Musing Mondays asks you to muse about one of the following each week…
• Describe one of your reading habits.
• Tell us what book(s) you recently bought for yourself or someone else, and why you chose that/those book(s).
• Tell us what you’re reading right now — what you think of it, so far; why you chose it; what you are (or, aren’t) enjoying it.
• Do you have a bookish rant? Something about books or reading (or the industry) that gets your ire up? Share it with us!
• Instead of the above questions, maybe you just want to ramble on about something else pertaining to books — let’s hear it, then!
Today, I have a question for you, dear readers. Do you write your blog based on the sort of blog you like to read? For the most part, I do and here’s how that affects what I write…
- I think a blog with too many memes and too many reviews often seems lacking in content => I do at most two memes a week
- I don’t like reviews that are too long or too short => I try to keep my posts around 3 paragraphs. Enough room to say something, but definitely not longer than the 5 paragraphs which is usually the most I’ll read
- I like a short, original synopsis => I only spend one paragraph on synopsis and don’t just copy goodreads, if I can avoid it. If I break that rule, it’s usually because things were just too complicated to explain!
- I like to know certain things about non-fiction books (accuracy, author bias, difficulty, entertainment factor, etc) and certain things about fiction books (character development, plot intricacy, writing quality, etc) => I include those things in my reviews as much as possible
What about you? How do you incorporate your preferences into your blogging style?
Doing Dewey 
I too like a nice balance on a blog, but as to review length, I admit I do tend to go on a bit. In fact, my Musings tend to go on a bit…
Sometimes it’s hard not too! Especially if it’s a book you really love or really hate. I think those are the cases where I’m most likely to write a longer review. I’m also more likely to read a longer review if the author is passionately making a point, if they’re particularly entertaining, if I’m really interested in the book they’re reviewing, etc. so I wouldn’t say I never read or write longer posts 🙂
I’m with I think we all try to make our blogs something we would enjoy so we take ideas from other blogs we enjoy and adapt them to our tastes and desires.
Bethany @ Bythebookful
I expect you’re right 🙂 I feel like learning from other bloggers is probably a big part of what helps us get better as bloggers ourselves.
Interesting thoughts on blogging. I do write my blog posts based on what I like to see, although I can’t seem to keep the length of a post down. I use excerpts from Goodreads, Amazon, or other reviews rather than my own synopsis if it works better for me. I think I do about half and half. I don’t want the synopsis to say too much about the book because I like the content of a book to be all new to me, as much as possible, but it depends.
I like your points about what a review should include.
I find your idea of using a synopsis from another reviewer interesting. It seems like a nice way to direct people to another blogger’s site by giving them credit and it might help me find a short synopsis (often not to be found on goodreads!) when I’m stuck writing one on my own 🙂
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I actually do copy the goodreads recap of the book. This is because I would rather spend my time talking about what I thought of the book rather then what the book was about. Goodreads can do that for me.. so I’ll take it! I hope that that doesn’t draw away too many readers.. I never thought that bothered anyone before!!
Angie
For all I know, I’m the only one it does! I know a lot of bloggers do it and I haven’t heard anyone else complain. I certainly don’t hate it; I just have a slight preference for a shorter paraphrasing of the stock description 🙂
The number one rule I gave myself when I started writing reviews was: Give both the reasons I like and dislike a book. Most followers seem to respect this approach.
I also try to keep my reviews to about 500 words, the word length I have seen recommended, but tend to run long as a writer. My compromise has been to also include quick reviews, where I restrict myself on how much time and space I can invest.
Not sure where I stand on the review and meme balance. My blog is for book reviews. So, that initially composed all my content. Then I expanded it to include author biographies and interviews. While I received a lot of hits and requests for reviews, the comments started to come only when I posted memes.
You make a very interesting point about memes and comments! I’ve always liked reviews better since they’re primarily what I read a blog for. But memes are a great way for bloggers to get to know each other and to put more of themselves into a blog too, so I should make sure not to under-appreciate them 🙂