Book Blogger Confessions is a meme from Midnyte Reader and For What It's Worth and deals with blogger issues and topics. This week they're asking:
Question: Following: How do you follow blogs? Do you use Google Reader? Are you on an e-mail list? Are you more apt to follow people who have less followers? Would you follow a blog to enter a contest? What makes you unfollow a blog?
Answer: I follow blogs whenever I can through my Google Reader, although I follow a few through email. I much prefer to have everyone neatly in my Google Reader, and I even have some of the blogs sorted. For instance I have a Bloggers BFF folder for the blogger's I'm friends with (Kim, Steph, Bittner, Andrea, Jen, Pam, Katie, Cindy, etc) or stalk (Murder by Gaslight and Raych). Then I have one for blogs that have Word Verification so that I know beforehand if I'm going to have to jump through hoops to leave a comment. I give really new bloggers a pass on CAPTCHA, but I am far less compelled too continue following a blog that has word verification on it. I hate CAPTCHA, and I can only assume from the blurry letters and obscure font that it hates me right back.
I do like following new bloggers, simply because I remember how it was (and really, still is) to not have a lot of followers. I follow blogs that draw me to them, I even follow blogs of genres I don't read if the blogger is interesting enough or (and this is shameful) if the blog looks good. Lori from Pure Imagination designed my blog and I have a tendency to follow the blogs she makes new designs for purely based on how cool they are. I have made lots of great blogger friends through that, including Cindy from Cindy's Love of Books whom I ended up rooming with at BEA. I will also follow any blog with the word Midnight in it for obvious reasons.
I do follow blogs to enter contests, but that can't be the sole reason. It's not fair to the blogger if I'm only following to win and have zero interest in their regular blog content. Usually though, if they're giving away a book I want to read they also cover a genre or genres I like.
Occasionally I clean up my Google Reader and find blogs that are inactive, and I'll unfollow them. This past year I did unfollow a blogger because a post was so ignorant that I had to delete them to preserve my sanity. Mostly though, if you're posting, I'm still following. I kind of go follow crazy during Dewey's Readathon, or during other bookish events. My Google Reader makes it possible to follow tons of blogs without wasting whole days of my life.
What about you?
Yay -- I'm in your BFF file! Steph told me how to do that in Google Reader, and I set one up called Favorite Blogs. Of course you are in it!
ReplyDeleteCaptcha -- grr. Great point. That is a strike against a blog, sorry to say.
And --no one but you knows this, but... Lori is redesigning my blog. I'm in the queue for January, which is a loooong time to wait, but I'm thinking it will be a New Year, New You kind of thing...
Awww, you're so sweet, You are in my ABFABs folder as well. I didn't know you could sort in Google Reader. One of these days I'll look into it thoroughly. I definitely follow blogs of genres I don't read, because of that reason alone. I want to hear about other books that I probably won't read. I like the discussion.
ReplyDeleteI'm the same with Captcha. I hate hate hate those and lately they have gotten even worse.
ReplyDeleteI think I know which blog you are talking about that you had to unfollow. If it's the same one I'm thinking of I was going to unfollow too, but then I saw the blogger was only 13 and gave them a pass.
I love how organised you are with Google Reader - I aspire to the same but it just never happens!
ReplyDeleteYou can organize who you follow??? Man, I'm out of the loop! I don't know how to sort or unfollow lol
ReplyDeleteYou have to have a freaking amazing post for me to jump through the captcha hoop! I may read the posts but I won't comment and less likely to follow since I won't be able to interact with you.
wow you can organize the reader ..
ReplyDeleteI find that following other different genre of books I find more books to read.
If I ever found another book blog with the word "abducted" in the title I would follow it in a heart beat! Sadly I have not, but I do follow one that is "addicted" because I figured that was close enough
ReplyDeleteI love the idea of a CAPTCHA folder. I think I may do that, I hate when CAPTCHA takes me by surprise, plus when I'm reading on my phone I will know to just stay away.
ReplyDeleteThat blog post was, very bad, and worth the unfollow.
KILL CAPTCHA.
ReplyDeleteDude, that folder thing is SUCH a good idea. I need to do that. When I'm lazy I can just read my favorites, also the captcha thing. Ugh. I always wonder if I should tell them to remove captcha or if that's weird.
ReplyDeleteOh, I forgot to say some things:
ReplyDeleteI used to follow for giveaways a lot, but I don't anymore. Or, if I do, I do so having looked through their blog to see if I like it.
Backgrounds: I need to get a custom background, because I'm pretty sure my blog would take off more if it were prettier. Sigh.
I unfollow blogs that go one breaks and have been getting rid of the old ones I followed just for giveaways. I just got rid of one because they misspelled the heroine's name in their review: Trice instead of Tris for Divergent. REALLY?
Google Reader all the way! I have my Google Reader sorted by subject, meaning all book blogs are together. I never thought of getting more specific than that! I should, because I find that a lot of blogs I start following just run together in my mind, because I read in Google Reader.
ReplyDeleteI might start following a blog because of their design (like yours!), but that wouldn't be enough to keep me around. And, again since I mostly read in my reader, I don't see designs except when I click through to comment, so I wouldn't usually unfollow because of a bad design. Exception: People who use light coloured or weirdly sized fonts. Even in Google Reader those look awful and might scare me off.
Of course, Raych from Books I Done Read could have the ugliest blog in the blogosphere and I'd still read her every word. :P (But her sister's an amazing artist, so that would never happen.)
Lol, I love that you have a folder in your Google reader dedicated to blogs that have Captcha. I really hate Captcha, too, and there are only a couple of blogs that I follow that I'm actually okay with them having it. I just recently sorted all the blogs I follow into folders as well, and you, Bittner, Kim, Steph, and Jen are all in my "Favorite Blogs" folder. It seems to really help, because I can go through the other folders and just mark the posts as read if I get too overwhelmed, and all the posts by my favorite bloggers still stay there. This happens a lot, because I get so behind (obviously, since I'm commenting on this post more than 2 weeks later!).
ReplyDeleteI'm thinking about changing my blog design, and Lori has some cute new styles that she does, so I might be going to her for a makeover. I'm not sure though, because I've found a few other designers that I like as well. I'll have to think it over for a while...