Rowena: Before we started blogging, Holly and I were really into the author bulletin boards that we were apart of. A huge chunk of our days were spent discussing different books (the same books over and over again, but still) and heroes and just being ourselves. Ha, I still remember our sign on names for those boards.
Holly: Eventually Rowena and I outgrew those author message boards and decided to start our own. We really enjoyed moderating them for a time, but at some point Rowena discovered blogging. I still remember the email she sent me about it. “I think we should start a book blog,” She said. “We can write book reviews and share them with the world.”
Up to that point my online exposure was pretty limited. Our message board was pretty insular and the idea of sharing anything with “the world” was pretty intimidating, but I figured “what the hell, no one’s going to read it anyway.”
Rowena: But people did start reading our blog and it was surreal.
The book blogging community was a lot smaller back when we first started but it’s really grown into something special. Sure, we’ve had our fair share of blog dramas but there is so much good going on here as well. I’ve made some wonderful friends and have made some pretty special memories with my blogging friends and I wouldn’t trade these people and memories for the world.
Holly: Rowena would send me links to other blogs and I’d lurk on them, reading their posts and thinking about commenting. Then someone commented on our blog, and that opened it up for me to reply. Which gave me confidence to comment on some of the other blogs.
I remember one of the first blogs I commented on was Kristie J’s Ramblings on Romance. They were having a discussion about Derek Craven, the hero of Dreaming of You by Lisa Kleypas. Man, were they in love with him. I was so baffled by that, since I hadn’t found him very memorable. If memory serves, I thought he was something of a whiny baby and his heroine was weak and made questionable choices. I left a comment saying something like “Can you explain why you love him so much? I didn’t really care for him and I’m curious. I promise I’m not here to start a fight, I just want to see things from your point of view.” Man, I agonized over that comment. Were they going to gang up on me and call me a troll? Was I going to be banned from the site?
In the end it turns out I agonized for nothing, because she freaking deleted my comment!
Rowena: I remember that because it was around that time that I started thinking you were crazy. Turns out, I was completely right. LOL.
Holly: Whatever. I’m completely normal. All you Derek lovers are the crazy ones.
Anyway, I was pretty irritated over that, but eventually I put it out of my mind. To be honest, I don’t know if it was deleted, or if it never posted or if it went into a spam filter. Blogging was so new to all of us then, anything is possible.
As time went on we met some wonderful bloggers, and started building another community. This time it was filled with lovely, intelligent women who wrote blog reviews and commentary instead of posting on message boards.
Rowena: Says the woman that loved Sebastian St. freaking Vincent. =P
When we first started blogging, we didn’t think anyone would read our blog, let alone care what we thought about the books we were reading. So, we blogged for each other. We used to spend hours upon hours emailing back and forth at work and since it wasn’t just Holly and myself, there were plenty of emails being sent through the day. Book Blogging sounded like the perfect way to post our thoughts about the books we were reading and discuss them with each other, without flooding everyone’s inbox.
But the more reviews we posted, the more important the blog became to us.
Book Binge has been a pretty big part of my life. I love this blog. There are times when Holly and I are so busy and we get bogged down with other stuff and think about closing the blog down but a part of us will always be wrapped up in this blog. It’s been a true labor of love for us and neither one of us wants to see that go away so we’ve added other pieces to our blogging home and those pieces have become important to us as well.
We’ve met some pretty amazing people both regular readers like us and some pretty fantastic industry people as well. Book Binge has opened a lot of doors to us and we’ve met some pretty big rock stars because of this blog and those are good things. Our book blogging community is going through some rough patches right now but we’ve gotten through rough patches before. Our community is filled with some strong, intelligent and amazing women and we’re so stinkin’ proud to be apart of it too.
So what about you guys. How did you get your start in book blogging? What made you want to jump in and start sharing your passion of books through your blog?
I have to comment more–but it’ll have to be later, I gotta go to an appointment–but I agree with Holly, I still don’t know what’s so amazing about Derek Craven.
I can’t speak for KristieJ, but I wouldn’t doubt that blogger ate your comment–it still routinely eats mine at SuperLibrarian Wendy’s blog, and I’ve been commenting there for years and years.
Derek Craven was such a great hero. You guys make me sad.
As for the comment, I’m sure it was a Blogger thing.
Derek Craven is not a bad hero, per se, but nothing for me to moon over frankly.
Mind you, I really like Lily’s book (blanking on title), and the Wallflowers, a couple of the Hattaways, Someone to Watch Over me and the other one about the Runners, and I really like Again the Magic.
Dreaming of You is one of those books I should have read when I first started reading romance. I know I would have LOVED it had I read it then. But when I finally did read it I was all jaded and cranky 🙂 I “get” the Derek love. I really do. But it kind of all was ruined for me by the 1) clichéd Evil Other Woman and 2) the fact that Sarah was just so blah. I need to read Lily’s book (Then Came You?) because I loved her brief moments in DoY.
At first, I thought you were talking about Lillian from the Wallflowers series. I was going to be really disappointed since I hated her. LOL. But I did like Lily. Loved her, even.
I liked Sara but yeah, I can get why others wouldn’t. She was on the tame side compared to other heroes.
But Derek? You guys are crazy. That guy was great. 😛
My first romance-reading online community was through Suzanne Brockmann’s defunct message board. I jumped in back in 1999 and loved, loved, loved the space, and the people who inhabited, for almost ten years.
However, it was a limited–not insulated, but limited–space. A couple of the members were familiar with Nora Roberts’ ADWOFF and with AAR’s At the Back Fence. I lurked there for a bit in the early 2000s but frankly didn’t feel comfortable commenting. Then one day I stumbled upon the SmartBitches. And Karen Knows Best, Dear Author, KristieJ and then Wendy, and a bit later, you guys.
I lurked on most blogs for a long time–I don’t know when my first comment was, but I’m pretty sure it was at SmartBitches.
Karen Scott graciously agreed to host a review for me back in early 2008….and here we are now.
I remember Suz Brockmann’s bulletin board. I couldn’t ever get into replying over there because of the way the whole BB was laid out. Too confusing for me so I didn’t play much over there.
I remember when KarenS used to post all the time. She made me laugh quite a bit back in the day, still does, just on Twitter now.