I have been struggling with this since the conception of this blog. How do I make a blog about both movies and books without alienating people? Because I want to write about both. I love movies, and I love books, but setting up two separate blogs didn’t appeal to me, so I had to combine both of these interests.
But what if people who love movies are not into books and are therefore annoyed to see book reviews in their reader timeline? And vice versa: what if people who want to read about books do not want their feed cluttered with movie reviews?
So, ever since my first reviews, I have tried to find a balance between the frequency of book reviews and movie reviews. I realize of course that I should write about whatever I feel like writing, but since I am writing about both forms of art, why not go for a balance between the two?
But here is the thorny part. It takes me about a week and a half to read and review a book, and about three hours to watch and review a movie. So, naturally I end up with an overload of movie reviews compared to books.
So, I try to restrict the movie reviews to those movies that interest me the most. That keeps the movie reviews down in number. But at the moment I have found a balance of about 2.5 movie reviews (on average) per book review.
So, my goal is to publish no more than 3 movie reviews in a row before adding a book review. Preferably less.
Anyway, are you struggling with similar considerations? Do you have various categories in your blog, and do you try to switch between them regularly?
A Sky of Books and Movies 
For me it’s actually harder to write movie reviews, or reviews on anything but books, because I can read a 300 page book throughout a day at school but it takes 3 hours to watch a movie. So I ended up just doing movie reviews when I actually see it in the theaters, which is rarely.
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It must be great to read books throughout a day! I can only read in the train in the morning and afternoon and just before sleeping, so it takes me quite some time to get through a book.
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I suppose if you find reading in lunchroom with noisy kids great XD I just learned to tune things out to give myself more time to read.
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That sounds impossible for reading! You must have a lot of experience with that.
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Yeah, usually I didn’t try but since I started my blog on here in January I was determined to update quickly
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I’ve found that writing a blog really stimulates you to keep reading and writing, right?
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Definitely I read about a book a day on easy days now!
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Thankfully, I only have to worry about books or non-book posts. And since I’m kind of private, what my non-book posts revolve around tends to be my hobbies or work. So my ratio definitely tends toward the book posts 🙂
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That also makes it easier to pick a name for a blog 🙂
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Much 🙂
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I do books and tea, but I don’t think anyone out there digs tea as much as I do, and it’s hard to fine creative ways to make tea interesting. So I do way more books. But, in terms of your blog, I really only follow book blogs so I like it when I read your movie reviews- it’s nice to read something different.
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I’m glad to hear it! I like tea as well, but I wouldn’t know what to write about it!
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I also have similar issues because my blog is quite diverse with movie, books, game reviews but like you said, finding the balance for book reviews is more time consuming to write up. I find there are some readers who will appreciate or understand certain topics than others which is something I often worry about..but it’s what I enjoy doing and of course you can’t please everyone.
I find both your book and movie reviews interesting so I’m fine about it either way. ☺
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Thank you, I am glad to hear it! I also thought about expanding my blog to other kinds of reviews but I don’t play enough games and I don’t know enough about music to write about that. I did have a travel blog but that is such a different topic that I separated it from this one.
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I think your ratio is fine. I’m a book guy, but like Weezelle said, it’s nice to read st different once in a while, plus there’s a lot worse in my reader feed (I don’t really care for these bookhaul and waiting on wednesday etc posts, they generally don’t contain a lot of information).
I do try to alternate my reading in function of my blog a bit, so my ‘recent posts’ listing contains a lot of different stuff (different authors, different time periods, some new books, different subgenres) so that people new to my blog instantly get a good impression of what I try to do. Without the blog I’d probably read series in one row, but now I generally keep about ten books of more in between.
My SF/fantasy ratio could be a bit better, it’s probably 4/1 at the moment, but that’s a minor concern. It still surprises me that my SF reviews get significantly more hits than my fantasy posts.
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Yeah I actually never read those waiting on wednesday posts and so on.I prefer reading posts about single works. About reviewing series, I’m interested to know what you think of the other R. Scott Bakker books.
I’ve found that my movie review posts comprise most of the hits on my blog, but personally I am the happiest about hits on the book reviews.
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I am one of those people who are a Jack of all trades, master of none. So my blog is a mix of every little thing I am into. I tend to just write about whatever I am getting myself into at the moment.
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I attempt to vary my content as best I can. Finding balance is key.
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I’m just impressed you can read a book in a week and a half. Finding the time to read is difficult for me when I’m juggling it with work and socializing, but watching a film can double as socializing. Reading is a solitary act by comparison. Having said that, I’d still support more book reviews in the world because film reviews are far easier to find for any specific film. And because people have a tougher time figuring out what book to read (due to that lengthy time investment required, they feel they have to make the right choice before committing to spending 30+ hours reading a novel), book reviews are more needed.
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I also like writing book reviews much more than movie reviews, and I find them more valuable. I try to make reading and watching movies less solitary by feeling a part of the worldwide community that digest all these books and movies. I watch movies often with friends, but it is a shame that not many people around me read the same books as I do.
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