When Kat and I first started brainstorming about the direction of we wanted Cuddlebuggery to go in, we had no idea what we were doing. Zero. While we both had our own blogs previously, I don’t think we truly considered ourselves a part of the blogging community until after we stopped being hobbits and became more active. It’s been awesome and we can’t image not slaving away on this blog. We were hoping to create something for all types of readers to enjoy, including us. Well, it’s been a little over 2 years now and I was curious about how our readers really viewed our blog.
Part 1 of this survey focused on our non-blogger readers and really helped shed light on areas where we can improve and things you guys really love. For part 2, we have the results from our blogger readers. Check out the responses, they might surprise you!
Important things to remember:
- The total number of people who participated in the survey is 373
- Not everyone answered every question with the exception of the first question
- Everything was completely anonymous
- Some questions that were on part 1 were not asked for bloggers.
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206 bloggers participated in our survey and I found that majority did answer all of the questions.
Location
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Interestingly, the location of bloggers are very similar to that of our non-bloggers readers. So we have a really great mix of both international and US readers.
How do our features stack up for our readers?
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This is also very similar to our non-blogger reader results. It’s good to see that both groups enjoy our reviews, buzz and muser posts the most.
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This is where I can finally see a difference in tastes. Our blogger readers seem to not show a lot of interest in HNT, while our non-blogger readers voted it as one of the top 3 features they enjoy the most. Still, cover reveals come out in both groups as a feature least liked. I wonder, is it the fact that it’s just a cover reveal and therefore not interesting or is it the manner in which it’s presented that turns you off?
Is there anything on CB you’d like to see more or less of?
The one thing I love about bloggers is that they are a super vocal and opinionated group. When going over the results of both surveys, I enjoyed the parts where people were given a chance to really say what’s on their mind. So what do you guys really think of Cuddlebuggery?
I always like to get to know bloggers, so personal stuff is always welcome!
More personal stuff about you guys!
Some more book related musings, like the hot topics at the moment, or things that you’ve seen around yourself and want in on. Just more of yourselfs, because that’s what makes Cuddlebuggery as fun as it is, it’s you guys.
Well, it looks like we need to make this a Thing. This came up a lot on both surveys. Do we seem mysterious to you guys or something? Hahaha! And yes! We have more book related musings planned.
Cuddlebuggery Reading TIMEEEEEEE, pleaseeeeee?
Absolutely. I think Kat has already shot another one of these. She seems to be the most photogenic out of the three of us and she enjoys doing videos.
I don’t dislike it, as such, but I am less interested in the Hot New Titles feature, simply because my TBR pile is long enough!
My only frustration with Hot New Titles is that it just makes me sad that here are all these awesome books and I won’t be able to get my hands on them because I’m on a book buying ban. And I also hate vlogs 😀
Ah! So maybe this is why our non-blogger readers prefer HNT over bloggers? You guys just have too much to read already and don’t want to be enabled? 😀
Hot New Titles formats really oddly in my reader where the text is squished into half the horizontal space and so double the vertical space, leading to lots of scrolling past things I’m not all that interested in since I already know the info.
Yes, I can see how that can be annoying. It’s supposed to be truncating HNT after the third book, but last time I check, it wasn’t. I’m going to look into making HNT more reader-friendly.
Buzz Worthy News
A LOT of you said you miss Buzz. Good thing it’s back!
I never know what the appeal of cover reveal actually. While I know people bought books because sometimes they love the cover, the coverage for cover reveal sometimes can be too much.
It’s mostly to start early buzz amongst readers. But I can see how it can be a little underwhelming to some. We’re going to try to keep our cover reveals to books we are personally excited for, authors who we’ve worked with previously in the past or love and publishers/publicist we have strong relationships with.
One thing I do dislike is the small font.
I think we have finally fixed this. How’s it looking? Is it bigger than before?
I know it’s far fetched, crazy and unlikely, but maybe a Spanish section? I live in a non-English speaking country and sometimes is so hard to try to tell my friends how awesome everything in the book blogosphere is!
We thought about this after we saw your suggestion, but we’re unsure how this would work with the nature of our site and writing style. Basically, we don’t think things would translate correctly. However, if enough of our readers request we try it out, we may give it a go.
Meg. More Meg. All the Meg.
A bunch of you said overall you were very pleased with how CB already runs and you enjoy reading the blog. Yay!
General Questions About the Blogging Community
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I was particularly interested in this since I’ve heard some bloggers say they didn’t like long reviews because they are reading multiple blogs everyday and it takes too long. But this graph is very similar to how our non-blogger readers voted, which is awesome.
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Still very similar to our non-blogger readers, but more of them chose “no” vs. “yes”.
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I kinda predicted this, but HOLY SHIT, you guys! Seeing it in graph form is another story entirely. This is a big contrast from our non-blogger readers where majority voted “1-5”.
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People were allowed to choose “other” here, but subscription methods vary with majority going with bloglovin’.
Is there anything in the blogging community you’d like to see more or less of?
This question received a lot of interesting comments, some of which are brutally honest. MY PEOPLE!
→ Less drama!
→ Less fear of brutally honest in discussions, reviews etc, and in turn, more confidence to speak your opinion
→ I do think that there are an awful lot of blog hops and promotional posts and the same reviews on a lot of blogs that got their hands on some of the same ARCs.
→ I see far too many bad reviews based on not liking the type of book that it is. If you don’t like dystopian, don’t read it, and certainly don’t review it. I don’t care for mysteries, so I probably wouldn’t read one in the first place, but I would never give it a bad review based on it being a mystery. The other thing that irks me is when the blogger gives a bad review of a book they didn’t “get” because they weren’t savvy enough, or sometimes (let’s just face it), smart enough to understand. If hardly anyone else is saying , “I got lost”, or, “I was confused”, it is probably about you and not the writer’s skill level!! And last, but not least. I want to pinch people (really hard) who add or subtract stars because of cover art!!!!! The cover has NOTHING to do with the quality of the story!! If you can’t live without rating the cover, do it separately. Bloggers who do these things are just making themselves look silly, in my opinion.
→ Less jealousy and competitiveness. Blogging is not a competition. Not that you guys do this, mind you.
→ Just to clarify some stuff- I like ARC reviews if they’re within a week or two of pub date. While I am a blogger, I’m mostly a librarian, and I need to know about books I can give to patrons today. I’m a huge fan of cover reveals or giveaways in general, but not to the point where the annoy me. Most long and detailed reviews are tl;dr but some writers can write me a novel about a novel and I’ll read it. General blogging stuff, I’d like fewer gifs in reviews. I mean, a few are ok, but you better have a damn good reason to put in more than 5. Also, more backlist titles. There are so many books that I don’t catch when they come out and then they aren’t mentioned in the blog world ever again. Or books that I forget about 3 years later, but need to remember so I can share them with others.
→ I’m not a fan of book blitz or guest posts, especially when that’s all a blogger seems to posts. I love reviews and discussion posts and would love to see more of unique discussions. Cover reveals don’t really appeal to me either, especially if I haven’t heard of the book or series.
→ I’d like to see less competitiveness. Sometimes it seems like some bloggers (not CB, but others) are all like ‘Look at all the ARCs I have and all the stuff from giveaways I have won beause I am better than you!’ Most blogs aren’t like this, but occasionally you’ll be reading one and think “woah there tiger, way to rub it in to everyone else that you have more stuff than they do”.
→ Less cliques and more community.
→ More support for smaller blogs 🙂
→ Cover reveals/book blasts/book tours/orwhathevertheyarecalled
→ Less publisher things and more blogging blogging. It’s nice for other readers, and blog tours are important to authors, but it does get other bloggers feeling insecure about how they’re doing their blogs. I think it’s one of the reasons for my blogging slump.
→ The most difficult thing: discussion posts that aren’t the same thing I’ve read over and over again; your humor is much appreciated though!
→ More discussions and more interactive things where readers can participate. Less blitzes and promos. Also, more diverse original content instead of feature after feature, which can get old.
→ Less general bitchiness. (Which is completely different than snark!) Less drama. Can’t we all just read our books and get the hell along?!?
→ Enough with the vain Stacking the Shelves feature! We get it you’re so awesome that you have soooo may books thrown your way. Yes, I’m a jaded 30 something who still reads YA!
→ I’d like to see more bloggers being supportive of one another, for example, I’d like to see more of us encouraging Kat as she goes through this period of time. Also I think that everyone should respect one another’s opinions too! 🙂
→ Less promo posts and pointless memes (my least favorite are cover reveals and Waiting on Wednesday), more discussions (bookish or non-bookish), and I’m a fan of seeing some personal stuff mixed in there so I can get to know my favorite bloggers better.
→ More unique features and voices! Too much copycats!
→ To be quite honest I’d like to see less reviews. I don’t understand why such emphasis is placed on reviews when most bloggers admit to not reading them. I personally never read a review until after I’ve read and reviewed it. I don’t want any spoilers and I don’t want to subconsciously plagiarise someone else’s review. Reviews are by far my least popular posts and it’s the same for other bloggers as far as I know!
→ More reviews and spotlights for lesser known books and authors.
→ Book tours. I stopped doing them on my blog because I find it annoying as a blog reader when 54 blogs are featuring the same book. So boring. I’d much rather read reviews of books that are older.
→ I would love to see more reviews that are not part of book tour. I guess I will be a minority here, but in my opinion , book tours make reviews less trusted. How can I trust the blogger opinion, if the author (maybe) stated that “if you join my book tour, you must at least give 3 stars reviews”. My favorite blogs now just have interview, book tours, and what bugged me, short and to the point review. I’m no longer visit it anymore 🙁
→ Less snobbery. People who are long-time bloggers seem to forget that they once made a first blog post. Not saying that’s you–just saying it about the community.
→ MOAR SNARK (and Fallen reviews – go Kat). I would say I would like less authors screeching in and less attacking of bloggers for *gasp* disliking stuff – but that’s not likely and not really in the blogging community’s power. Obviously, if we’re talking COMMUNITY, we’d like to see more social justice awareness. We’d also like to see more decent criticism because we’re genre reviewers and I think because our genres – YA, Urban Fantasy, SF&F even romance are often viewed with contempt from without, we’re too inclined to defend from within; even when it isn’t defensible. We need to take our genres seriously if we want others to – which means being critical Also more booze and pirates. Obviously.
→ Less posts about HOW TO BLOG correctly
→ Of course I’d love to see less drama between each other. I have seen too many bad encounters, plagiarism and the like. I’d love if we could get along but I think that’s impossible for people.
→ Less mass marketing. It can be so irritating when I see a ton of blogs sharing the same material at once.
→ Diversity in posts? I don’t know. I tend to see a lot of the same posts pop up in the same week. Or everyone will review the same book at once. Which is fine, but I enjoy diversity.
→ Sock puppets, badly-behaving authors, and trolls.
→ More focus on useful content (reviews, bookish musings, bookish community coverage) less focus on flashy stuff (swag, giveaways, cover reveals, book trailers, memes).
→ a flash mob via the internet!
→ More international giveaways!
→ I like to see more of things you like to do other than read. I like to know if you have TV shows you keep up with, movies you watched, or video games, including iPhone ones, you play. Anime and manga, don’t forget those two.
→ More commenting on posts. I try really hard to respond to each person that comments on my blog. I feel like bigger bloggers don’t respond to comments as much so what’s the use of commenting.
→ Meg. More Meg. All the Meg.
→ Less bitching, less drama, less complaining about people who don’t deserve it (in public, i.e. on Twitter), more rainbow cookies and more getting along. Does that count?
→ Less spoilers
→ I really don’t care about IMM memes. I think they are silly because I don’t really care what you got in your mailbox for free from publishers. So many blogs do them and I think they are just kind of obnoxious. But, I generally do love other memes like Top Ten Tuesday. It is nice way to highlight books other than reviews.
→ For me, the best part of being in this community, is the community. I see bloggers sticking together, promoting each other, and offering other kinds of support (moral, encouragement) daily. It is truly wonderful.
→ group reviews and such–they’re awesome to read + vlogs, because it feels like a more one-on-one conversation since I usually talk back to them; not weird at all *shakes head*
→ More discussions/tips, less reviews/memes.
→ I love it when bloggers are friendly! I always love seeing more interaction between bloggers and their readers in the comments. Sometimes it’s hard, as a newbie, to break into the blogging world if the big blogs kind of ignore you. 😉
Conclusion of Part 2
For the most part, the changes we hope to implement will work well for both of our reader groups. But here are a few other things we’d like to do more of:
- “Getting to Know Us” posts
- More Meg
- Fix HNT
- Donate more to Little Blogger, Big Ambitions
- Visit more blogs and interact
- Don’t forget to be awesome
Thank you to everyone who took our survey! We care about our readers, and while we always blog how we like, we always appreciate your feedback as well. We’re hoping with this information we can come up with fresh new content that you’ll all love!
Feel free to comment on anything anonymously in the comments. You don’t have to fill in the “name” or “email” boxes.
Bieke @ Istyria book blog
I like how this survey is also very helpful for me and my blog! I learned a lot about what readers want from this entire survey so thanks for making it! 🙂
Expy
Font is perfect.
“is it the fact that it’s just a cover reveal and therefore not interesting or is it the manner in which it’s presented that turns you off?”
It’s the former for me.
Michelle
I was lazy and didn’t complete the survey, but I’d agree with the majority of the comments. It’s nice to see that there’s basically consensus on so much. I have stopped participating in blog tours a lot and I haven’t done any IMM or StS for a long time because I felt like it was perpetuating the collecting of books vs. the reading of them. Thank you guys so much for posting your results. You have the type of readership that can give a large number of responses that can really offer insight.
Anya
Yey, these posts have been so interesting to read! Random question: what do you use to make the pretty pie charts????? *keeps scrolling over them to make them light up*
Steph Sinclair
I use a plugin called WordPress Visualizer.
Polenth
Cover reveals don’t tend to interest me because it’s rare for a cover to be that amazing in itself. What I do like is reveals that have behind-the-scenes stuff, like in-progress versions, pictures of the photoshoot or other things of that nature. That might just be the artist in me speaking though. I don’t know if there’s general interest for that.
Iola
I like that idea!
I’ve got a cover reveal going live on my blog tomorrow, and even I wonder why people do them.
Christina (A Reader of Fictions)
Well, FIRST, I want to address some of the comments from that last question.
1) On reading genres you don’t typically like: Readers have the right to pick up whatever book they want from whatever genre. I don’t personally understand when people torture themselves by exclusively reading books they know they probably won’t like, but this is something they can do if they want to. Similarly, bloggers have the right to choose which to blog about.
What worries me about this comment is that it suggests we shouldn’t try to broaden our horizons. I, for example, am not a big reader of mysteries. They tend to be very plot-focused, rather than character-centric, so they generally don’t work for me. Still, I try them sometimes, because tastes change and some mysteries ARE more character-focused. There’s nothing wrong with testing the waters on something you don’t typically like. For another example, I used to hate contemporaries, but I tried them again a couple of years ago, and now its one of my top genres. I used to love dystopian novels, but now I dislike most of them. Tastes CHANGE, and you can’t know that if you don’t step outside of your comfort zone occasionally.
That said, plenty of bloggers don’t step outside of their favorite genre or at least review outside of it (again, this is totally their right to do). If you don’t like when people read outside of their main genre, hunt down blogs that do this. I know of historical fiction-exclusive blogs, romance blogs, fantasy blogs, etc. Search those out, because this will never be an issue. Or just skip the reviews that are outside of your favorite reviewer’s typical genre.
2) On Advance Reviews: Early ARC reviews do serve a lot of purpose. By Cuddlebuggery or some other blog posting early, I might be more likely to review the book closer to pub date, as would other bloggers. A good advance review can result in MORE reviews close to pub date, so if you’re following more than just the one, then you would be reminded most likely.
Again, there are plenty of blogs that only do books that already published. There’s a large subset of librarian bloggers who post with thoughts turned specifically to a librarian audience which would accommodate these issues.
3) On basically everything: There are very few and possibly no blogs where I like every post. I just skip the ones that don’t pertain to me. For example, on Cuddlebuggery, I’ll admit I was one of the people who said no to Hot New Titles. I’m personally bored by posts like those because so many blogs have posts that do the same thing. But I don’t spend a lot of time being annoyed by it, because I just delete it from my reader every week.
I should probably stop now. Oh wait, except I agree with Polenth. I do love cover reveals that show the evolution of the cover, but I also love yours with the fake covers, so I’m not ordinary apparently. :-p
Love you guys. Do what you do. Keep being awesome. (Like you can help it.)
Michelle (Pink Polka Dot Book Blog)
I am with you on your #1. I can read whatever genre I want and I can say I don’t like it and I can also say I don’t like it because I don’t normally like the genre. That is my book blogging right 🙂 And I didn’t appreciate where they said that if you don’t “get” the book, you’re probably stupid??? RUDE!!
Eileen @ Singing and Reading in the Rain
YAAAAS more Meg!! Her reviews are ace and I leave the stupidest comments on them whenever I get the chance to read them, but I still love it! I actually think it’s so cool how many people follow so many blogs. I don’t know if they meant “actively follow” or just follow in general, but it’s still cool how so many bloggers support others 🙂 I loved getting to see the second part of the results! 😀
Roro
I love statistics but dislike math . Go figure !
Cathy Keaton
I think you’re an awesome blog just for caring about what your followers think enough to do a detailed survey!
Natalie Crown
All the love for Meg is amazing.
Fascinating to read the comments!
Cait @ Notebook Sisters
Wooooow, don’t we love it when we can speak our minds anonymously?!! This is awesome!! Thanks for giving us all this survey and the results too. SO interesting.
Lynn M
This will probably put me in a minority, but if I could have any change at all that I wanted in this blog (and ALL other blogs, for that matter) it would be a complete ban on all GIFs. I loathe GIFs! I will actively close a blog post if I’m beaten over the head with flashing, moving images that only serve to distract me from the writing. I know that bloggers think that the GIF captures an emotion or attitude that emphasizes or highlights what they are trying to express, but they never communicate the same feeling or sentiment to the reader that the blogger felt when making or choosing the GIF. The worst are blog posts with GIF between every paragraph. For the love of all things holy, I hope that this fad ends soon.
Shannelle C.
Stupid Internet, I have a feeling there are charts but they’re just not showing up on mine. *glaring*
And HNT is a big problem for me too! Mobile just makes it so narrow, and that sucks, but I don’t really read it at all. >///< Sorry! I'm sure you guys put tons of effort on that, but I don't need to hear about more books because I don't need more books to look at all.
And getting to know us posts, I wholeheartedly support this. And hopefully not just you, Kat, and Meg (the duo is slowly but surely becoming a trio) but Paul and the others too. I want to see how Paul interacts with the two of you, haha. I could picture him as some stern father getting mad at the three of you, strangely.
Pssst. I wholeheartedly support the fifth change you plan to implement, which is visiting more blogs and interacting more. Would now be a good time to wink a lot and gesture a lot too?
April Books & Wine
Huh, a lot of people really seem to hate mailbox/haul type posts. Personally, I love them, like, I like knowing what’s out there and what people are excited about and buying and reviewing. Yeah.
Also, I am going to agree with Christina, I think tastes change and broadening your horizons is a good thing.
Angie @Angela's Anxious Life
I just want to say… I love your pie charts! I love that I click on the color and that part of the pie pops out. FAB!
Brianna (The Book Vixen)
Very interesting information. Thanks for sharing!
Jeann @ Happy Indulgence
Super fascinating post, thanks for the results guys! This definitely helps the entire book blogging community because some of the more general results are applicable to all. I found it interesting how there’s quite a few comments on the bitchiness, cliqueness and snobbery of the blogging community, luckily I haven’t encountered that myself.
Thank you for your amazing blog and posting these results, you guys are awesome!
Stacking the Shelves #24 – Dreams of Gods & Monsters | Happy Indulgence
[…] saving it up for something good, and luckily the wait filled out the haul quite nicely. I read on Cuddlebuggery that people generally would like to hear more about the blogger’s lives, so here […]
Kelly
Is it the fact that it’s just a cover reveal and therefore not interesting or is it the manner in which it’s presented that turns you off?
I just don’t find them interesting enough to garner an entire post. I think they’re better served for social media sites, like Facebook or Twitter even. This is especially true when I open my reader and see half the blogs I follow all posting about a cover reveal, for the same book.
Weekly Recap| Mar 23-29, 2014 | Oh, the Books!
[…] 2 of the Cuddlebuggery Survey Results is […]
Up Close and (un)Conventional #1 - (un)Conventional Bookviews
[…] admit up front that I got the idea for Up Close and (un)Conventional from Cuddlebuggery! They did a huge survey on their blog, about what bloggers and non-bloggers alike enjoy the most […]
Lexxie @ (un)Conventional Bookviews
Thank you for sharing the results of the survey with all of us! I have just shared my first post that is a little more personal and a little less about blogging… with a link back to your survey, of course, since I got the idea from you guys.
I really like the idea of talking about other things than books and blogging, without it being a discussion post, so thank you!
It always astounds me that so many bloggers don’t want to read reviews… I love reviews, myself, both reading others’ reviews, and writing my own.
Katie @ The Book Sphere
I really appreciated you guys sharing this information with us. I’m constantly looking for ways to improve my blog and content and the information you provided was really helpful.
I’m also completely turned off by cover reveal posts. I don’t find them that interesting, nor do I think their worth a whole post on their own.
I don’t often read reviews unless I have read the book already and/or it’s a book I’ve been interested in reading.
I have mixed feelings about the IMM/Stacking the Shelves posts. I love to see what books people are adding to their TBRs as well as books they are interested in reading (and could have reviews coming up for). But on the other hand, there are a few that have the braggy-feel (yup, I just made that up 🙂 ) to them that rubs me the wrong way.
Thanks again for sharing this information!
Bloggin' Recap: March 23rd-29th | The Day Dreamer and Candy EaterThe Day Dreamer and Candy Eater
[…] Steph reveals Cuddlebuggery Survey Results: Part 2 […]
Lina G
Oh, thank you for your thoroughness in analizing both demographical data! Very interesting responses 🙂 I love the subtle differences in content and behaviour..
On a side note, I’m the one who suggested Spanish content, but because I’m lazy and still trying to figure out how to do it on my own 😛