Interview with Neena Paul from Kindle and Kompass | Jo Linsdell

Interview with Neena Paul from Kindle and Kompass


Interview with Book Blogger Neena Paul from Kindle and Kompass

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Interview with Neena Paul from Kindle and Kompass


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For today's Book Blogger Interview join me in giving a warm welcome to Neena Paul from Kindle and Kompass


Introduce yourself. Who are you? Where are you from? and Where do you blog?
I am Neena and I currently live in Detroit area in Michigan. I moved here about 3 years ago from Bangalore, India. I am originally from the state of Kerala in India. I blog at a shared space started between me and my friend Rama Vani at www.kindleandkompass.com. We were friends since college and have known each other for the last 15 years. She lives in Chennai, India. We blog about books, travel and occasionally some personal/motivational writings. You can read more about us here (https://kindleandkompass.com/about/)

Why and how do you blog? What made you start?
We started blogging primarily because between us books and travels were a constant topic because that’s something that was close to our heart. We were also often asked by our friends on travel tips and book recommendations. So, we thought, why not we put it out somewhere for people to read if it helps them.

How long have you been blogging?
Our blog is relatively new. We started it about 10 months ago. Because we also work full time IT jobs, this is something we try to do during our extra hours.

What advice do you wish you'd had when you started?
I wish we had started this much earlier. We have been reading books from a very young age but it just took so long to put those into something useful like a blog. But then there is a time for everything!

How much time do you devote to blogging each day/week/month?
Like I mentioned, this is a shared space between two of us who also manage full time IT jobs. So, we mostly spend after work hours or weekends to get the content ready. We read on a daily basis, so between both of us, we manage to have at least 2 book reviews per month. And because there is two of us, it is probably a tad easier than having to do it all alone.

How often do you post to your blog?
Over the last 10 months, we managed to have about 50 posts up on the blog. We schedule our posts to go out every Thursday morning IST hours. Occasionally, we do more than one posts a week. That happens when we post about non- book/travel related posts.

What motivates you to keep blogging about books?
The fact that we are able to encourage more people into the habit of reading and providing book suggestions to enthusiasts is a great motivating factor to keep writing reviews. It is also a way to keep track of what we have read and what we liked the most. We also regularly post our reviews to GoodReads.

Interview with Neena Paul from Kindle and Kompass #BookBlogger #BookBlogging


Is there something you wish authors knew about your blog or blogging?
It would be nice for us to have more opportunities to work with authors and fellow reviewers. We are new to this space and still learning the multiple avenues of blogging and author interactions. There is a lot to learn from established bloggers.

What's your most popular blog post?
We recently published our 50th blog post which became an instant hit among our readers. We shared about how we find time to do all these things that we have come to love – books travel and fitness. It probably struck a chord with the readers. We heard a lot of feedback on how everyone loved it. Here is the link to this post - https://kindleandkompass.com/2018/07/05/finding-time-for-the-things-you-love/

Do you write reviews for every book you read?
We almost try to review every book that we read. If the books are small, we try to club them together into a single review or a wrap up post – like this one here https://kindleandkompass.com/2018/06/04/books-to-add-to-your-reading-shelf-this-summer/
We try to keep notes as we are reading about the characters and major twists and so it becomes easy for us to review them later on.

How many book reviews do you normally do a week?
We normally do about 2-3 book reviews a month. Because we stick to a weekly schedule of publishing on Thursdays we end up having drafts written long before but not published yet – something that we are trying to change.

What genres are your favourites?
We are both lovers of fiction. I started my reading journey with Harry Potter and since then there was no looking back. We also enjoy reading autobiographies, contemporary fiction and classics like Jane Austen.

What are you currently reading and why did you choose to read it?
I am currently reading “A Mid-Summer Night’sDream” by William Shakespeare. As for why, I don’t believe an answer to that is needed because it is one among the world greatest works by Shakespeare. I wasn’t sure if I will be able to read it, but now that I started I am totally used to the style with which is written and the characters are beautiful.

Do you have any plans for your blog in the future?
We are slowly learning the SEO techniques and the very large platform that blogging is – something we did not realise until we started out on this journey. We hope to learn and associate with fellow bloggers and continue creating content that is mutually rewarding to us and our readers.



10 comments

  1. Unknown27 August 2018 at 13:38

    Thank you for the feature Jo! I totally missed this post and realised its here only now!

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    Replies
    1. Jo Linsdell9 September 2018 at 18:14

      My pleasure. It was great getting to know you better.

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  2. Bookworms Corner9 September 2018 at 18:13

    Great interview Jo and Neena

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  3. DJ Sakata9 September 2018 at 19:01

    They are new to me - congrats ladies - I hope you are planning to have a party in 2 months on your 1 year anniversary

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  4. Whispering Stories10 September 2018 at 10:57

    Great interview. Lovely to get to know Neena.

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  5. Saturday Nite Reader10 September 2018 at 23:09

    Love how they organize their posts, I need to be better at that!

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    1. Jo Linsdell12 September 2018 at 11:24

      I agree. The website is very organised and clutter free.

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