The Blog Revamp

         Okay… So now I’ve been blogging for a while now I kind of have to stop trying to excuse the overall humbly-jumbly-rambliness of my blog by telling people that ‘I’m new!’ and that ‘I’ll get the hand of it’! The fact of the matter is, I’m lazy. I’m rubbish at properly proof reading my blogs and editing them into a more readable state, I’m a terrible rambler and if I don’t get my act together quick then I’ll never be a blogging superstar! Okay, I don’t actually care about fame, I just want my blog to be a bit prettier. So here it comes, my Chinese New Year Blogging Resolutions! (That’s a thing right?)

The Perfect Excuse...

    1.   Short and Sweet

Every Tuesday I essentially post a 1000 word unstoppable rant onto my blog and it has come to my attention that that might be a little hard to swallow. I barely have the attention span to sit down and read 1000 words on some book I’ve never heard of, so why should I expect you guys to as well? I want to make my blog more accessible and this I think is the first step. That’s not to say I’m banning the epic Lord-Of-The-Rings-length post, I’m just going to try and trim!

    2.   Structure

As I said, I’m not good at editing my blogs and it’s time for that to change. Perhaps not with discussion posts but I realize I don’t actually write many reviews because it’s so hard to write an 1000 word review and keep it somewhat interesting. Most bloggers have an easily-readable structure to their posts and those are the blogs I usually like best, so I plan on making my thoughts and opinions a little more structured too!

    3.   Routine

If you haven’t worked it out, I post a new blog every Tuesday at about 5pm and that is just impossible! So far I have kept very strictly to my schedule however what with Tuesday being a school day and an after-school rehearsal day for me. So I might (I haven’t quite decided) move my post day to a Sunday, just to make things a little stress for myself!

    

    4.  Makeover Time

   I'm not even gonna pretend to know anything about web design. I want my blog to look prettier - I'm not talking Vogue style perfection. I mean, I want my blog to undergo that process in the teen movie where the cool kids take of the dorky girl's glasses, give her some lip gloss and teach her to smile and oh look she was pretty all along! So if any of you know how to work that kind of movie magic... let me know

    5. Connect more

Last, but not least, I want to put myself out there! I don’t speak to you guys nearly enough! I’ve never done events or buddy-reads (yet!) and I think that should change. I vow to at least try and remember to answer my comments, update my goodreads and make myself known in the community. Soon enough, I promise, I’ll be tweetin’ like a little bird!

So there we have it, a makeover-to-be! But I’d like to know whether these things were ever issues for you guys or was it just me? Let me know if there’s anything I can do to make this blog a better place that I haven’t already mentioned. Let’s get started guys-

Talk to me! I promise I’ll talk back!

I Know You Judge a Book By Its Cover.

    

   

     Ever since I was a small child it has been drilled into me that you must never judge anything on appearance alone; places, people and most importantly of all – books. No matter what picture happens to be on the front or what title is written down the spine – you must never judge a book by its cover.

   

         However, as much as this phrase had been force fed to me over the years, I still haven’t quite absorbed it. As I walk through Waterstones on a lazy Sunday afternoon my eyes fly restlessly around the room, searching for a place to land. I skim over the dull looking books sporting grey or black dust jackets, barely giving them a second glance before I move on. I finally settle on a bright red book decorated with white sparrows that stands in a crowd of navy and dark purple – ‘Ketchup Clouds’ by Annabel Pitcher. I read the blurb with a smile; it is exactly the kind of book I want to buy. I am guilty, but I enjoy it immensely.

   

         This is almost always my tactic when book shopping and it has not failed me yet. Unless a friend has particularly recommended something, I will not pick up a book that doesn’t catch my eye. I have betrayed the golden rule of reading. But I am not sorry. When you think about it, there is no other way to shop for books. When in a bookshop you are faced with the mammoth task of deciding which book you will buy out of the hundreds in the room. Yes, you could pick each book up and read them one by one until you find the few that you like, but that could take hours for only one section of the shop.

     

       You can’t pick up everything, so how do you decide what to focus your attention on without looking at the cover of the book? You don’t. The most efficient way to find something you like is to search for the colours you like. We pick up the bright ones because they are the ones with the most obvious advertising. And as much as you may not want to hear it – the system works.  

  

          I have found, during my many Waterstones adventures, that the authors of the kind of books I fall in love with are also the authors who print books with bright, eye-catching covers. Now, this may just as easily be because the books I tend to buy are the ones with colourful covers. All I know is that my favourite bookshelf is a violently beautiful mess of reds and oranges and blues.

           However, despite my tendency towards book cover racism, I still remain open to just about everything. Though when buying books I’m more likely to pick up the books with a spine of neon yellow, this is because they are the most obvious. I still remain opinion-less about all books until I have read them – I just get a little bit more excited for the pretty ones. I firmly believe that the colour of the cover does not affect the quality of the content inside.

     

       I don’t think there is anything wrong with being charmed by illustration or vibrancy. We as humans are practically programmed to enjoy pretty things from the get-go. That does not exclude books. So what if I would prefer to buy the bright blue copy of ‘The Fault in Our Stars’ as opposed to the movie edition?! That doesn’t mean that my enjoyment of the story differs between the two styles. All it means is that I might just quite enjoy the colour blue. Is that really so bad?

  

          I know this is not a popular opinion. I understand why we must never use this theory on people, but why not judge books by their covers?  We all have preferences and interests. Even the most self-righteous readers are prone to ‘accidentally’ forgetting to consider the beige book in the top corner of the shelf. We all do it without even thinking. Really, we’re all a little bit book-cover-racist.  And I say that that is okay.