Wednesday, May 28, 2014

Armchair BEA Chat || Expanding Blogging Horizons

Hey, lovelies! Today's Armchair BEA topics are "Expanding Blogging Horizons" and "Novellas/Short Stories." I think novellas are great, but for some reason the former topic really spoke to me. The prompt that the hosts gave in regard to "Expanding Blogging Horizons" asked about how we as bloggers expand our blogs. It mentioned possibly remodeling you blog, podcasts, vlogging and even freelance writing. Personally, none of those things really scream "Ok, Let's Read" to me aside from vlogging. I actually filmed my very first ever BookTube video today (spoiler alert; it's a potential summer reading books list), but I had a very unfortunate mishap. After filming, I was so excited that I just wanted to edit it right then. But, when I went to upload it, I realized I have absolutely no idea where the cord for my camera went. So, I have a dilemma. However, I ordered a new one on eBay right away and it should be here in the next few days. So, the moral of the story is that you can expect to see a VIDEO OF MY FACE here in the next week or so. If you're a fan of my blog, I would LOVE if you would subscribe to my YouTube channel. Of course, the videos will be posted here, but it's incredibly reassuring to see people enjoying my videos on YouTube itself. So, if you'd like to subscribe to my channel and make me super happy, you can do so right HERE.

I got off on a little bit of a tangent there. What I really wanted to focus on in this post was what makes my blog unique. I really do feel like my blog is very different from other book bloggers. Sure, there are plenty of similarities, but there are things about my blog and my personality that I feel like set me apart from others. Everything I'm about to say about my blog is going to be true about my YouTube channel once I start putting videos up. Basically, I'm super sassy. That's a big point. Being opinionated, assertive and brutally honest are just things that are innately ingrained in my personality. They're just a few things that make me me. It's impossible for me to take those traits away from things I do here in the book community and I wouldn't want to anyway. I think being honest and unafraid to speak your mind is something that is incredibly beneficial in a community and setting like this. When reviewing a book, I don't hesitate to be 100% truthful regardless of my opinions, and I think that's super important! I know a lot of bloggers have totally honed in on their writing voice as well, but I feel like a majority of bloggers have not. And, that's why this is something that makes me so unique and has, in my opinion, expanded my blogging horizons.

Another thing about my blog that totally represents me is the theme, color scheme, fonts and all that jazz. I honestly don't think I'll ever change too much about those things and here's why. I created all the graphics you see on my blog. And, everything on my blog was precisely chosen because I feel like it radiates "Ashley." The color scheme of aqua, lime and orange is my three favorite colors and it honestly makes me happy every time I look at it. The font is called DK Aderyn and it's my all time favorite font. The point of all this mindless rambling is this; If you're a newbie blogger like myself, or a seasoned blogger looking for advice, I think that the best things you can do for your blog is to make it uniquely you. Make everything as if it's just for you and reflecting your personality. Make your blog so pretty that you constantly want to look at it. Write things that even make you chuckle. Be happy with and enjoy the content you're putting out. If you do all those things, I am certain your blogging horizons will be limitless.

Thank you so much for stopping my blog if you were brought here as an #ArmchairBEA participant or otherwise. I am so excited to see so many new, friendly faces around here. I'm going to take a quick moment to shamelessly plug my weekly meme. If you haven't heard about Thursday Thoughts, it's an interactive meme that goes on each Thursday where we all come together to discuss all sorts of bookish topics. I'm actually beginning to run out of conversation topics, so if you're interested I would love it if you could check out the Thursday Thoughts tab above and maybe even tweet me some new topic ideas @okletsread! Thanks so much and have a great day!

5 comments:

  1. Hello, fellow buckeye. I'm an author who writes historical romance that is set in Ohio. I'm coming to you via ArmchairBEA.

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  2. Hi Ashley! Wow, great post! I really like that you mentioned about your blogging voice. I think a blogging voice is really distinctive. It's like, if a blogger's voice is distinctive enough, if I read an anonymous blog post from that blogger, I would still know it's written by that blogger. I'm still trying to find my blogging voice despite blogging for one year :( I'm really digging your advice. "Write things that even make you chuckle. Be happy with and enjoy the content you're putting out." I think I really need to start inputting more passion into my blog. I've just been thinking of putting up a constant stream of posts that I've neglected my passion :( Thanks for the wake-up call!
    Have a great Armchair BEA experience! Btw, I'm gonna be following you on Feedly! Really like your content :)

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  3. Based on what I have just read here I think I am going to kind of love your vlogs! Good luck!

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  4. I like that your blog has so many personal touches and that it just screams "you!", it's awesome.

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  5. See that's awesome that you're starting to vlog. Vlogs are cool to watch, but I have a hard time with them since audio isn't always an option when I'm surfing blogs, so I miss out on a lot of them. I'm also too shy and don't have editing talent to make my own heh.

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