I was absolutely thrilled when I was nominated for this award by both Natalie at The Owl on the Bookshelf and Susan at Books From Dusk Till Dawn.  I love both of these blogs, and I really appreciate the support they’ve shown to me, both generally and in nominating me for the Blogger Recognition Award.

Here are the rules for this award:

1. Thank the blogger who nominated you and provide a link to their blog
2. Write a post to show your award
3. Give a brief story of how your blog started
4. Give two pieces of advice to new bloggers
5. Select other bloggers you want to give this award to
6. Comment on each blog and let them know you have nominated them and provide a link to the post you have created

I started my blog in May 2015 as a way of sharing my love of reading and all things book related with a wider audience.  It’s something I’d been thinking about doing for quite a while, although I’m not sure I’d ever have taken the final step of actually setting up a blog without the encouragement of my other half.

I’ll be honest, it was quite a daunting experience, particularly for the initial few posts, but I’ve found that I grown more confident with it over time.

My advice to new bloggers would be:

• Do things your own way.  There are lots of bloggers out there, and we all do things differently – it would be really boring if we were all the same.  So, experiment, and find a style that works for you
• Don’t put yourself under pressure – for most of us, this is a hobby, and it’s something we do whilst balancing our day jobs and general lifestyle.  It doesn’t matter if you can’t blog every day, or if you need to take a break.  Life can be stressful enough, so be kind to yourself, and treat blogging as a hobby and something to be enjoyed, rather than letting it become a chore

I’m nominating the following blogs for the award:

Cathy at Between The Lines

Cleo at Cleopatra Loves Books

Emma at Emma’s Bookish Corner

Dave at Espresso Coco

Renee at It’s Book Talk

Janel at Keeper of Pages

Wendy at Little Bookness Lane

Annie at The Misstery