Book Blogging Firsts Tag

I’ve been blogging for nearly four years now, and in those four years so much has happened. I’ve refreshed my blog design a couple of times, expanded the range of posts I publish, been inspired to start writing again and grown as a writer. Today though I’m pushing all of that to one side and taking a trip down memory lane back to November 2015 when Reading Every Night was born.

I was tagged by Marie at Drizzle and Hurricane Books. Thanks so much for the tag Marie, it was a lot of fun (if a little cringe-y at times) going back and looking at my various book blogging firsts.

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First blog name and design?

Reading Every Night wasn’t actually my first blog. I had three others before which all failed because I gave up on them. The first, which I started back in 2013, was called Life, Lollipops and Lazy Days and it wasn’t a book blog more of a ‘this is what’s happening in my life today so this is what I’m going to talk about’ blog.

This is the second blog I started on WordPress (the other two were on Blogger). I can’t exactly remember the first theme I had but it was either Nucleare (I’m about 90% sure it was this one), Selma or Dara.

My first design was terrible, I’m willing to admit it. It came about before I knew anything about design or to how to use the various design tools that are available out there for free. Luckily that’s changed, but it still took me nearly two years to re-design my blog the first time.

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First blog post?

It was actually a Top Ten Tuesday post, Top Ten Quotes I Loved From Books I Read In the Past Year or So, and yes I planned the start of my blog in line with this post because I love bookish quotes so this was a prompt I really wanted to take part in. Since then the memes I’ve taken part in on Reading Every Night have varied, but my Top Ten Tuesday posts have been a constant.

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First book review?

Illuminae by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff.

I think my opinions on this book have changed a little (I re-read both Illuminae and Gemina when Obsidio was released) but they changed for the better. My books reviews had a pretty consistent format for about three years, I just slowly expanded and started writing more and more for each point I focused on.

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First meme participated in?

Like I mentioned above it was a Top Ten Tuesday post; I jumped into memes right away and my first two posts were a Top Ten Tuesday one and a Waiting on Wednesday one. In the beginning memes really helped me grow my blog, and I’ve cycled through a few of them (Standalone Sunday’s and Wordless Wednesday’s the other two) but now I’ve just cut back to the one.

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First discussion post?

It took me a while to start discussion posts (this was back when I had very little self-confidence and I was worried about publishing anything too controversial) so my first one wasn’t published until February 2017. It was on girl hate, which I kept seeing in books and that I hated seeing in books.

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First book blog I followed?

I honestly have no idea. I can’t remember what I had for dinner last week so trying to remember the first blog I followed is pretty much impossible, especially when I’ve unfollowed some people in the nearly-four years I’ve been blogging.

I will give a shout-out to Marie (the same Marie who tagged me) as the first blogger I followed and started talking to regularly, which helped give me the confidence to start interacting with other bloggers more.

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First follower?

Thank you WordPress for keeping track of my followers (in order of when they followed me) because if not for you I wouldn’t have been able to answer this question. My first follower was Emily from Emily Talks About Books.

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First book I read because of other bloggers?

I started blogging around the same time Carry On was released so my feed was full of people either talking about how excited they were to finally pick up this book, or about how much they’d loved it. With hype like that I couldn’t resist, I had to read it myself (after reading Fangirl that is).

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I’m not going to lie some of these questions were quite hard, I’m not sure how I expected myself to remember my first theme or the first blog I followed. I think I may have tricked myself into thinking my memory was better than it actually was.

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Tag, you’re it

Caro at Book Cheshire Cat | Meghan at Meghan’s Whimsical Explorations & Reviews | Sammie at The Writerly Way | Sofii at A Book. A Thought | Sophie at Blame Chocolate

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If anyone else wants to take part in the Book Blogging Firsts Tag then go for it, I’d love to see your answers so consider yourselves tagged as well.

But if not let me know in the comments what your first blog name was. Did you start your blogging journey on WordPress, or did you use Blogger or maybe another medium all-together? Can you remember the first blog you followed or who your first follower was, or is your memory as bad as mine seems to be?