How Has Your Blogging Style Changed?

I’ve been blogging for two-and-a-half years now, and in that time, I think I’ve changed my style of blogging.

In the early days, I was very supportive of authors, hence the interviews that I used to do.

Then I discovered that a lot of authors online only love you as long as it’s not their books that you’re dissing.

The main change in my attitude towards authors came with the whole Changeling Press fiasco, when the owner of Changeling, Margaret somebody-or-other took offence at my criticising their terrible covers. Then I read a very passive aggressive post by Dakota Cassidy, where she didn’t name names, but was clearly talking about me, only she didn’t have the guts to actually say so, and when questioned about it, denied that it was anything to do with me.

The fact that she delinked my blog, made a liar out of her, especially when I remembered that she’d done exactly the same thing when she deemed that The Smart Bitches were a bitchy lot. Something to do with their harsh review of one of her author friends if I remember correctly.

Prior to that, had been the Mary Janice Davidson’s post at RTB, where she used the word 'reviewers', and 'asshats' in the same sentence.

In recent times, there have been several incidents, including the whole Gail Northman/Triskelion affair, as well as the Carol Lynne, and Jaid Black row.

A recent comment on here by some author called Anne Caine, after I blogged about the similarity between her book and Carol Lynne's latest, pretty much cemented my opinion of e-pubbed authors. Those gals are definitely more sensitive than the rest.

I’m definitely not as supportive of authors themselves, as I used to be. I’ll probably never do another author interview again on my blog, and I mostly avoid reading author interviews elsewhere.

I’m still a huge fan of romance books, but these days, I tend to avoid books by authors who have been…‘tainted’, shall we say.

Another way my blogging has changed is that I review a lot less than I used to. At one point I used to review one book a week, (I know, not exactly prolific) but these days, I simply can’t be arsed, unless I feel strongly about a book. (Apologies to those people I still owe reviews to.)

I don’t discuss my personal life as much as perhaps I used to. I think that’s probably due to the amount of people who now read my blog. In the early days of blogging, getting a good number of visitors always used to excite me, but contrary to popular belief, my blogging is never about that these days.

I also no longer comment at as many places as I used to. I used to be a regular commenter at RTB, but none of the authors who blog over there, hardly ever blog about anything worth commenting over. And to be honest, much like author blogs in general, I find the daily columns tedious as hell.

Every now and then, I’ll throw my two cents worth in, but I don’t even do that so much now.

I’m not alone with the commenting thing, I believe that this is something that happens as a general rule to long time bloggers. When you first enter Blogland, the blogger is bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, and they want everybody to know that they have a blog, so they comment on every single topic, on every blog, hoping that people will follow their link.

Over time, The Blogger realises that other people’s blogs can be fraught with danger, so they pretty much stick to their own blog. I’m sure you guys have noticed that rather than arguing with people on their blog (Monica doesn’t count), I always bring the issues here.

One thing that has definitely changed is the amount of e-mails I receive from various authors/bloggers, with various bits of Romanceland gossip. I’m not a ‘breaking news’ kind of blogger, so I generally wait until somebody else blogs about it before adding my tuppence worth.

One way that my blogging style hasn’t changed is that I still cover a variety of subjects. I refuse to only talk about books, because sometimes, even I get bored by book talk. Sometimes I do want to talk about what’s going on in the world, and for me, it seems particularly irresponsible to keep to book-related topics, when there are important events happening in the world.

Another thing that still hasn’t changed with regards to my blogging, is that I pretty much still say what I want to, regardless of who I might offend. I never really considered myself a snarky blogger, and I still don’t if truth be told. That’s a label that I’ve been given, rather than promoted, myself. I just say what’s on my mind, and let the rest take care of itself.

Let’s face it, if I wasn’t as forthright as I am, most of you guys wouldn’t even bother visiting would you? Even those people who think I’m the pits still can’t keep away from my blog. The irony of that always brightens my day. *g*