time you post on your blog share it on all social networks!

Tip #5. Find Creative ways to keep them coming back!

 Do like Chandra did... ask someone to post on your blog. I will soon be doing a monthly giveaway.  There are various ways to do that, having them post a comment, join your blogger, twitter, facebook page, etc.  There are websites that create the "sign up" for you and they even randomly pick the winner so you don't have to.  Rafflecopter is one that I am familiar with. Another way is join some blog hops.  A blog hop is a group of blogs that have similar themes.  Picking certain days to run the hop, each group posts about the hop and at the end of the post there is a list (links to other blogs) of other blogs.  Each blog has a giveaway in relation to the theme. So the guest  goes from blog to blog signing up for the giveaways.  Everyone wins, you get more traffic and exposure to your blog, plus they get a chance at winning.  Put links to other blogs you follow, eventually it will be returned. 
I hope this was helpful, I know it's been a new world for me. My little blog is slowly growing, but I have had some independent published authors request my review, so it is getting more fun and exciting! 

Thank you Chandra for letting me do this.  I love reading your blog, you do such a great job!

Karen Russell from Karen's Book Light