The Blogger Recognition Award (IV, V, and VI)

I was recently nominated for The Blogger Recognition Award by three different blogs: KB from KB Book Reviews, Nikita from Prose & Pancakes and Jane from Blogger Books. These people are truly awesome bloggers and I would highly recommend that you guys follow them all if you aren’t already.

The Rules

1. Thank the blogger/s who nominated you and provide a link to their blog.
2. Write a post to show your award.
3. Give a brief story of how your blog started.
4. Give two pieces of advice to new bloggers.
5. Select up to 15 other bloggers you want to give this award to.
6. Comment (or pingback) on each blog and let them know you have nominated them and provide the link to the post you created.

How A Little Haze Book Blog came to be

I have written about how my book blog came to be in my first Blogger Recognition post (see here) and I have also written about the positive impact that book blogging has had on my life with regards to making new friends and finding my voice in another Blogger Recognition post (see here).

And the positive impacts of my blog keep on being felt! I get so much joy whenever I get a notification that someone has liked a post of mine or even better when they have commented on one of my posts. Because it makes me feel less alone. I don’t want this to come off like some weepie sad story but when you live with a chronic illness as I do it can get lonely when you get confined to home… But with my blog I am constantly creating new connections and new friendships… Every day just feels a little more exciting because of my blog.

Advice for new bloggers

My advice really has not changed much. I still firmly believe that the most important thing with blogging is to just be yourself. Write blog posts about what you want to write about. When you are passionate about a topic then other people will feel that passion and emotion come across in your posts and they will naturally reach out to you.

But on a more practical side I would encourage fellow book bloggers to feel free to say no to review requests that come their way.

As book readers and reviewers we all do live for free ARC copies but sometimes we can get a glut of offers of books to read and review all at once. And the temptation to say yes to every offer is quite strong because we want to be seen to be amenable and it’s also quite exciting when someone contacts you personally to read a particular book.

So when you get offered a book to read in exchange for a review don’t immediately just say yes because it is free.

Instead:

• Carefully read the blurb
• Maybe read a few reviews of other books written by this author
• Ask yourself if this genre is something you are really interested in
• And most importantly think about the time it takes to read a book and ask yourself if it is putting yourself under too much pressure to read this book by its publication date
• Also think about any other outstanding ARCs you may have to read and think about those unread books that you have either bought or are on loan from the library. Are you willing to delay reading them?

And if you feel good about all of the answers to these questions then awesome, accept that read to review request.

But if you have any reservations know that it is okay to say no. Your book blog does not need to be completely about ARC reviews or release blitzes or book tours to be a true book blog. Don’t just feel pressurised to accept review requests or blog tours etc. because you think everyone else is doing it.

Your book blog can be anything you want it to be because it is entirely unique to you.

Blogs I am nominating for this award

• Devour Books With Dana
• Megabunny Reads
• Smellfoy Can Read
• Bookish Me
• Waesmiles Reads
• The Wordy Habitat
• Alys in Bookland
• Facing the Story
• Lucy’s Novel Purpose

• For more reviews and book related chat check out my blog
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