How to Start a Book Review Blog in 7 Steps

Do you love reading books and also love sharing what you have learned in the book with others? If yes, then you can start a book review blog.

Book blogging is a good way to become a blogger and connect yourself to book lovers all around the world. It is also a good way to make money too from authors, affiliate marketing and Google Adsense.

So, would you like to start a book review blog? This article gives you everything on how to start your own book review blog.

Getting started as a book reviewer is not difficult but, a few guidelines should be strictly followed.

1. Pick a Domain Name

In case you are confused with the word ‘domain’, I mean, you need to pick a URL. It is just the first step. It doesn’t necessarily have to do with reading or books. It just has to be something that is memorable and short. You can name it after yourself or use a name that fits your vision. Then build keywords related to book reviews around your domain so search engines understand clearly what your domain is all about.

You can go to Namecheap to register a good domain at a very low rate

To know whether the name you would like to use to start your book review blog is free and has not been taken, just type it on the Google search engine and see what comes up. You can also check domain availability on whois.com.

If you see that it has been taken and you would really love to use that name, look for how you can change the extension or alter the name a bit. If the name ends with the extension .com, you can change yours to .org or .club or .book, etc. These are great extensions for book bloggers that you can also use.

2. Choose a Trusted Web Hosting Company

This is very important. Do not make the mistake of going for a free domain (e.g domain.wordpress(.)com or domain.blogspot(.)com). It is not advisable at all.

Read: Why You Must Consider Hosting Your Blog

There are so many trusted web hosting companies out there that you can buy into their various packages with a small investment.

Just for the record, here are a few trusted ones that you can choose from;

Bluehost (Affordable and you also get a free domain for life when you host your blog with them)

NameCheap (Affordable domain name company)

FastComet (Another good host) etc

These are just a few.

Just go through each of their packages and features and see which one suits you.

Also, note that most hosting companies give you a free domain for a year.

3. Pick a Blogging Platform

After you have decided on a web hosting company to go with and have bought any of their packages, and your site is now good to go, you will have to pick a blogging platform to host your site in.

There are several blogging platforms to choose from including Blogger, WordPress (everyone’s favorite), Wix, Tumblr, or anyone you find. Most people go with WordPress because they find it easy to use and customize. Aside from that, WordPress has a lot of tools for non-tech individuals to use.

Tumblr blogs however are extremely limited in their customization. The highest you can do is change colors, fonts, and photos that you use in your blog.

So, make sure you choose the right blogging platform for your book review blog so you don’t regret it later. Changing from one platform to another has its repercussions.

4. Design the Layout of your Blog

This can either be really easy or really complicated, depending on you and how you can use the computer. If you go with WordPress, it can be easy for you. All you just need to do is look for a good theme, download and activate it.

Find a lovely, clean, responsive WordPress theme that will suit you.

You can also visit any blog or book review blogger and ask for the name of the theme they use and where you can get it. But, no matter how good the theme is, you must still customize it to your taste. Like adding a logo at the top, changing the overall look, adding pictures in some places, customizing the main menu and sidebar, etc.

If it is something you can’t do, you can hire someone to help.

You will also need to create pages on your blog. The most popular pages on book review sites are ‘About Me’, ‘Contact Me’, and ‘Review Policy’. You can add as many as you might like.

Make sure you have a social media share button on your blog so that readers can easily share your content on social media.

5. Create a Publishing Calendar

Before you start publishing your book reviews, you should first sit down and decide how many times you will be posting in a week or in a month. This is not a normal article blog where you can publish content daily, this is a blog review site.

It is very important to set a posting schedule and stick to it so that your readers know when to expect the next post.

6. Create Awesome Content and Start Publishing

Start reviewing books you have read, or write about books you want to read. It must not only be on book review you will be writing about. You can write something about different literature topics and bestselling authors that you love their work and which of their works.

You can create a theme list like “Top 10 Williams Shakespeare Books You Must Have Never Read”. Lovers of Shakespeare’s works will want to check your list out and see which of the books you are talking about.

Another kind of content you can share on your book review blog is guest posts and interviews. Authors love to come to book review sites to talk about their latest books. This is one way to also draw the audience to your site in the case of interviewing a popular author.

7. Promote your Blog

Social media is one awesome tool you can use here to grow a huge following and drive traffic to your blog. Social media sites like X (formerly Twitter) are one powerful tool you can use to draw traffic to your blog mostly if you have a huge number of followers and know how to use hashtags to your advantage.

There are so many social media sites that you can use, but I suggest you don’t use more than two platforms. Focus on growing your following on those platforms and directing readers to your blog posts.

If you use too many social platforms, it will be hard for you to manage all of them or else you want to hire a social media manager to help manage them.

Bonus: How to Make Money from your Book Review Blog

Although, many book bloggers run their blogs wholly for passion without any thought of monetizing it. You can do both. You can decide to use your book review blog as a means of additional income.

Here are ways you can make money from a book review blog;

• Affiliate Marketing

You can review a book and put up an affiliate link where your readers can click and order the book if they like it. You earn a commission when people click through the link to make purchase of that book. You can use Amazon for this.

• Advertising

Your income will depend on the amount of views your blog pulls on a daily basis. If your page views are high, then you are sure to make a good amount of income monthly. You can sell advert space on your blog to authors who would like to sell their books on your blog.

• Marketing your Own Books or Products

You can make money promoting your own books to your audience.

Conclusion

Book review blogging can be fun if reading is your passion. Why not get started today? Comment your views and if you own a book review blog, kindly share your URL so our community can check it out.

To your success.