Let’s Talk Bookish: 2021 Blogging Year

This week, Rukky @ Eternity Books would like us to reflect on our 2021 blogging year:

What did you accomplish reading and blogging wise in 2021? What are you most proud of? What are you most disappointed by? If there’s something new you tried in 2021 with your reading or blogging, what was it and how did that turn out? How do you think you’ve grown as a reader/blogger? What would you advise yourself as we look to 2022?

I started fiftytwo on a lark, a whim. I was talking to a blogger friend, and he said that I should do it, and I guess I was extra bored that day, so I thought, you know, WHY NOT? That was July 12th.

My original goal was to write one review a week, and I hoped to manage to get 40 followers. I thought that 40 was a reasonable number, enough that I might get a comment here or there, and enough to have a reasonable discussion about the books we loved (or hated).

Those goals morphed pretty quickly into something much grander…I now post an average of five times a week, and I have more than double the followers I thought I wanted.

I’m pretty happy with where the blog is…but then I do look at people like Tessa who grew her blog to 4500 followers in the same time span, and I wonder what I should be doing differently.

Goals for next year are pretty simple—keep doing the same thing. Five posts (or so) a week, try to keep focused on quality posts, market when I see an opportunity, and hope that the follower count will continue to go up.

As for reading, I managed 170 books this year, and the trend that was most obvious was that half of them were romance novels. I am not alone in this, as Romance has seen a 24% increase in sales since the beginning of 2020. It’s all those happy endings, man…I can’t get enough of them.

In 2022, however, I do want to branch out a little more, with more Science Fiction, and at least *some* Non-Fiction. I am not putting numbers to those goals (except the books read goal: 185) because that will shut me down fast. But more. More is the goal. More books, more variety.

If you are a blogger, did you have a good blogging year in 2021? What are your goals for your blog in 2022? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments.