Book Blogger Appreciation Week is back, friends! Ana, Jenny, Heather, and Andi have taken over the reigns from Amy, who had to stop organizing the event in 2012 because it takes so much work. A lot has changed in both my blogging life and my life… life in the last four (!) years, so I’m excited to participate this year.
Today’s prompt is:
How do you stay connected to the community? Examples: social media, regular commenting, participation in blog events, etc. Tell us your faves!
I actually consider myself kind of quiet in the book blogging community and online in general. Ever since I first tricked my way onto the Internet at the dawn of the millennium, I’ve largely been a lurker. What I really love about blogging is that it’s up to you, really, how involved you want to be. When I first started in 2009, I felt really burdened by the obligation to keep tabs on everything. (I’m a bit of a completionist and my anxiety finds procedure really soothing, so I have to be careful that I don’t lock myself into a Portlandia technology loop instead of actually achieving my goals.) But once I realized that I could book blog however I wanted, I actually started participating a lot more!
I do have a Twitter account, which is useful for chatting with book bloggers I already know, but largely, commenting is how I stay connected to the community and expand. Since I’m a book blogger, I know how much a comment can make my day, so I try to pass that along.
But although the majority of bloggers I follow use WordPress, there’s no standard platform, which makes tracking comments hard. So I’ve come up with a system of my own to let me keep track of comments I’ve made. It’s not very complex. I use Notational Velocity, a tiny notes app for Mac, but you could use any word processing app for the operating system of your choice. I just keep a list of every comment I’ve left in it, and I clear it out every Sunday when I go through the comments left on my blog and anywhere else I’ve been blogging that week.
The Literary Omnivore 
So right that the non-standard comment forms are pretty frustrating. It can be so hard to remember to go back and check – I like your system!
Aw, thanks!
Will look into it! Thanks
You’re welcome!
God, a standard commenting platform would be amazing. How excited would bloggers be? I would die of joy if I never had to do another goddamn captcha ever again.
Right? Internet, I’ve lived on you so long, surely you must know me by now.
I love leaving and getting comments, but it’s true that it’s a pain to try to keep tabs on blogger comments. That’s actually the main reason to consider changing to WordPress, but I’m too lazy and technologically impaired to do it. I think I’m gonna copy your method – it’s simple and extremely effective!
Haha, thanks! It really works for me.