Reading, Blogging & BookTube Crisis

The title of this post makes it sound really melodramatic but Bee and I have been having a lot of thoughts recently that have really affected our reading/blogging/BookTubing and whether the passion we had for Heart Full of Books is still as strong as it was when we started…four years ago.

Four years is a long time to keep something going. It’s not a secret that we’ve put more effort into our YouTube channel than our blog, and that filming videos and posting regularly has always been more of a priority than sitting down to write about our most recent reads. I guess that’s because on our channel is where we’ve built the biggest audience, and although no one likes to admit it, sometimes the numbers do matter and can be a huge motivator to keep working on something.

It’s also true that the people who read our blog or not necessarily the people that watch our videos. Because our blog has always been more of a side project, despite being the thing we created first, we just haven’t put the time and effort into building a little community over here.

Each year, both of our platforms have grown steadily. There was a time where I’d look at stats every morning and be really pleased with how many people were finding our stuff. We always wanted to make sure that we were posting what we wanted to post, but if we looked at what’s most popular, it’s not what we did most often. It got us thinking if we should start making more spoiler reviews or ‘Top 5’ posts.

As is the usual with the September-October months, we’ve done a lot less reading  because of starting our final year at university – which is obviously super important and deserves our focus – but the time away from reading put some interesting thoughts in our heads.

Did we still want to do wrap ups anymore? How often did we want to post videos? Do we want to do more readathon vlogs because people seem to really like them?  And most importantly:

Is our blog dead??

We haven’t posted on our blog in a month. We’re not motivated to write reviews. We can never think of anything interesting to write about outside of reviews…

But we want to do Blogmas. It’s been a tradition on our blog since it started and darn if we’re breaking the tradition this year. I want to be passionate about blogging. I want to find an audience that wants to read what I have to write and I’m not just saying that to convince myself.

Heart Full of Books has been our entire identity for four years, pretty much. Reading and talking about books is our number one hobby. It got to a point where we forgot it was possible to have other hobbies at the same time, but now that we’ve started drawing and writing again, our reading/blogging/BookTubing was bound to reduce.

I guess I’m just not entirely sure how that makes me feel. Just because you take a break from something doesn’t have to mean you love it any less, but that’s definitely the mindset I fell into.

Bee and I are going to work hard to make this blog something we want to work on and something that we’re proud of. And we’re still going to post videos, if a little less regularly than before. There might be some changes in content, like less wrap ups/reviews and more…other stuff that we haven’t quite figured out yet.

This was an absolute ramble of a post and something we don’t really share a lot of on this blog, but maybe that’s something that can change too. So, crisis over. Thanks for getting to the end of the post if you did, and look forward to more regularly scheduled, mixing-it-up content in the future!

2 thoughts on “Reading, Blogging & BookTube Crisis

  1. I really like your blog! And I’m worried about how being in university will change how I blog and read. Anyway, thanks for sharing, and I’m looking forward to seeing the new directions your content takes.

  2. I came to your blog after discovering your You Tube channel but i love them both equally now. In fact i have a link to your blog on my blog for others to see just how great your content is. But it has to be enjoyable for you first and foremost. I’m looking forward to seeing what happens on here and good luck with all your endeavours.

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