Welcome to Carpe Librum Anthea and thanks for being part of Bloggernomicon. When did you start reviewing books and can you tell me the story behind your blog name?
I started reviewing books on April 1st 2018 because I wanted to keep track of what I thought of all the books I was reading. Thankfully my partner (Rick) helped me out with the name coz I'm really shit at naming things! I told him I wanted it to represent me but also make it clear it was about books and he came up with Proud Book Reviews since my last name is Proudfoot (no, I'm not from the Blackfoot tribe but my family is mentioned in Lord of the Rings!).
How many books do you have on your TBR? (Virtual and/or physical)
In physical books I have I think 30-40, but virtual I have like 1500+ free books on BookBub. Kinda why I needed to start a blog to remember what all these new books were about and which ones I loved enough to want to reread!
How do you organise and keep track of your reviewing commitments?
I've been using Trello since I started to get more tours approved and author requests in the later part of 2018 and have started using a whiteboard calendar this year. Trello I use to keep track of whether a book has been committed to, ready to be read, reading, needs a review written, artwork needs to be made/received, is ready to be scheduled, scheduled, published etc. Then I archive them once I've copied the review to the appropriate sites. My whiteboard just has what I'm reviewing/writing on what day so I can visually see how busy I am and where I have space so I don't go crazy requesting too many tours/ARCs.
Can you share one of your proudest moments as a book blogger?
I have two. My first is the first author review request after just 3 months of blogging. Adrianna Gavazzoni asked me to review her debut book even though I felt like NO ONE knew who I was. I now need to get her 4th book which was released in November 2019. My other achievement was the first time I could see that at least one person had visited my site every day for 30 days. I'm super proud of that coz it meant people were finding my little corner of the internet and were liking what I had to say enough to keep coming back 😀
What's your most popular blog post? What can you tell me about it?
Hahaha yeah... My most popular post is called "Pottermore inconsistencies - did you see them?". Basically I wrote this up after watching Fantastic Beasts - Crimes of Grindelwald because there were a few things that even my semi-oblivious partner picked up didn't make sense after we'd binged all the Harry Potter movies. I just had to put it out there and I guess people liked it and had something to say too which is cool.
Do you have a favourite publicist or publisher you enjoy dealing with?
She's not really a publicist, but Rachel from Rach Random Resources is amazing. She works so hard to bring great books on tour and it really shows. She makes sure you have the book and all the artwork etc with plenty of time to read and set up your reviews. I also want to give a shout out to Harper Collins Digital, who started pre-approving me for books on NetGalley after they noticed how many of their books I'm getting, loving and reviewing.
Do you spend money on your blog?
 |
| Anthea Proudfoot - Proud Book Reviews |
Yes. I pay for the domain name, web hosting (My Zuver, I love their support service and they are based in Australia which is awesome) and page builder (Elementor Pro). I try not to pay for anything else though since I'm not making any money.
When asked by an author, publicist or publisher to review a book, name something that can tip the balance in their favour?
Having read about me, my review policy etc so they get a sense of what I'll like. For instance, I just had an author submit a review request and he was able to quote information on my website and say why he thought I'd enjoy his book. Taking the time to see that I've liked similar books, (OMG the people who ask me to review YA when I've explicitly said I don't take requests for that genre annoys me!) and having taken 5 minutes to look at my site just warms my heart and butters me up. Makes it much more likely I'll say yes!
Do you use any of the reading statistics spreadsheets out there? Do you make any specific reading goals around trackable criteria?
I've just started to this year. I found out about them a couple of months into 2019 and my OCD wouldn't let me start a spreadsheet that's meant to track a year when I was going to have a few months missing. I've actually combined two spreadsheets I liked the look of and made further modifications to make it suit me. You can find out more in my "2020 - The Yr to Come" post. My goals were more to read one book a week and to read more sci-fi and books from my TBR pile (both trackable with my spreadsheet).
Name something you'd like to achieve in the world of reviewing and blogging about books.
I would LOVE to be mentioned on a book cover ANYWHERE! I see people noted there and until last year I always thought they were paid critics, but I found out last year that they can be regular book bloggers too so I would love to be one of those people! Preferably for an author who I've read and worked with previously because then I've built up a relationship with them. It'd be even better if it was an Aussie author coz I feel like they don't get as much love as the US and UK based authors.
Thanks so much for participating in Bloggernomicon Anthea. Being a fellow Melbournite, I do hope you can join us at the GoodReads catch-up next month.
I can hardly wait to do mine! These are really great!
ReplyDeleteThanks Davida, I'm so glad you're excited to participate. Thanks for commenting.
DeleteI had so much fun doing this and being able to pick questions that resonated with me so awesome. I'm looking forward to reading your interview!
DeleteA great way to start the series!
ReplyDeleteThanks Theresa, I think so too :-) Thanks for your support.
DeleteReally enjoyed learning more about Anthea. You are off to a great start Tracey!
ReplyDeleteGlad you enjoyed it too Shelleyrae. Anthea was fun to interview and the series is now up and running!
Delete