Hi friends! It’s a special anniversary today, 4 YEARS, and I thought it would be the best time to talk a bit about book blogging and “bookstagramming”.
It feels like it was only yesterday that I had just finished two books in two days for the first time in my adult life. The books were Shari Lapena – A Stranger In The House and JP Delaney – The Girl Before.
I remember posting the photo of the third book I immediately picked up (Believe Me – JP Delaney) on my personal Instagram feed, talking about how I adore books and blame my nana’s humongous collection I was raised with for it. It was 10th August 2018 and I had no idea that “bookstagram” was a thing. I just wanted to create a separate account where I could post photos of the books I read so that they wouldn’t spam my friends’ feed. I also wanted to start a blog where I could perhaps write a little more about books.
So I started Googling name inspirations.. my first book blog was called betweenthedevilandthedeepreviewsea .. please don’t, I know đŹ Luckily I quickly realised the name is too long and I had never read the book this play on words was based on. (Still haven’t)
So I decided to keep it simple. My name is Kat and I like books đĄ and as Katlikesbooks was already taken I just switched the words around – voilĂ Bookskatlikes was born.
For the majority of the time itâs been fun, but then it got a little difficult to keep up with when I stopped ahem.. you know, reading. And then decided to delete my blog altogether. Which resulted in me losing my original blog domain (.com) that Iâm no longer able to get back, because someone bought it and is holding it ransomed now!! *screams in regret*
Anyway within days I changed my mind and bought www.bookskatlikes.co.uk instead and moved everything over.. just. like. nothing. happened. *shhhh!*
I’ve been quiet, but then I’ve also not been reading as much as I did pre-pandemic. It’s something I’m really looking forward to getting back into. Recently I decided to start documenting a very personal BRCA1 positive journey after deciding I want to go ahead with the risk reducing surgery. So I’ll be updating how that’s going on my blog along some bookish posts going forward.
Bookstagram thoughts
The Girl Before was also originally the very first review on my bookstagram – posted August 12th, 2018. Bookstagram in 2018-2019 was great! I discovered there were so many other book lovers out there with incredible book recommendations and photos and reviews! It felt natural and fun and whole.
Over the years, my enthusiasm has definitely died a quiet death because the good old Instagram algorithms meant that I was seeing less and less of my book friend’s posts and more of the suggested/sponsored posts and regurgitated tiktok videos disguised as those cursed reels. This of course in turn meant that my posts weren’t seen by my book community either.
I miss when bookstagram was all about pretty photos, genuine conversations and meaningful comments between book lovers. Now it’s all about those mindless engagement chasing bots commenting “post it here, send pic there” and the algorithm pushing the videos on an app that was always meant to be a photo app đĽ´
Despite having to update my “hidden words” list each time I post on Instagram, I still like taking photos and talking about the books I read. As long as there’s at least one of you listening, I’ma go ahead and keep going.
I guess what I want to say is thank you to each one of you who have stuck around for so long. I appreciate you.
Happy 4th anniversary to us!
And again, thank you. From the bottom of my heart đ
