Things I Don’t Understand: Liking and Retweeting Your Own Tweets/Photos

I’ve seen it on Twitter, I’ve seen it on Instagram, I’ve seen it on Facebook and to be honest I just don’t understand it, in the sense that I think you like everything you post anyway and there is a reason for you posting it.

I kind of see why people are doing it, especially the retweeting. Retweeting gives you the possibility to share your tweet one more time. In my opinion it’s just weird though, because you can just make another tweet, even change the words. If you you do it with all your tweets, it’s close to oversharing in my eyes.

Now, let’s move to liking your own photos, that happens on Facebook and also on Instagram. Some people just like their own photos and others, who have two accounts like the pictures of the other account. It’s one more like, are they trying to get attention, get more likes and as a result get more followers?! I think that this is a really odd way to achieve this, worse would only be buying more followers. It is redundant, because otherwise you wouldn’t have posted it. I only post pictures I’m happy with and the ones that I like myself, I want that to be seen in my feed.

I strongly believe that you should let your followers decide whether they like your photo or tweet and maybe find out what is more popular in that way. If you really want more followers or likes, it’s good to see what people like. A lot of people like their photos, because they want to get the actual number on Instagram, meaning getting over 10 likes. This even seems like a little bit of cheating to me. 

Things I Don’t Understand: People Who Are Just After Free Books

I have heard sentences like „Your a book blogger, you don’t have buy books“ or „you get books for free all the time“ countless times and it’s just not true.

Book bloggers work really hard to get to where they are. In the beginning we review the books we own and then publishers and authors get to know us and our blog. It’s a lot of work, it’s time consuming, but it’s what we love. I only started getting contacted about review copies after a few weeks and even after that it’s not guaranteed. Of course there are sites like NetGalley, where you can request books, but it doesn’t mean you get accepted. Publishers also ask on Twitter sometimes, I only answer these requests, if I’m really interested in the book though. Publishers post a lot on Twitter and now comes what I don’t understand: When they just post pictures of book people start asking for review copies, or they ask when they see that someone else has gotten one. Most people do it the direct way, other try to phrase their tweets in a certain way. Of course there is always the possibility to email the publisher directly. That’s ok, I would just like to differ between two things:

-       Honest requests from book bloggers, who put their heart into reading and reviewing

-       People who are just after free books. That can be bloggers or random people.

There are lots of giveaways out there as well and yes I enter them as well. However, I see accounts or people who are just after these and enter every single one of the giveaways. Other than that they barely post anything. Don’t these people have any other hobbies?

I buy a lot of books myself, some because I have reviewed them and loved them so much that I wanted the paperback, other because I just wanted to buy them. I don’t receive a review copy for every book I want to read, but I still want to read it and support the author, so I go out and buy the book. I think I’m speaking for a lot of other book bloggers as well. We love bookstore, we spend hours in them and we also spend a lot of money in them. Our goal is not to receive as many free books as possible, we love books and we are here to support authors and to promote their books.

There are even guides out there explain how you can get free books! What I always find funny are these short reviews you find on Goodreads or Amazon. Yes, we receive books in exchange for an honest review, but there are different ways of reviewing. Sentences like “I absolutely loved the book” or “I didn’t like it” are not reviews. First of all it doesn’t help the author, there are no explanation, no examples. Book bloggers take their time to write down their thoughts and write a proper review. It’s not just “oh well, I will write one sentence and that’s it”. A sentence like that doesn’t even require reading the book and it’s just not fair to us.

What is your opinion on that? Let me know in the comments below.