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 with Dani @ Literary Lion from May 2020 to March 2022. Book Nook Bits has hosted since April 2022, with Dini at Dini Panda Reads as co-host from February 2025.
This popped up earlier in the month, but I missed it. When I saw this week’s LTB was going to be a freebie though, I knew I needed to slot this in, especially before we get to the end of January, for reasons I think might soon become clear!
Let’s Talk Bookish 30th January:
Book Blogging Slumps
(Danielle @ Poetry Books YA)
Prompts: People frequently talk about reading slumps, but what about blogging slumps? What gives you motivation for blogging? What makes you lose motivation? Have you ever gone through one before? How did you break out of it? What advice would you give to a book blogger who’s in one?
I think for us book bloggers reading and blogging slumps are two sides of the same coin. They’re both hobbies, and I imagine we embrace reading and blogging for similar reasons – we enjoy them, we like books so we like writing about books, we fall in love with a book and want others to experience it. There’s no money to be gained in either, and I imagine most readers and bloggers are actually operating at a loss.
So, other forms of motivation are very important. Although I don’t always go through them all due to time, I love seeing comments from people enjoying the blog. I used to feel motivated when my stats went up, but I admit I stopped checking these as it’s almost as demotivating if they drop! What really motivates me is…I just enjoy this. I enjoy doing Let’s Talk Bookish and writing reviews and even doing my monthly reading challenge check ins, seeing my progress with these.
As this is a totally optional thing I choose to do, I think my motivation is mostly impacted by things outside of the blog – I have pernicious anaemia, and usually feel run down the closer I get to my b12 jab being due. Often, I end up falling a bit behind. Work has been incredibly busy lately, which means I’m finding myself more exhausted in the evenings and needing more of a break than sitting at my laptop will give me.
So, it’s not that I hit a slump and make a deliberate decision to not work on the blog. It’s more that other things take over and generally I just fall behind. When I do fall behind, I find my motivation then increases as I struggle to catch up. Over Christmas, my plan was to get ahead with my posts to give myself more space, but I then got ill which messed up those plans!
What I want to stress for anyone who is in a slump or facing one – breaks are good. Giving ourselves space to do something different, engaging with something else, is not a bad thing. You have to take care of yourself, in whatever way that looks for you. And although we might want to dedicate time away from work to working on blogs or catching up with reading, sometimes we really do need a total break from these things, and that’s perfectly fine!
Something else that does help me is having a structure to the blog – I have mentioned this before, but having regular posts for the same days of the week really helps me avoid becoming stuck and not knowing what to write. Bookish memes can really help with this, too – especially the ones with dedicated days!
That said…I feel like I manage to avoid slumps in various ways, but partly because I can tell when one is approaching. It’s a lot to do with time, and the less time I have for things, the more I can feel myself slipping. It’s kind of happening now, which was a big reason I wanted to make sure I picked up this prompt soon!
So here is what I’m doing to do to look after myself and make sure I don’t end up hitting a complete wall with blogging (and all the stuff that comes with it!) – and this is the announcement bit referenced in the title:
I’m going on hiatus. Only through Feb, to give myself a chance to get things scheduled far in advance for March onwards, put myself in a position where I’m not constantly trying to play catch up. And allow myself to have breaks without then thinking about the posts that’ll have to be skipped or delayed due to time. This does also mean there will be no Monday Mood prompts through Feb, but please do let me know if you decide to do your own, or go back and use past ones.
I’m hoping that with everything else that’s been going on, this will ease up some pressure, allow me to step back in a way that keeps me engaged but also helps me revitalise my energy and motivation for the blog. Fingers crossed it keeps away any kind of blogging slump! I’m still in two minds about whether to post the odd review, but I will definitely post my Reading Challenges monthly update at least.
Have you experienced blogging slumps? How do you get out of them?
Unwrapping Words 