Time Flies When You're Having Fun - 14th Blogiversary

by Donna Huber

Yesterday (January 15) was the 14th anniversary of Girl Who Reads. So many of the friends I made in the first few years have stopped blogging or have changed focus. I'm kind of shocked that I'm still going.

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How it started

A few months before I started Girl Who Reads I had started working with a publishing house start-up doing their marketing. A large part of the job was interacting with bloggers. The Influencer movement was just getting started and as a startup, we weren't going to garner bigger media coverage for our books so bloggers were our best way to get the word out. What I found were fun, passionate people. The community was very welcoming for the most part.

I was very drawn to the book community that I found. It reminded me of when my friends read Harry Potter and Twilight. We talked about the books, shared the books, and recommended other books. But as life happened, we got different jobs, moved to new locations, and other interests took up our time. So this online community filled a gap.

I'm not sure I was really thinking about starting a book blog. I had started a few other blogs over the years but I don't think any of them lasted a year (which is why I'm shocked that Girl Who Reads is still going 14 years later).

But then I read a book that I wanted to tell everyone about and I couldn't really find people in my real life to talk to about it. And I tried for a few months as I had read this book when I went to Europe in the fall of 2010. So on January 15, 2011, I wrote my first book review: Skeletons at the Feast by Chris Bahjalian

How it kept going

The early years were rough as I found my footing. I didn't read very fast and I found it difficult to review one book a week let alone post 3 times a week as recommended by all the blogging gurus. I filled in with guest posts from authors, interviews, and memes. 

The guest posts and interviews were stressful. This was the early days of self-publishing so there were plenty of authors wanting publicity, unfortunately not all of them were professional so I was often chasing deadlines and missing content.

Memes were fun and a great way to create that community I was seeking. Unfortunately, I didn't always have content for them or it would be a lot of repeating (for the third week I'm reading the same book). 

I wanted more content, but I knew I couldn't do it alone. I also had met people that wanted to do reviews and be part of the book community but they didn't really want to start their own blog. So in 2014, I added 3 regular contributors: Heather Kirchhoff, Alison De:uca, and Claire Rees.

Heather Kirchhoff started handling interviews. Author interviews were popular but also time-consuming as you had to do a little research to be able to ask good questions. I wanted our interviews to consist of more than "Do you prefer Coke or Pepsi?" She was with Girl Who Reads for a little over a year.

Claire Rees was brought on to review some of the genres that I didn't read like horror, romance, and fantasy. I was getting a lot review requests that I couldn't keep up with but I also wanted to expand the audience of Girl Who Reads. These three genres are big and I knew we needed to cover books in these genres. She left 2 years later to pursue her own writing career.

As with the interviews, I wanted more than just book reviews. So Alison Deluca became a monthly contributor. As an author, she brought a different perspective and could discuss trends and tropes. She was part of the Girl Who Reads team until 2022.

In 2015, Alison recruited a few other authors to provide features over the years, including Kathleen Barker, who wrote a monthly column until 2018; Ross M Kitson, who also wrote for Girl Who Reads until 2018; and CM North, who was part of the team until 2019. 

Another author, Byddi Lee, spent just over a year writing a series of articles to help writers get started in the publishing world. 

In 2015, I added another reviewer as we were overwhelmed with review requests. Elisabeth Scherer spent the next 7 years reviewing a little bit of everything. 

2016 was a big year, as I added 3 new reviewers. 

Elisa Hordon reviewed for about a year and took over the genres Claire had handled.

Susan Roberts covers historical fiction, women's fiction, and thrillers. 

MK French came on board to not only cover fantasy, horror, and romance but also children, middle grades, and young adult novels.

What's next

Susan, MK, and I have fallen into a nice groove each handling about 10 days a month. While I still have a day job, managing the three-person team is doable. When I had 6 or 7 people on the team it was overwhelming. Even though we get way more review requests than we can handle, I don't see expanding the team at this time.

I would like to change the template that the website uses. I don't think it is very mobile-friendly. In the past two years, we have increased the number of mobile users and now more people are viewing the site on a mobile device than a computer.

I've always wanted to move to Wordpress and I still hope to do so one day. Right now, it isn't financially feasible. While ad and affiliate revenue has increased it still isn't at a level where I can pay contributors and hosting fees. 

Since readership is up, I assume that means people enjoy our mix of individual book reviews, recommendation lists, and discussions. I miss the interviews and guest posts and it might be something I come back to after I retire from my day job and can devote more time to getting quality content.

Is there something we used to do that you would like to be brought back? Is there something new you would like to see us feature?

As always I appreciate everyone who has contributed to Girl Who Reads success over the past 14 years. I couldn't have done without the publishers, publicists, and authors who sought us out for reviews and wrote guest posts. Thank you to the regular contributors who helped balance the workload. And of course, a HUGE THANK YOU to everyone who reads our posts each day.

Donna Huber is an avid reader and natural encourager. She is the founder of Girl Who Reads and the author of how-to marketing book Secrets to a Successful Blog Tour. 

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