Book blogging is different to lifestyle, fashion or beauty blogging

I recently came across a twitter thread with people discussing, whether book bloggers should charge for reviewing a book. It was mainly lifestyle, fashion and beauty bloggers saying that it’s a joke and book bloggers should get paid etc. They also became mean towards a fellow book blogger, saying she charges for sure, but just says she doesn’t, there were all kinds of other comments too.

My comment to that: These people are NOT book bloggers, so they have no idea how this whole thing works. They think they know everything better and only because it works one way in their blogging world, doesn’t mean it’s the same for every type of blogger.

Book bloggers usually receive a book by the publisher or author either in paperback or as an ebook. The book bloggers then read it and write an honest review. So we basically receive the book for free and write down our thoughts. That said, it’s not that we get all the books for free. I still buy a lot of books and review them as well.

We all do it for the love of books and not because of money. I would never come up with the idea of charging for my book reviews. Of course there are people out there, who do that for a living, like journalists for magazines. That’s very different. It would also be great, if we could make money like this, like lifestyle and beauty bloggers, but that’s not the case.

My blog is my hobby. I have a full time job and that's where I get paid. 

Most book bloggers review with honesty and integrity. I never just praise the book, because I like the author and want to stay friends with them. Amazon doesn’t allow paid for reviews and usually authors and publishers want us to post our reviews on Amazon.

Everyone is of course entitled to his/her own opinion, but if you have no idea about something you better be quiet. And it’s important to always respect other opinions and be polite. What I saw on twitter back then really shocked me, especially because it was bloggers I follow.

It’s seems that our way of blogging is a joke to them! They all really have to learn a lot!

My Fave Eye Shadow Palettes

Welcome to another beauty related post from me, two within a short period of time, but that will be it for a while trust me. So this time I thought I'd share my fave eye shadow palettes with you. 

Let's start with the smallest one and also the first one I bought out of these three: The Clinique 

All About Shadow 8-Pan Palette in the Pink Honey Affair color. 

As you can see it's mostly pinks/nudes combined with some darker shades. I use all of them and I love the mixture of matt and shiny shades and there is also a grey in there, which I really love. I use the last one on the right, a matt dark brown, under the eye and the second last one in the crease. 

The second one is the Nude Palette from Art Deco, I got it for my birthday and I ADORE IT!

This palette has a lot of fab gold and bronzy colours, combined with lots of browns, grey, a greenish ones and a pinkish one, it's a great combination. It's a mixture of matt and shiny shades as well and I can honestly say that I use all the colours. It's exciting to always try a new combination. The ones I use most are the gold (second one from the right), the brown/grey (forth from the right), the shiny pink one (7th one from the right) and the third last one (shiny brown). The pigmentation is fab. 

- Clinique: Clinique

- Urban Decay Naked 2: Urban Decay Naked 2

- Artdeco

My Thoughts on Beauty Blogging

I have never been into beauty blogging. When I got more into the lifestyle blogging community I also kind of got introduced to beauty blogging. Lots of the bloggers I now follow, especially on social media and YouTube talk about beauty constantly. I have never been really interested in beauty products. I just use my regular products and I’ve been fine with that. I don’t apply any foundation (only when I’m on stage), so part of the process is boring for me anyway. I recently started including some small beauty posts on the blog, but nothing like what the beauty bloggers do.

One post was about the Pink Beauty box I received and recently I have done a challenge with other bloggers with the goal to use up six products by summer. On YouTube I include beauty products in hauls and my favourites, but that’s it.

Beauty bloggers review beauty products, create tutorials, but what else do they do?! It seems as if they are always doing the same thing over and over again. Yes, I kind of do the same thing with books, but every book is unique and there is a story behind every novel. Beauty products tend to repeat themselves, so is there really a lot to say about them.

The amount of products they receive almost daily is crazy. I receive books to review as well, but never that amount. How can you even have an overview?! Most of the time it seems as if all beauty bloggers do is testing, testing and testing and then reviewing. It can surly not be good for your skin or hair to try so many products. How can they even be able to use and review all the products?! That seems impossible to me. Some products (skincare) take weeks to test, but it doesn’t look like a lot of bloggers do that.

Beauty product reviews tend to sound the same every single time I see them, which is a pity and I stopped reading them. There is a big difference between experienced bloggers and other who just do it from time to time. If you cannot even apply a nail polish properly, stop showing pictures with your fingers on.

Beauty bloggers (not only) tend do follow certain clichés (I wrote a post about blogging clichés here), similar ways to store makeup, similar blog photos etc. In my opinion this gets boring and dull, why not do something to stand out?!

I’m aware that all I have just said sounds harsh, I’m not part of that blogging community, because I’m just not interested enough. I can imagine that if I’d do it for a while, I’d have a different opinion. So if you’re a beauty blogger and have read this, I’m sorry but that’s my opinion. 

Six by Summer - The End

This spring I joined my friends Kayla (Polished and Bubbly) and Samantha (@BySamanthaMarch) and some other bloggers on a little (beauty) challenge. We all chose six products, beauty related or not and the challenge is to use them up until the start of summer, which is June 21st.And the moment has come, summer has arrived (not according to the weather here though). Here are the products I chose, let's see if I managed to use them all up:

- Vandini Luminazing Body Peeling: It's all gone!!! Shortly after half time I used it all up.

- Dove Derma Spa Body Lotion: I only just started using it when the challenge started. I love this body lotion, but sometimes I just forget to put it on, so this proved to be a challenge. I have about a quarter left.

- bebeMORE Eye Cream: This was the biggest challenge of them all, although it's the one I've been using every single day. The thing with this one though is that you only need a very small amount of cream puree. I would say it's still about half full, so I never had the chance to finish it ;). 

- bebe YoungCare day cream: Empty!!! It already was by half time. 

- Alcina Moisture Spray: All used up! Shortly after half time actually. This spray is fab for my hair. I use it right after washing my hair as a conditioner and in the mornings, it also really helps on a bad hair day ;). 

- Plantur39: There is only a small amount left, maybe one or two more times. Nearly...

So that's it, now off to see how my friends are did with the challenge. 

Here is my start up post: The Start of Six by Summer

My update post: Six by Summer Update