Book Blogger Appreciation Week: Blogging

 The world of blogging is continually changing. Share 3 things you are essential tried and true practices for every blogger and 1-3 new trends or tools you’ve adapted recently or would like to in the future.

The following are what I believe are essential for every blogger:

• Be nice! It's not as obvious as you might think. By that I mean, be nice to your commenters by visiting their blogs, be nice to authors by giving constructive criticism about books you don't like and be nice to yourself by allowing yourself a non-blogging life as well.

• Network. You can't complain about your lack of visitors if you never support other bloggers. Post meaningful comments (not just a link to your blog!) on the posts of other people and you'll find your traffic will increase dramatically. Not only that, but you'll end up with new friends to gossip about books with!

• The basics. This is true for any blog, website, forum, whatever - if your site hurts my eyes, I won't read it. Violet font on a black background is never a good idea; nor is neon colours or flashing images. And please, please don't set it to play music when I visit your site. Nothing irritates me more than having to mute my speakers when I'd rather play music of my own.

The following are tools I'm learning to use or I'd like to use in the future:

• Google Reader. I've only started using this in the last fortnight or so, but I already regret not using it all along. I used to just click on the links that popped up in my blogroll, but I ended up only visiting blogs that posted around the same time that I did. Now I don't miss a thing and it's easy to see the posts I'm interested in.

• I've recently set up a Facebook page for Booking in Heels. By which I mean I've set it up so recently I only have two subscribers and one of those is me. I haven't really got used to using it yet, but I'm working on it! Click on the Facebook app in the left side-bar if you want me to love you forever :)