Book Blogger Hop No. 121: Eclectic vs. One-Genre Book Blogging

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This Week's Question

Do you prefer to blog about (a)

specific book genre(s), or

do you have an eclectic blog?

(Submitted  by Maria @ 

A Night's Dream of Books)

My Answer

This blog has actually gone through a few stages during its development. I'm sure many book bloggers can relate to this, too.

When I first started out, in 2010, I knew I wanted to feature YA Fiction. I was also very much into The Twilight Saga (and still am!), so, having written some Twilight fan fiction, I also included these stories on the blog. In fact, I wanted to feature Stephenie Meyer's paranormal world all the time, along with other YA novels. Back then, the blog's title was Twilight and Other Dreams. Well, I did get past that stage.....lol. I realized that people would think my blog was "just another Twilight fan blog", so I changed the blog's title to the present one, but continued to focus on the YA genre. I also stopped including Twilight fan fiction -- or any other type of fan fiction, for that matter -- on this blog.

I have always been an eclectic reader, however, so I gradually began to include books from other genres. These were mostly adult books. I love paranormal romance, for example, so I decided to include both YA and adult books within the PNR genre on the blog. Historical romances -- especially those dealing with the Regency period in British history -- are another weakness of mine. Most of these are adult books, and I began to include them, as well.

Then one day I suddenly decided that I wanted to go back to focusing exclusively on the YA genre, which, of course, encompasses some of the same genres adult books are categorized in: fantasy, paranormal romance, contemporary romance, mystery, urban fantasy, and science fiction. This does allow for some variety, while still featuring only YA. I figured that I might get more readers, as well as more comments, if I only featured YA. 

Well, that didn't last very long.....lol.

After trying valiantly to stick to this decision, I gradually began to waver. I just couldn't make myself focus on YA books exclusively. There were just too many other fascinating and entertaining books in adult genres that I was interested in reading and reviewing. So I slowly began to make this blog an eclectic one again. I'm still featuring YA Fiction, but not exclusively.

I've been a happily eclectic book blogger for some time now, and really haven't looked back since I finally decided to keep it that way. My love for YA won't let me abandon it altogether, though, so I will go on including it in my posts. But you can expect to see plenty of other types of books here as well! Except for nonfiction, though.

Blogging about books should be an enjoyable experience which allows us bloggers to share our views with the world regarding our favorite topic -- BOOKS. So I now feel that I should blog about pretty much any book that interests me. However, there are some limitations. Since I do feature so much YA Fiction here, I can't suddenly post a review of a book on philosophy, for example, or one on a history of the Kabbalah. No one will come by this blog to read such reviews. And if they should happen to do so, they surely won't comment on them. Therefore, I write about these types of books on my other blog, MindSpirit Book Journeys. (Which I have sadly neglected, by the way, because of time constraints.)

The purpose of my other blog is to deal with books of a more serious nature, such as classics, literary fiction, and nonfiction. In the past, I used to post at least some nonfiction reviews on A Night's Dream of Books, but have long since stopped doing so. On this blog, I will only review nonfiction if it has something to do with the YA Fiction genre.

It would be very interesting, I think, to find out just how many book bloggers stick to one genre, or perhaps two or three, and how many are totally eclectic in their reading and reviewing. I know I've seen quite a few blogs dedicated only to YA Fiction. Others stick to adult mysteries and thrillers. (Not my cup of tea, except for anything related to Sherlock Holmes!) Still others focus on literary fiction and classics. There's some variety in the blogosphere. From what I've seen, though, it looks like a lot of people prefer to blog about one or two genres. But I've also visited a few eclectic blogs.

In the end, there are obviously no hard-and-fast rules about which genre(s) to blog about. There's room for all genres on the blogosphere. (I personally avoid blogs dealing with erotica or the horror genre.) It's very interesting to see what genres interest and do not interest other book bloggers. And for me, there have been some surprises throughout the years. On more than one occasion, I've actually started reading a book recommended by a blogger whose reading tastes are completely different from mine, and yet, I've enjoyed the book!

It doesn't look like I'll ever go back to blogging about just one genre. It's too much fun to be eclectic!

  

What are your thoughts on

this topic?

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