{"id":74991,"date":"2025-02-08T03:51:08","date_gmt":"2025-02-08T03:51:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peraltafinancing.com\/entertainment\/books\/lindas-book-bag-is-10-today\/"},"modified":"2025-02-08T03:51:08","modified_gmt":"2025-02-08T03:51:08","slug":"lindas-book-bag-is-10-today","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=74991","title":{"rendered":"Linda\u2019s Book Bag is 10 Today!"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n<\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I\u2019m not quite sure how it happened, but today marks exactly ten years since I began blogging. What a decade it\u2019s been and my goodness hasn\u2019t the world changed for the worst since 2015?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But throughout that decade books have been a constant presence and joy.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Thank You<\/span><\/h3>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I cannot begin to thank all the authors, publicists and publishers who have trusted me with their books over the years. It really is an honour to receive books for review. I\u2019m so grateful for every single one. <\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019m not sure my postie is quite so grateful\u2026 the first full week of 2025 he brought me 22 books and has delivered 63 in January in total. Unfortunately, I\u2019m unable to read ebooks as I have weird bendy sight that needs to flex pages \u2013 conflicting astigmatisms, -12.5 in my left eye with a tilted retinal disk, a tiny hole in the retina and macular pucker from an epiretinal membrane caused by PVD. Screens tend to be inflexible! Reading screens for more than a few pages gives me vertigo and nausea. It\u2019s a great pity as I\u2019d have room on my Kindle for more books than the house can accommodate.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Sorry<\/h3>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I owe apologies to those who\u2019ve sent books and are still waiting for me to get to them. I sometimes think blogging must be a road to Hell as it seems to be paved with good intentions. Sadly it transpires that my best intentions simply aren\u2019t good enough in getting to review all the books I\u2019ve promised to read. I think the longest anyone has waited so far is six years. Oops.<\/span><\/p>\n

Regular <\/span>Linda\u2019s Book Bag<\/span><\/i> visitors may have noticed fewer posts in recent months. On occasion, real life gets in the way. I used to read four or five books a week, but life has become somewhat challenging in the last 18 months and this has reduced considerably. If I say that in January alone this year we have already lost four friends and family, you\u2019ll understand. I\u2019ve also had to take on far fewer blog tours and guest slots as setting up posts still takes time. I know my fellow bloggers understand exactly what I mean!<\/span><\/p>\n

Of course, there are times when blogging feels overwhelming. During Covid when I was receiving well over 200 emails a day with requests to feature on the blog I simply had to give up trying to respond. Even now I spend a lot of time not reading, but replying to emails \u2013 usually around 40-50 a day. I always try to share any books I\u2019m sent on social media to say thank you and to bring them to the attention of other potential readers. As both my photography and typing skills are execrable, this takes quite a lot of time \u2013 about 20 minutes per book to take photographs, check publication dates, find publisher, publicist and author handles and then add the books to X, Threads, Instagram and Bluesky. The greatest number of unsolicited books I\u2019ve received in one day is 31.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0Opportunities<\/span><\/h3>\n

That aside, over the last ten years blogging has brought me so many opportunities. Not only have I received literally thousands of books, but I\u2019ve made real life friends with authors, other bloggers and publicists. I\u2019ve been involved in festivals like our local Deepings Literary Festival where I\u2019ve interviewed and hosted many wonderful authors. I\u2019ve been invited to more events than I can count, have been featured in magazines like Women\u2019s Own and have even won awards for my blogging.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

One of the biggest joys has been being invited to review online for My Weekly (see here<\/a>) and in print (and once or twice online here<\/a>) for The People\u2019s Friend. I\u2019ve also been a judge in book awards for the Sunday Times \u2013 something that I\u2019m doing again this year for the Bookbrunch Selfies and I have been lucky to take part in events like Radio 4\u2019s Woman\u2019s Hour where I was interviewed and Radio 4\u2019s Book Club where I got the chance to ask questions of Rachel Joyce and Eimear McBride.<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019m approached a lot about accepting books for my magazine reviews. I thought I might clarify that process here. I can make suggestions for books to My Weekly, but the final say isn\u2019t mine. I review 3 or 4 books on average a month for them. I have autonomy over The People\u2019s Friend, but these books must be paperback releases and nothing too sweary, violent or upsetting. My deadline for The People\u2019s Friend is two months<\/strong> before magazine publication, so I need to have received the book, read it and sent in my review very early. April\u2019s choices are on their way to the magazine right now. I can only choose five books a month for The People\u2019s Friend so I can\u2019t accommodate all those I\u2019m asked to consider. It feels such a privilege to be able to contribute to these two magazines.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Stats<\/h3>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I rarely look at my blog stats but I think it\u2019s interesting that my first (truly, truly dreadful) blog post back on 7th February 2015 has had six views in ten years and my review of my book of the year for 2024, Christ Whitaker\u2019s All the Colours of the Dark<\/strong><\/a>, has had 18,849 views in 7 months as I write this post.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

So, it\u2019s been an interesting and exciting decade of books and blogging. I might not have loved EVERY moment (after all, there are only so many fake Keanu Reeves, American generals and Elon Musks a person can block on social media), but I wouldn\u2019t have missed it for the world.<\/span><\/p>\n

Giveaway<\/h3>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

As a thank you to all those who\u2019ve supported me over the last decade, I have a small giveaway, so please do enter.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

For your chance to win a \u00a325 National Book Token or Bookshop.org voucher please click HERE<\/strong><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Please note that I\u2019ll need an email address to send the prize, but I promise not to share it with anyone else or to retain it after the end of the giveaway.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Giveaway closes at UK 11.59PM on Thursday 13th February 2025.<\/span><\/p>\n

PLEASE NOTE \u2013 should anyone ask you for personal details or money in relation to this, they are NOT me and should be ignored.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m not quite sure how it happened, but today marks exactly ten years since I began blogging. What a decade it\u2019s been and my goodness hasn\u2019t the world changed for the worst since 2015?\u00a0 But throughout that decade books have been a constant presence and joy.\u00a0\u00a0 Thank You I cannot begin to thank all the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":74992,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[101],"tags":[541,2268,5697,1513],"dealstore":[],"offerexpiration":[],"class_list":["post-74991","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-books","tag-bag","tag-book","tag-lindas","tag-today"],"yoast_head":"\nLinda\u2019s Book Bag is 10 Today! - Som2ny Network<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=74991\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Linda\u2019s Book Bag is 10 Today! - Som2ny Network\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I\u2019m not quite sure how it happened, but today marks exactly ten years since I began blogging. 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