The Blogger Recognition Award

I would like to thank Josie at Josie the Bookworm and Raven at Dreamy Addictions for nominating me for this award.
Their blogs are amongst some of my favourites, and I definitely recommend that you visit and follow them!

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The Award

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The Rules

1) Select 15 other blogs you want to give the award to. Do some digging if you must! Find those blogs. You cannot nominate yourself or the person who has nominated you.
2) Write a post to show off your award! Give a brief story of how your blog got started, and give a piece or two of advice to new bloggers. Thank whoever nominated you, and provide a link to their blog. List who you’ve nominated in the post.
3) Make sure to also attach the award itself! (You can do this by right-clicking, saving, and uploading the image above).
4) Comment on each blog and let them know you’ve nominated them. Provide a link to the award post you created.
5) Provide a link to the original post on Edge of Night. That way, anyone can find the original guidelines and post if needed, and we can keep it from mutating and becoming confusing!

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Original Post

Click here to view the original post.

Quote from it:

Blogging has changed our world. Like the Internet as a whole, it’s changed the way we communicate, exchange information, and simply how we spend our time. People of all kinds, from nearly any country, of nearly any social or political status, can create a blog and work their way into having a dedicated readership, or just experiment with the freedom it gives. Celebrities, world leaders, your next-door neighbors, ordinary citizens—every single one of us has the chance to be heard. To be part of a global community. This is the blogosphere, the blogging world, and each individual blogger helps to make it what it is.

So, why not celebrate this wonderful thing? No, I’m not talking about a special day, month, or year dedicated to blogging. I’m not even talking about celebrating blogging. I am talking about celebrating the bloggers themselves. Because, without them, such a diverse, free and fun thing wouldn’t exist.

Now, how shall we celebrate? With an award, of course!

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About Ana’s Lair

Ana’s Lair began without many prospects. Initially, it was only supposed to be a place where I would post my reviews, which I already put up on GoodReads.

When I got into Negalley, I noticed having a blog could influence whether my requests got approved or not, so I figured, why not?

I was browsing a blog, I don’t know whose anymore, and it was a WordPress blog, so this became my platform out of pure coincidence.

I clicked the sign up button out of curiosity, browsed all the themes, fell in love with this one at first sight and created it just for fun.
Initially, the blog was called MistLuna, as that is usually my nickname online, or just Luna.

Soon enough, I was copy pasting my reviews from GR, but I never really intended to develop the blog much further than that. I didn’t and still don’t have any html skills, which limits me a lot.
Boy, did that change. I found a couple of people willing to help me with the ‘coding’ and then there’s, of course, our best friend Google. In a short amount of time, blogging became one of my favourite things to do, almost as much as reading!

So I changed the blog’s name to Ana’s Lair. It has become my little niche, where I share my opinion about other things besides book reviews. Those are still what you will find here most often but, over the course of these roughly 5 months, my blogging interests have certainly broadened. I also enjoy posting movie reviews, videoclips from time to time, and other random stuff.
I created a new feature called Random Chats to discuss all sorts of things that appeal to me and believe others may enjoy talking about, and am already thinking of new things to implement in the blog.

Most of all, I love sharing my opinion, meeting people from all over the world, and receiving feedback from everyone. I have been lucky enough to only have had kind words posted here. Folks are just so nice!

It has been a blast, and I don’t see myself stopping anytime soon.

At times, I am not going to lie, it’s hard work keeping the blog active. Everyone goes through periods where they are just not inspired to write. It is difficult to come up with something. As I mentioned in another tag, the way I deal with that is by writing up rough drafts whenever an idea pops up, work on it over the course of whatever time is required for me to feel good about the post, and publish it when I feel I have not posted in a while.

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Advice for New Bloggers

I have only been blogging for 5 months, so am in no way an expert…

There are, however, a few things I would like to mention:

• Most often than not, beginnings are difficult. It takes time to get views and followers. Do not get discouraged!
• If you are not blog savvy as me, experiment! Create a draft and play with all the buttons. Don’t be afraid to explore all the options and reach out for people to help you get started. If you don’t know how to do something, ask! Folks are really nice in the blogosphere, someone is bound to come and help you.
• Reach out to other people. If you take the time to visit other blogs, like, and comment on the posts, sooner or later they will be curious about you and visit your blog as well.
• Write about what makes you passionate. Never write for obligation. It’s a sure way to make you lose interest.
• Most of all, have fun! If you have fun while blogging and take the time to connect with people, sooner or later your blog will succeed.

 

I hope you have enjoyed this post. If you decide to do this tag, even if I have not nominated you, please post the link in the comment box so I can check out your answers!

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My Nominees

Geoffrey @ High Tea Dreams

Cristina @ Tiny Obsessions

Candice @ Wondrous Reviews

Cátia@ The Girl Who Read Too Much

Amanda@ Amanda’s Nose In A Book

Laura @ Snazzy Books

Analee @ Book Snacks

Yvo @ It’s All About Books

Tiffani @ The Book Venom

Maren @ The Worn Bookmark

Ashley @ Socially Awkward Bookworm

Kristi @ Hidden Staircase

Tamara @ Orange Pond Connects

Daniela @ Books To Get Lost In

Nicole @ The Bibliophile Chronicles