On Reworking Once Upon a Bookcase - Inspired by Lucy of Queen of Contemporary

Lucy of Queen of Contemporary has posted on her BookTube channel a video, Be the Change You Want to See, about the direction she's now going to go in with her channel. With Lucy's permission, here is her video:


I'm not a BookTuber, but you don't need to be to be inspired by this video. Lucy has really got me thinking about content and originality. She talks about how she wants to use her channel to talk more about books rather than just hauls, etc, and how she wants to talk about diversity and other important topics.


She got me thinking about my own content. Over the past several years, I've had a few knocks in my personal life. The blog had to go on the back burner for a while. I still read books, and posted reviews, but anything more than that wasn't really happening. Things have moved on since them, but I guess I've kind of got stuck in a blogging rut. Other than my recaps and the occasional Top Ten Tuesday post and cover reveal, all I really post on here are reviews. I've tried to have a few more A Novel Cover Up posts, but they've not really happened, no matter the emails asking for updates I've sent.

Lucy has shown me it's more than time for me to try and rework my blog content. I am hugely into books on diversity, and I think this shows in the books I read and review, but more than that, I'm not doing very much. There are important topics that I, too, want to focus on, and I have plans to discuss them... but strangely, those are for elsewhere, for work. Sure, I work at a bookshop, and these ideas will (hopefully) help us sell more of the books I love so much, but I should also be making plans for things to do for my blog. It's time to rethink, it's time to plan, and it's time to post and talk about books more.

Because of how my content is at the moment, I tend to try and get two to three reviews up a week. But maybe I should start trying to schedule my reviews, and have other posts during the week as well. Mix things up a little, rather than posting as soon as I've written. I really need to think about what it is I want on my blog. Like Lucy says, content I'm going to be proud of.

What would this mean? What content do I like reading? Well, I read Paper Fury religiously, not just for Cait's humour and personality, but for the wide range of posts she has on her blog, mostly the really insightful and detailed discussions she has about every topic under the sun. So maybe more discussions? It's something I'm going to think about. I'm getting myself a notebook, I'm going to sit down, and I'm going to brainstorm what I want this blog to be, what I want to share with you guys, and what I think it's important to do/say in regards to the topics I'm so passionate about.

Hopefully, there will be some changes here soon, though it might take a while. I hope you'll bear with me as things move forward with Once Upon a Bookcase. I'm planning on putting in some hardwork, and reading a little wider when it comes to blogs; work out what works for me and what doesn't, and see be inspired by what other people are doing. Not copying, obviously, but working out what it is exactly I enjoy on other blogs, and then seeing how I can use that to create my own original content.

A lot of work ahead, but I'm feeling inspired and motivated, and I'm hoping Once Upon a Bookcase will still be a place you will want to visit, but maybe for more reasons. :)