Book Blogger Interview Erika from AndOnSheReads

Book Blogger Interview Series

Getting To Know The Book Blogging Community One Guest At A Time

This post may contain affiliate links. Meaning, I get a commission if you purchase through my links, at no cost to you. Read the full disclosure here.

I hope you're enjoying this series of book blogger interview posts and getting to know some great members of the book blogging community along the way.

In case you miss them, you can check out the other book blogger interviews so far:
Hayley from Shelflyfe
Kira from TheBookBella
Holley from Chasing Destino
Sadie from See Sadie Read
Eric from Breakeven Books
Sophie Davies from Sophie's Reading Room
Erin from Erins Book Reviews
Divya Agrawal from celebrityreadshush

Micheal Everts from Fit 2B Read

Elizabeth from A Suitcase Full of Books

Jane Turner from 33 South Textworks

Are you ready to get to know another member of the book blogging community?

Today the focus is on book blogging.

I'm looking forward to chatting with other Book Bloggers during this series to get some behind the scenes insight into how they are approaching the book blogging community and what they've learnt so far.

You might also like: The Ultimate Guide for Book Bloggers

Today's guest is Book Blogger Erika from AndOnSheReads

Getting to Know Book Blogger Erika from AndOnSheReads

The Interview:

1. When did you start blogging?

I'm disabled and don't work, so when I'm well enough, I'm always reading. I started AndOnSheReads in April 2019, after finding myself having read a few really good books in a row and wanting to talk about them, and, having previously had a disability focused blog, I decided that I'd just give it a go and see what happened.

2. What are your favourite genres to read?

I honestly read a bit of everything, but I love a good YA novel, and really love thrillers and fantasy books.

3. Best book you've read so far this year?

This year has been a really good book year for me so far actually and picking one book would be impossible! My top three so far would be "Malice", a sapphic dark retelling of Sleeping Beauty, "Truly Devious" which is a YA mystery series, and "From Blood and Ash", an adult fantasy / adventure novel.

4. What social media sites do you use most to spread the word about your blog posts/to network with the book blogging community?

I'm probably using Twitter most these days, but I'm still not sure I'm doing it right half the time. That makes me sound very very old, and I'm not even thirty! I post on Instagram most days, and I do have a Facebook page that is slowly growing.

My username across all social media (Wordpress, Twitter, IG, FB) is AndOnSheReads and my blog address is andonshereads.wordpress.com.

5. What do you wish you'd known about book blogging before you started?

I wish I had known some other book bloggers, honestly. Since meeting a lovely lot of them thanks to social media and also my role as a Hot Key Ambassador, it's been so much more fun, and full of support for each other on the hardest days. There's always someone who has been going for longer who can help you, and always someone who has been going less time than you that you can help.

6. What is the hardest part of being a book blogger?

The hardest part is reading to a schedule, especially for me, when I have to factor my health in. I often joke that being chronically sick is a full time job, but it does take up that much of my time, with medication, essential rest and sleep, and treatments. So trying to fit everything around that part of my life is the hardest thing.

7. What are your goals for your book blog? Do you have any plans for your blog in the future?

My goals are mainly number based! I reached 5K followers on Twitter earlier this year and that was a big milestone for me. I've also just ticked over 600 followers, and would love to make it to 700 by the end of the year. My biggest goal is to reach over 10K views on my blog for the year as I was only about a hundred short of it last year which was SO frustrating! As for future plans, I want to think outside the box a little bit and come up with some more creative ideas for posts; I've already got a few post 'series' that I do, such as "Five Books With..." and "5 On My TBR", and I'd like to expand on that collection.

8. How often do you post to your blog?

At the moment I post every day with the occasional exception when I'm too poorly to post, but that's where scheduling posts in advance is really useful! So I try to make sure there's a post that goes up, every day, at 11am UK time.

9. What's your most popular blog post?

I posted a while ago about characters I LOVED to hate and that was really popular for weeks afterwards! It was a really fun post to write as well, so I might have to write a follow up.

10. What are you currently reading and why did you choose to read it?

I'm always the kind to have more than one book on the go at a time, so currently I'm reading four books. Two of them are buddy reads. "Among the Beasts and Briars" is a book I'm reading with a big group of book bloggers throughout the month. "City of Lost Souls" is the book I'm currently on with my two fellow Shadowhunter Saturday buddy readers. Then my personal books: as a physical book I'm reading "The Prison Healer", and as an audiobook I'm listening to "The Court of Miracles".

I hope you've enjoyed getting to know Erika better and encourage you to visit her blog.

Are you a book blogger? Check out 101 Blog Post Ideas For Book Bloggers

How To Read ACSM Format Books

This post may contain affiliate links. Meaning, I get a commission if you purchase through my links, at no cost to you. Read the full disclosure here.

Have you ever been searching titles on Net Galley and excitedly click to get a copy and then realise it's an acsm format copy?

I did this recently and almost went into panic mode 😬

I usually read using the kindle app on my ipad so an acsm format book is a problem. They can't be read that way.

The good news is there is an easy way to read them.

How To Read ACSM Files

Adobe offers a free digital editions app that can read acsm format. They even offer a free selection of books you can download from their sample library. YAY free books!

So why do publishers use ACSM files?

Electric Book Works in their article Adobe DRM: a guide for publishers give a nice summary about ACSM format books and why they are used. It basically comes down to Digital Rights Management (DRM) and whether or not the publisher wants the book to be shared with others or not.

Digital Rights Management (DRM) is any technological constraint on what a user can do with a document. Usually, DRM involves some kind of encryption that locks a document to a user’s identity, so that they can’t share it with anyone else.

As LifeWire put it in their article What Is an ACSM File? ACSM files are not regular ebook files.

ACSM files are not eBook files in the regular sense; they can't be opened and read like other eBook formats, like an EPUB or PDF. In fact, the ACSM file itself is nothing but information that communicates with Adobe's servers. There isn't an eBook "locked inside" the ACSM file nor is there a way to extract the book from the ACSM file.
Instead, ACSM files contain data from the Adobe Content Server that's used to authorize that the book has been legally purchased so that the real eBook file can be downloaded to your computer through the Adobe Digital Editions program, and then read back through the same software on any of your devices.

So, now you know and never have to go into panic mode again when you get an ACSM format book to review.

You might also like: The Ultimate Guide for Book Bloggers

Are you a book blogger? Check out 101 Blog Post Ideas For Book Bloggers

The Social Media Audit Challenge 2021

The July Challenges

Welcome back for another month of the Social Media Audit Challenge 2021! I hope you did well with the June challenges. Don't forget to add your progress report to the June link up.

Over the course of this year I'll be posting monthly challenges to help us improve our social media presence and get better results.

The Challenges

Over the course of the year we'll be working on different aspects of our social media. Each month will have a different focus and tasks to carry out.

Jan- Analyse Influencers

Feb- The Clean Up

Mar- Consistency

Apr- Quality

May- Measure Results

Jun- Facebook

Jul- Twitter

Aug- LinkedIn

Sept- YouTube

Oct- Pinterest

Nov- Instagram

Dec- Results and Plans

You might also like: The Blog Audit Challenge 2021

The July Challenges

During the second half of the year, and our challenge, we'll be concentrating on individual social media platforms each month so we can get more specific with each one.

Our focus for July is on Twitter.

Check out my book How to be Twittertastic

Twitter

Twitter is the social media site I use that gets the best results. It drives the most traffic to my blog and gets the most engagement out of all my social media sites. It is also the social media site where I'm most active.

So what are the things we can do to help leverage our Twitter content?

Twitter-Blog Promotion

You can use your blog to better leverage your Twitter profile. There's a few things you can do:

1) Embed your Twitter profile on your blog.

By adding your Twitter feed to your website you can amplify the reach of your Tweets. I personally have mine embedded on my media page.

How to add your Twitter profile to your website:

Go to https://publish.twitter.com.
Enter the URL of your Twitter profile.
Customize the design.
Copy and paste the code into the HTML of your website wherever you would like the timeline to appear.

2) Include Tweets in your website’s content.

Embedding tweets into your blog posts can be a great way to gain more Twitter followers.

What kind of tweets should you use?

That really depends on the blog post you're creating but here's a few ideas:

Search for Tweets that mention you so that you can embed them as testimonials.
Use polls you've done on Twitter to strengthen the information in your blog post.
Use highlights from Twitter chats to show the great info or advice that was shared (and if it's you're own chat, why people should consider joining in in the future).
Tweets that inspired the blog post. Maybe you were tweeting with someone and the conversation got you thinking about a specific topic which you then decided to explore for the blog post.

How to embed a Tweet on your website or blog:

Many content management systems will make adding a Tweet as easy as pasting the Tweet URL into the editor. If you would like to customize the embed or get the embed code, try this:

On your chosen Tweet
Click the ··· icon
Select Embed Tweet. Once you like the look of the embedded Tweet, copy the code provided by clicking the Copy Code button. Paste the code into your blog or website.

3) Add a “Follow” button to your website.

Make it easy for your blog readers to join your Twitter audience by adding a follow button to your blog.

Task 1: Embed your Twitter profile on your blog

Task 2: Include Tweets in some of your blog posts

Task 3: Make sure you have a Twitter follow button on your blog and social share button to make tweeting your blog post easy for your blog readers.

Engage with others on Twitter

1) Twitter chats

A lot of people struggle with the idea of joining conversations and engaging with others on Twitter. Interacting with others is a huge part of social media though and so important if you want to grow your following and be part of the community.

The good news is that it doesn't have to be hard. There are easy ways you can join in without feeling out of place.

A Twitter chat is a public ‘chat’ that revolves (and evolves) around a single hashtag, usually created and announced in advance so that people are aware that it is occurring.

Twitter chats are an excellent way for you to discuss interests with others in your industry/with similar interests. These live chats usually take place weekly or monthly and are collected together by a hashtag.

Usually the chat host tweets a series of questions at intervals and you respond with ‘A’ for answer then the number of the question.

By using the hashtag you will be seen by others in the chat and for those reading it afterwards.

Task 4: Join in a Twitter chat or create one of your own.

Book, Blog, Bake has a List of Regularly Occurring Bookish Twitter Chats to get you started.

2) Lists and Topics

Twitter offers a really useful ‘list’ option. This makes it super easy to follow the topics and people you are most interested in.

Go to Twitter and click the Lists section of the homepage.

To create your own list just click the icon that looks like a list with a plus sign. You might want to create lists to sort content by topic e.g.

Authors you love
Book Bloggers
Booktubers

Subscribe to topics you're interested in and that way you can easily connect with people who are tweeting about the topics you want to follow. This can be a great way to become part of the community.

Task 5: Create or follow some lists to organise the content you want to follow.

The Monthly Link Up

In order to keep us all on track, and give us a way to see each others progress, I'll be hosting link ups every month where participants can share their links and discuss their progress. The link up June progress will be on 7th July.

You can also engage with others doing The Social Media Audit Challenge 2021 by using the hashtag #SMAudit2021 on your social media profiles and share the following graphic to promote your participation.