2018 Goals as a Book Blogger

Hello everyone! Happy New Year! It’s officially 2018! How crazy is that?! I am officially half way through my bachelor’s degree and can I believe it? No, not at all. Time is just going too fast!

With that being said, my slogan for this year: New year, New blogger! No I do not mean that in the sense that I am going to change everything that I do and delete all of my accounts to start from scratch. I am just determined to be FAR more professional and organised this year. I found myself putting off all my book blogging accounts constantly this past year (well I only started all of this in March, but you know what I mean) for life and school. Is that a bad thing? No, it is to be expected and not something that I am embarrassed by. I just want to put myself on more of a set schedule and treat all of this like a job.

Just within ten months of having a blog and bookstagram, I have been given incredible opportunities. I have been sent books for review, gotten in contact with a publisher, joined my first book tour (so excited to share this with you guys in February!), and build up unique experience when it comes time to apply for publishing work experiences and jobs. I am so thankful for all of it and so proud of myself for taking these steps towards achieving my dreams and giving myself an outlet for my passion of books.

So to make this year a better one (and make me feel like a better, more professional book blogger), I have set five goals for myself. Fingers crossed I actually stick to them!

1. Post at least once a week. I have been awful with posting and I admit it. I was talking to my boyfriend, who runs a blog for the Southampton Saints, and I realised how few posts I have done this year and wow, I need to fix this! My goal this year is to post at least once every week, probably on a Wednesday or Thursday (based on my class schedule). I’m hoping to start writing during my lazy mornings at uni, thanks to me having late classes, so this should be easily achievable.

2. Take photos regularly. I absolutely love having a bookstagram and find it so enjoyable to connect with other book lovers and admire the photos constantly. However, I must admit that it becomes a bit of a pain in the butt when I don’t have time to sit down and set up a whole bunch of aesthetically pleasing displays to shoot. So, I have decided to change my theme, both images and filter, to work my photos more into my daily life and make it so that I always have a photo to post every day.

3. Be more strict with writing my monthly wrap-up’s. I literally haven’t done any wrap-ups since summer break… how bad is that! I am so sorry guys but I just found myself forgetting about it and then it became my thing for my YouTube channel (which is currently on a bit of a break until I go back to uni). I can promise that I will be better this year though! Watch out for my December one!

4. Begin posting more personal things. I recently put out a questionnaire on my bookstagram discussing my idea to begin posting a bigger range of things on my blog. My current ideas include controversial publishing opinions, baking, and new years resolutions (such as seeing a movie by myself for the first time). I got a lot of positive feedback encouraging this growth so I think that I am going to try it out in the first few months of the new year and see how it goes. Be sure to let me know what you think down below in the comments!

I originally had a fifth goal – to create a consistent theme and system on my blog. However, after being bored one night and obsessing over my ideas using Canva (I highly recommend this site if you love graphic designing but are still learning), I cleaned up/improved my whole blog. I’m not sure if anyone has noticed that but I now have title graphics, cleaned up categories, and a strict layout for my reviews. I hope that all of you enjoy it as much as I do. It definitely makes me feel like I can see how much I have grown and how I intend to this coming year as a book blogger.

And that is it guys! I am sure that I could come up with some more but let’s be real, the fewer New Year resolutions you set, the higher chance you have at succeeding them!

I hope that all of you had an amazing time celebrating yesterday with friends and family and will now have an amazing year! Bring it on 2018!