Got My Book

Conundrum (noun): a confusing and difficult problem or question.

I have been working on an upgrade for my website for the past 4-6 weeks. I was very excited as I started rolling it out, and then…GUYS, you might want to cover your ears for a minute (i.e skip to the next paragraph)…I started PMSing big time. Now I can’t help feeling that I really don’t know what I am doing, and that it isn’t any good. I am usually pretty good at id’ing the source of such feelings and ignoring them the best I can. This time, however, I decided to use them to create this post.

So here I am, asking all you more experienced book bloggers to give this newbie some advice. (I probably should have divided this into separate posts, but "I wanna know now.")

Is it true that nobody is going to want to read my long reviews?

When I was designing my reviews, I put in all the things that I like to know. Some of which are:

• Series info: I want to know which book # it is, and how long I will have to wait for the next one if they aren’t all out yet.
• Plot Info: It always negatively colors my opinion of a book if it has a cliffhanger ending and I didn’t know. So, I try to comment on that at least.
• Content warnings: I firmly believe in the right to make an informed choice as to what you personally want to read. So I include anything I think someone might want to know (including things I have no problem with). 

I have since read that reviews are the least popular posts and that readers prefer shorter to longer. I have tried to make mine easy to navigate, so that people can find the Summary etc., but am I doing a lot of work for no reason?

What's with Twitter?

I realize that is a very large question, which I really need to research myself, so I will try to narrow the focus to a couple of urgent issues. (I never used Twitter before I became a blogger, so I am starting from scratch.)

One of my new features is a weekly New Audiobook Releases post (highlighting some of the most buzzed about and interesting looking ones). After publishing my first post on Tuesday, I had the clever(?) idea of tweeting the authors of the books I had included to let them know. I started each tweet with @Author, believing that it would constitute a private message. I then saw that they weren't completely private; at which point I stopped and did some reading on them. I sort of understand the difference between Mentioning and Direct Messaging (maybe), but what I want to know is:

• Is it even a good idea to @Author someone with an FYI that I included their book? (Authors, should feel especially welcome to chime in; would you want to know, or would I be bothering you?)
• If I choose to go with the @Author option (instead of DM), is it going to fill up my followers feed and be an annoyance? (I am not really following anybody yet, so I don't know.)

Which leads me to another question. I recently read, I can't remember where, a blogger who talked about sending a 2nd twitter post for her "afternoon readers."

• Is this something I should be doing?
• Is it the same post, or should I word it differently?
• Isn't it annoying to followers who already saw it?

I include interviews (authors and/or narrators, so far) in my Reviews when I can get them. Should I tweet the interview separately?

Any recommendations for bloggers who Twitter especially well?

If I use my best material now, not many people will ever read it. But, if I don't post good Content I'll never have any readers.

I don't think this one needs much explanation, surely it is a common issue.

And I guess it all comes down to: Am I wasting good Reading time playing around on my Blog? Which, I guess, is a question only I can answer.