Look at these books,
Aren't they neat?
Wouldn't you think my collection's complete?
Wouldn't you think I'm the girl,
The girl who has enough books to read?
IIn the very beginning, there will be books, FREE, EARLY, SEEMINGLY PERFECT books that peopel want you to read. I'm here to tell you some cautionary tales on why you should THINK CAREFULLY about eeach and every book you request, sign up to promote, and promise to review, because you will regret it ifyou have too much on your plate.
My #1 Tip for Blog Tours is: DO NOT sign up/request ALL of the books. Because even if you are blogger one your FIRST WEEK of blogging, you will STILL be accepted for at least one or more of these promotional events. My biggest downfall/stress inducer in the first four months of blogging was the fact that I signed up for EVERY blog tour that was categorized under "Young Adult." This led to stressing out because of scheduling, feeling guilty for not reading books I want to read, and a lot of unwanted pressure.
There have been SOOO many times where I have signed up for a blog tour, lost track of time, and then the night before, I am scrambling to finish the book. I kid you not, I have stayed up into the wee hours of the morning the DAY of the tour to write my review, and I have even pressed the "publish" button at the exact second the post is supposed to be live.
On top of that, blog tour books 99.9% of the time come in an eBook and I will now promptly direct you to a post where I express my issues with reading eBooks. The bottom line is that I read eBooks at a snail's pace 5 times slower than a regular book because of lack of access during school hours. Blog Tour books 75% of the time are self-published, and it tends to be (there are always exceptions) that self-published books haven't had as much editing/revisions as books that have been professionally edited/revised. This leads to issues as a reader such as boredom, cliche tropes, been-there-read-that plots, and occasionally, bad grammar.
Until you have a firm grip on what you can handle (how many books you can read a month, how many posts you can schedule, and what kinds of books you read from different sources), I would advise that you don't sign up for blog tours, and even if you do, sign up for a maximum of 20% of the number of books your normally read until you have a firm handle on the books you can read per month on a deadline. Because even if you only get onto 1 out of 4 tours you sign up for, you may still be over your head with books to read
If Giselle from Xpresso Book Tours reads this post, she will most likely fire me permanently as a host and never put me down on the blog tour itinerary again.
The same advice follows for the two programs Netgalley and Edelweiss. I have permanently ruined my Netgalley approval ratio. It aint even funny how many books I have requested and how many (to my utter surprise) that I have been accepted for, which leads me to the worse approval to feedback ratio in the history of man kind.
Something I was so surprised with and so honored in the BEGINNING of blogging was when authors would approach me to read their books. A year later, I can count on my right hand how many review request books I have, in fact, read and reviewed. If this is even possible, all of my Blog Tour book reading issues multiply by 5 (again) when it comes to review request books because of the aforementioned reasons and the fact that authors can't (if they aren't out of their minds) give you a strict post deadline, which lets you just put off and put off their book. It has come to a point where I will only accept physical books and even so, I will rarely accept. Unless I can tell the publisher has honestly researched myself as a blogger and read my policy, I won't accept. It is so unlikely for me to give into an email that doesn't even have my name on it, if it's clearly copy-and-pasted/sent as a mass email, and if its for a book in a genre I clearly don't read.
The bottom line is, if you are click-happy person in life/shopping/Blog Tour Sign-Ups/Netgalley/Review Request, do your very best to refrain because you will sorely regret it if you flail, sink, and die in the "books I wanted to read" ocean.
What made me discover that I was a mood reader was the simple fact that I had SOOO many books coming from all these different sources, and I had no idea how I was going to read them all. If you're a mood reader, you know that you can't/won't stick to TBRs, but I would advise as the very least to know how many books you can read a month and how many different sources you have books coming in. Once you delve into the dirty details of eBooks versus Physical Book, Promotional Books vs Pleasure Books, you will have one hell of a shock. Which is especially why you should stick to not being a click-happy blogger/vlogger.
If you could possibly manage to stick to a TBR or some semblance of one, this is what I would advise
20% | Blog Tour/Review Request Books
20% | ARCs
60% | Leave it up to the reading gods (aka your mood) to decide
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