It has been a while since I participated in Let’s Talk Bookish. I believe about 3 months or so. Why did it take me so long then? Very simple: the topics didn’t speak to me or felt a bit repetitive as I covered them in other blog posts. This week however is about Blogging Essentials, so quite interesting!

Let’s Talk Bookish is a weekly meme that was originally created and hosted by Rukky @ Eternity Books starting in August 2019, and was then cohosted by Dani @ Literary Lion from May 2020 to March 2022. Since April 2022, the meme moved to another host, Aria @ Book Nook Bits. Let’s Talk Bookish is a meme where participants discuss certain topics, share their opinions, and share their love by visiting each other’s posts.

Prompts: What could you not blog without? Do you have to have a posting schedule? Do you rely on a set TBR to make sure you get to all the books on your list? What have you discovered helps your blogging most?

What could you not blog without?

Since I’m running a book blog, it’s obvious that I need reading material. Without books, there’s no content and without content there’s no blog. Also, I need WordPress as I’m not the biggest fan of Blogspot. Furthermore, I need a laptop with a text editor such as Microsoft Word, because I find that easier than drafting my posts in WordPress itsself. When I copy-paste my posts from Word, the formatting comes along which saves me a lot of work. So, I can both spell-check and format my posts and just have to add some additional blocks.

Do you have to have a posting schedule?

No. I’ve tried that once, but I like to have flexibility. I can’t work with a schedule, because then I need to publish, even though I have no time or content. I’ve learnt that a blogging schedule puts me under too much pressure which can blogging make feel like a chore at some point. Now I have the freedom to blog when I want to and have content to publish without sticking to a said day and time. Only for certain memes I have a schedule, but I’m really laid back with them as well. If I don’t vibe with a prompt or know I have little to no time to bloghop for the meme, I skip that certain week. Only my monthly wrap ups are scheduled for the first of the month.

Do you rely on a set TBR to make sure you get to all the books on your list?

Absolutely not! I’m a huge mood reader and I read whatever I want to read whenever I want to read it. A set TBR puts too much pressure on me as wel and I like to keep reading and blogging fun without pressure. I set seasonal TBR’s, but they are leisurely too.

What have you discovered helps your blogging most?

Being flexible in posting, but still somewhat consistent. Also, I find that structured reviews help me now. I used to be able to write very casual reviews. However, I’ve been an official review for a Dutch book platform and it ruined this ability for me in some ways. I feel like I have to push the words out when I write casually without a format. I’m not sure I will ever regain this ability, but it’s quite unfortunate as I feel like it’s harder for me to write reviews and find the words now I’ve quit official reviewing. I feel like I have to meet these quite high standards since there were several reviewing rules there. Even though it’s my own corner on the internet without any pressure, I still can’t help it. This post for example floods easily. So you see the problem there, don’t you?

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These are my blogging essentials. What do you need to blog? What helps you in your blogging most? Schedules, yay or nay? Let’s discuss!