Eight Years a Book Blogger: How Blogging Has Changed Me

Thursday marked my blogging anniversary; I've now been book blogging for eight years. I have in the past celebrated my anniversary by talking about blogging milestones, and features and blog events I've held, but this year - inspired by Suzy of From the Fringe and her A Mushy Love Letter About Blogging - I want to talk about what book blogging has meant to me.

When I've thought about it, book blogging - have a little place online where I can rave and gush about books - has always been a hobby, something I do for the simple pleasure of combining two of my passions; writing and reading. But looking back over these past eight years, although book blogging is still a hobby, it's also become a huge part of my life. I've talked before about the opportunities book blogging has led to - being a panelist at The London Book Fair in 2013, how being a book blogger led to me getting a job, how my reviews have been quoted in the praise pages of numerous books - but I want to talk about what blogging has done for me, as a person.

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Fifth Bloggerversary: Your Feedback

Today is the last post for my fifth bloggerversary! It's been a great week looking back over the cool things about Once Upon a Bookcase from the past five years! Now, I'd like to look to the future, with some help from you looking back. It would be really awesome if you could tell me what you love about OUaB, and what you don't love as much - I've talked about what I love, so now it's your turn.

As I said at the beginning of the week, I blog for myself, so what I do on here is what I enjoy. There may be some changes depending on your feedback, but I'm not going to start doing something I really don't want to do, or give up something I really love. It's just to see what works for you as my readers, so I know whether I'm doing well in your opinion.

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Fifth Bloggerversary: Discovering the New

I have had some fantastic opportunities come my way because of blogging, but one of the most important things to me - and the most basic, common thing about blogging - is all the new books I've discovered over the past five years. So for today, as part of my fifth bloggerversary celebration, I'll be taking a look back over some of them.

There are so many books I've discovered through blogging that have become absolute favourites of mine. I could go on forever about how amazing they all are, and this post would be ridiculously long. As it is, having narrowed my list down to the books and/or authors I absolutely must mention, this post is going to be fairly essay-like. These are all books I would never have picked up if it wasn't for blogging (let's put aside the fact that I didn't read YA before I started blogging - if I did, those in this list that are YA wouldn't have been ones I'd automatically pick up), yet all have either moved or touched me in some way, opened my eyes, or just completely blew me away. To be fair, I'm going to go in alphabetical order of author - no favourites within my favourites!

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Fifth Bloggerversary: A Look at A Novel Cover Up

Today, for my fifth bloggerversary, I'm looking at my semi-regular feature, A Novel Cover Up.


A Novel Cover Up is my feature where cover designers - or those involved in cover design - discuss the process underwent to design certain covers, either through guest post or interview. As features go, A Novel Cover Up is still a baby, having looked at just 11 covers so far, but it's something I really enjoy.

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Fifth Bloggerversary: A Look Back at My Blog Events

I am very passionate about teenagers knowing that they're not alone. That no matter what they're going through, someone else is going through it too, and understands, or that there are people who can help. Although that's not how they started, this is now the driving force behind my blog events. That, and to learn and understand myself. They're important to me, and something I pride myself on, so thought I would take a look back over them.

Sex in Teen Lit Month

Sex in Teen Lit Month is what started it all. There is a lot of peer pressure to have sex to not be an outcast, and you hear a lot about teens not taking things seriously when it comes to protecting themselves or the choices they make. I am not one to go telling people what they should or shouldn't be doing when it comes to sex, but when it comes to teens, I would like them to be as informed as possible, take protection seriously, and do so because they want to. Sex in Teen Lit Month was a great topic for me to look at first, seeing how authors dealt with what can be a confusing subject. Looking into casual sex, first times, teen pregnancy, and more, it was an eye opener. I had some great interviews and guest posts from authors, including Tanya Lee Stone, Melvin Burgess, Joanna Kenrick, Megan Hooper, and Laura Ruby. It was a great blog event, and paved the way for my future blog events.

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Fifth Bloggerversary: Blogging Milestones

In my five years of blogging, a lot has gone on. I've had a few awesome things happened, and I evolved as a blogger. Here are some of my highlights and milestones.

Evolution of Review Style

The very first review I wrote was for The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. Compared to what I write now, it's bad. Really bad. At least in my opinion. It's short, and I only cover the basics, without going into much detail about characters or romance or action or... etc. You may think, "Well, why not re-read the book and write a better review?" My answer is, because it was my first review. That's where I started.*1 And I like to remember where I started, see how far I've come.

As I learnt more about blogging, I got better, started writing slightly longer reviews, and became more certain of myself, my opinions, and my blog. In 2012, I discovered Eleusinian Mysteries, Read Me, Bookmark Me, Love Me and Saz101, three Aussie book blogs that I adore to this day, despite two no longer reviewing at all and the other busy raising a small child. All three wrote much longer reviews, and went into so much detail. They're reviews were amazing, became the type of reviews I wanted to read everywhere, and the type of reviews I wanted to write. I didn't copy their style - Brodie, Lisa and Sarah have such distinctive voices and such a way with words, that would be pretty much impossible - but I was inspired by them to say more when I reviewed a book. Say absolutely everything I think/thought, feel/felt, loved, hated, expected, was wrong about, etc etc. The whole nine yards. I know that long reviews aren't everyone's cup of tea, but they are most definitely mine, and so saying everything I had to say became the only way I could write. And it's thanks to those three ladies that I write the way I do, and love it! Thank you, ladies! (Seriously, they may not be blogging any more or as often, but their reviews are still incredible. Go check out their blogs and read their reviews. I can guarantee you'll discover fantastic new books, and want to fangirl right along with them!)

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Fifth Bloggerverasry: A Week Long Celebration

This Wednesday - 19th March 2014 - marks my 5th Anniversary as a book blogger. Five years! It's gone so quick, and yet it also feels like I've been doing this forever. God knows what I was doing with my spare time before I discovered the joy of writing about the books I love so much. Probably reading :)

I as a blogger and this blog have evolved a fair bit. You'll notice I'm calling this a Bloggerversary, rather than a Blogiversary. On Wednesday, I'll have been blogging for five years, but technically, Once Upon a Bookcase will turn five in June. Those who have been my readers and my blogging friends from the very start will recall I originally had a fantasy blog called Ink and Paper. That blog was started on 19th March 2009. I started this blog in June of the same year specifically to host Sex in Teen Lit Month, after a discussion on Ink and Paper about how sex was presented in the few YA fantasy novels I had read. I was implored to read more YA in other genres that deal with the topic, and had lots of recommendations, and so that's what I did. This blog was originally called Ink and Paper Specials, as at first my intention was for this blog to simply be a place to hold special blog events, as most of my readers back then preferred fantasy over YA in general. But with Sex in Teen Lit Month, I grew to love YA novels, and couldn't stop reading them. So two blogs, one for a genre, the other for a category. In 2012 I made the decision to amalgamate those two blogs to one, bring over all my reviews from Ink and Paper, as well as some other posts. And now we have the Once Upon a Bookcase you see today.

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