ALERT ALERT: COMMUNITY MEMBERS NEEDED.
Hi everyone! So this post has been on my mind for a while but I’ve been trying to figure out exactly how to word what I want it to be. Basically, I still consider myself new to the blogging world, and still have questions. Many of my followers are more experienced than me and can answer my questions, so I thought “Why don’t I just make a post about all my questions and have them answer it?” But I got to thinking, I’m sure there are other bloggers that follow me that have questions but don’t know who to ask. So this post is kind of a forum for that. I’m going to post my questions below, and in the comments others can either post their own questions or answer mine. Then we can go through the questions below and see if we can help any of our fellow bloggers out. It’s kind of like one of those posts where you list blogging tips for new bloggers, except in reverse. This is a place where new bloggers can post their questions, and then the more experienced bloggers can answer them directly. Does that make sense?
My Questions:
- How do you guys make your images for your blog? Everyone I see has some beautiful images and graphics and I want to get in on that. ?
- Do you have any suggestions for book discussion posts or blogging lists? I think book discussions spice up the blog and allow for better, well, discussions in the book community, but I can’t seem to settle on a topic that will provide good discussion. Any suggestions for topics are appreciated!
- How do you use your blogging social media? I have a book twitter, but all I do is post my blog posts on there. Do you have any other suggestions for how I can use it?
Those are my three questions. Feel free to either answer them, add some of your own, or answer some questions by other bloggers posted in the comments! Thank you for your help and I hope this helps other bloggers!
Fire and Rain Books 
Hi! Okay so my featured images are made on Photoshop, but I’m not that great at it honestly, so I just stick to mainly fonts for my blog. I download free fonts from Dafont and then install them into my computer and play about with them in Photoshop until I make something I like 😛 though there are plenty of free image sites out there and they make making images so easy! (I can’t remember any of the site names but I’ll tweet this out and hopefully someone will let u know some good sites).
I struggle in terms of blog discussions. I only manage to post them one a month, but most of the time they tend to be about things that are on my mind in regards to books and the book blogging community. I simply type my thoughts down and then ask people to share theirs. They’re pretty easy to write once the ideas start rolling 🙂 I also like to post more random bookish posts. They could be about books I’ve studied at school, or a book haul, a trip to the library, books I’ve recently removed from my TBR. Those posts for me tend to be a lot more fun to make as well.
For the likes of Twitter, I actually just tweet about anything I like. I’m not strictly about books on my Twitter account. I think a good way to gain followers on there is to follow other book blog accounts. Usually when I see a book blog acc has followed me, I follow them back. Also, you can see the kinds of things these bloggers tweet about and that may give you an idea of the kinds of things you could tweet about too. Another thing you could do is to tweet/reblog other bloggers posts on your twitter. I try to do that every now and then for my blogger friends, and sometimes the favour is returned by them.
Hope this is helpful to anyone! 😛
LikeLiked by 3 people
Wow this is so helpful thank you!! I actually love your graphics so I’ll look into it. The problem is photoshop costs money right 😦 but I like your idea of downloading a font and then playing around with it so I’ll definitely try that. And I also like your idea of not trying to think of only discussion book posts but just other random book posts. Maybe I should do a book list soon. And also thank you for your twitter ideas! Just thanks in general for giving me such great answers!!!
LikeLiked by 1 person
I probably shouldn’t say this but you can find free versions online (tumblr is v. good for that, and there’s hundreds of tutorials on there too, which is how I taught myself). And random book posts have helped me a lot lately since I haven’t been reviewing as much 🙂 You’re welcome! Feel free to DM me on Twitter if you wanted some photoshop help/advice (i followed u)
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you!
LikeLike
I pretty much only use Canva for my images, and I use that to make my blog headers and then I use it to mark up my seasonal bingo board. For my monthly wrap-ups, I’ll just take screenshots of my Goodreads books read list. In terms of lists, Top 10 Tuesday and Top 5 Wednesday are good places to start, although they can get repetitive and you’ll see bloggers list the same books. I have Twitter, Instagram, and a Facebook page. My Facebook page is mainly so family and friends can keep up with my blog more easily. I use Twitter to interact with others in the community, and I never follow someone just because they followed me. I only follow people that I want to follow, it gets overwhelming following a bunch of people that you aren’t going to interact with. I also don’t follow other bloggers just because they followed my blog, I did that in the beginning and I came to realize that it’s better for me to follow blogs that I want to read every day than following everyone that follows me.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I use canva too! I think I’m just not inspired enough/still too much of a novice to make awesome graphics from Canva, but I really love yours so I’ll keep playing around with it and see if I can make it work.
Yes, I think I should start doing some lists to spice it up.
And wow that’s a lot of social media, I think I’m only going to stick with Twitter but I’ll definitely go twitter hunting to find some other cool book blogs I want to follow and get the ball rolling.
LikeLike
It is but I make it work. I really love keeping my blog headers simple so the focus remains on the content and not on the graphics.
LikeLiked by 1 person
That’s a great point. Thank you!
LikeLike
No problem!
LikeLike
Oh dear, Sydney, I’m still trying to figure out the first two myself. XD I know book twitter, though! XD Well, kind of. My main use of it is for my posts to go out, but a really good way to do it for me is to connect with authors. You can tag them on the reviews and such or discussions of your favorite books and they’re literally so nice. And also, giveaways. And also, chats. There is something called BBTCs that are put on by Brittany Book Rambles that is done usually every Saturday and it’s a good way to get connected not only with the author they’re featuring that week but also a tonnnnnnnn of other book bloggers. It’s so much fun. That’s mainly what I use my twitter account for.
LikeLiked by 3 people
One time I had a really nice chat with one of my favorite authors through Twitter! I’ll have to look Brittany up and try to join those chats. How does one run a giveaway? I think it seems super cool and also just fun but do you have to buy the book yourself first? Thank you so so much!
LikeLike
Great idea! I use the Canva app for all my blog graphics. They have some really great templates and you can add in your own photos or use their stock photos. Adding and editing text is so easy. I’m a little technologically behind the times. Technology hates me and I have a hard time figuring out big elaborate programs. This one is SO easy! Hope that helps!
LikeLiked by 2 people
I use canva too but I think I get to ambitious and my pictures don’t end up looking so good. But I’m going to continue playing around on it and find some images I like. Thank you that was very helpful!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Well… I’m new too haha! But I’ll let you know what other bloggers have told me when I was brand spanking new! For point one, I actually got someone on Etsy to create mine! I have a post on in somewhere haha. I was going to do Photoshop but I wanted someone professional to do my banner and signature. I know people also use Google images but I wanted something authentic I suppose. I will probably use Photoshop for dividers and what not eventually. For discussions, I do book tags haha. I’m also in the works of a Let’s Talk Banned Books biweekly post, which my roommate thought of when I said I wanted to do one post on it haha. Find something your passionate about and make it into a discussion. I’m a big advocate against book banning so that’s how that happened. Social media wise I have Instagram strictly for book photos (and occasional personal photo) that has a link to the blog in my description, Twitter to follow others and share both my reviews and other blogger reviews, Google+ for emails, and Tumblr because I love Tumblr…yup, that last one is silly but whichever haha! I know people use social media like Instagram to link to their reviews but I was getting overwhelmed…when I intended on doing this blog for fun 🙂 Twitter is easy because you can make your posts automaticall pop up in your Twitter Feed – I don’t really care for Twitter so I like this hehe. I’m really new so my advice is probably not as good as other peoples, but just take small steps and always remember to have fun! If you need a break, that’s okay. If you want to post more or less, great. Do the blog for you 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
No your advice is so helpful especially because you’re new also! And wow, no wonder your images look so good. I really enjoy your Banned Books discussions and I like the idea of using your book blog to talk about other things you’re passionate about. I’ve been thinking about some sort of book discussion about how books are taught in school because I’m still in school and so it’s relevant to me, but I’ve been hesitant to start.
And yes, I love how easy it is to post your reviews on Twitter! I think I need to follow more people so I can start replying to people’s tweets and engaging in the community more.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Well thank you! And I think that’s a great book discussion idea! It’s interesting and relevant! I need to as well… I’m so bad on Twitter haha!!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Briana does most of our graphics, but I believe she uses Canva. I definitely wouldn’t recommend paying for other people to make them unless you really don’t have time/do have the money because that sort of thing can add up fast.
I don’t know if you were looking for shameless self-promotion, but Briana wrote a post for our blog on free graphic tools for bloggers and she’s done one or two posts on discussion question starters. I can leave the links if you want, but I also don’t want to advertise if that would be annoying. 😉 We do have a tab for Blogger Resources, though, and I think some of the posts might be helpful?
LikeLiked by 1 person
I’ve been hearing a lot of Canva so I’m definitely going to try to become more adept on it. And thanks for being worried, but those links sound super helpful! I’m really just looking for answers haha and those sound like they contain a ton of answers to questions I didn’t even realize I have!
LikeLike
I tried to use Canva twice and I found it a little troublesome because I wanted arrows but they didn’t have arrows that pointed in the directions I wanted and they didn’t seem to rotate. I don’t know if the problem is Canva or the problem is me not understanding Canva!
If you are interested, here’s the link the Blogger Resources page: https://pagesunbound.wordpress.com/blogger-resources/. There’s a post near the bottom called “Thirty Discussion Post Prompts.” They’re in alphabetical order. I suppose they ought to be by subject.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yeah exactly! And thanks so much I’ll go check it out!
LikeLike
I use canva to make most of my blog images, all of the others are pictures I’m taking of my books mostly. I don’t have PhotoShop and can’t afford it, and I find that canva is pretty easy to use and you can still make great, aesthetic images pretty quickly 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
Okay thanks! Ive been getting a lot of recommendations to use canva. I think the main problem is that they have so many options I get overwhelmed. I need to just sit down and figure out Canva so I can make those great images I see everywhere. And I agree, photoshop is too expensive and I don’t think I’d know how to use it to its fullest potential. Thank you!
LikeLiked by 1 person
You’re welcome! 🙂 I understand – I barely use all of the options there, or even KNOW about them all. For starters, maybe try and use the basic ones? Play with texts and background colors, then add images, gradually, to get the hang of it 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yes that sounds like a good idea!
LikeLiked by 1 person