Shifting Blog Gears

When I started this blog, back in September, 2010, I knew I wanted to review all of my favorite genres. So my initial intention was to have an eclectic blog. As time went on, though, I found myself enjoying the YA genre more and more, and publishing many reviews of these books. I also found myself gravitating more and more toward paranormal romance and urban fantasy. However, I do like other genres, and wanted to review those, as well, so I did, although not enough to satisfy me. I yearned to do much more.....

As I continued blogging, participating in blog hops, plus reading and commenting on other blogs, I began to realize just how much of the blogosphere was dedicated (and is even more so now) to YA blogs. Thus, whenever I published a post -- whether it was a review or something else -- having nothing to do with Young Adult Fiction, or paranormal romance and urban fantasy, those of my followers who were only interested in these genres would not comment on those posts, which is pretty much understandable. Furthermore, if I published a post related to classics, science fiction, or literary fiction, it was not noticed by bloggers who only blog about these genres. In this case, it was because one visit to my blog, and a swift glance at my design, especially my sidebar, would immediately convince them that this was a blog dedicated only to Young Adult fiction.  Therefore, they would move on right away, and never return. (Or perhaps they did, but if so, they never commented on posts covering those other genres I love.)

Last year, from September to November, I co-hosted a read-along of the classic novel Jane Eyre. My co-host was Brian Joseph, who blogs at Babbling Books. This is an excellent blog, and it has nothing whatsoever to do with YA fiction, or paranormal romance and urban fantasy. Brian publishes posts about classics, literary fiction, some science fiction, and nonfiction. I thought (how naive I was....) that  doing a classics read-along would bring some of those bloggers who prefer the genres Brian blogs about, over to my blog to comment, but that didn't happen. In fact, only Brian and maybe one or two other bloggers commented on my posts, all during the read-along. I was very disappointed, as Jane Eyre is a masterpiece, and easily lends itself to lively discussion. In contrast, Brian's read-along posts had a lot of comments, as all of his followers and regular commenters (except me) are folks who blog only about the same genres he blogs about.

So I have come to another decision: this blog will now be dedicated exclusively to Young Adult fiction, paranormal romance, and urban fantasy, with an occasional contemporary or historical romance post thrown in. In order to cover the other genres I love, I have revived, as well as re-designed, a blog I originally started in January of 2012. I only published a few posts in that year, and then put it on hiatus. Lack of time was the problem then. I began posting on it again on July 4th of this year, and am hoping to have enough time to post on both blogs.

This other blog, titled MindSpirit Book Journeys, will only cover those other genres I love to read and review: classics, literary fiction, science fiction, and nonfiction. I will be blogging differently, too; I will only be posting reviews, with perhaps one book meme -- "The Book Lover's Den", which I will be moving over to this 'new' blog. As for my book cover meme, "Shelf Candy Saturday", I will continue with it here, at A Night's Dream of Books, for the time being.

I know I'm not the only blogger doing this. I have another friend, who goes by the name of "Ao", who has two blogs, as well. One is for popular fiction, and the other is for classics and literary fiction. The first one is aobibliosphere, and the second, aobiblioclassique. Both of them are great! Another blogger who comes to mind here is Mary, who has the blogs Bookhounds and Bookhounds YA. While the first blog is not dedicated to classics and literary fiction, it does feature adult fiction only, while the second blog features YA fiction paranormal romance, and urban fantasy. Both blogs are fantastic!

I would like to thank all those who have commented on the posts on this blog in the past, whether or not they have been about YA, PNR, or UF. You truly ROCK! 

I'd like to invite any of you -- whether visitors or regular readers -- to go over to my other blog (click on the link above, or in my Pages, below the header) and sample the book fare there. If, like me, you enjoy those other genres as well, I look forward to seeing you there, and perhaps 'chatting' with you about these books!

What do you think of my decision

to have two blogs?

Would you do this yourself?

Why or why not?