Blogger in the Spotlight - Rosie Amber ~ Author in the Spotlight

Here on Brook Cottage Books its nice to give something back to fellow bloggers. I am thrilled to have the lovely Rosie Amber guest posting on the blog today as our Blogger in the Spotlight to tell you all about her blog.

Here on my blogI focus on book reviews and helping authors spread the word about their books. I began writing reviews of book I’d read and then I offered to review books, slowly the blog built up and I invited authors to be guests on the blog and now if I like a book I’ll usually offer the author a guest piece on the day after my book review. I post my reviews on Goodreads and Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk. I’m lucky enough to also have two local magazines that I write monthly book reviews for, they both have on-line editions which is great for my featured authors who are spread across the world.

For the last two years I’ve taken part in the April A to Z Challenge and I blogged my way through the alphabet using books each time. It’s a great way to meet loads of new people from across the world and I have stayed friends with many of them.

During April 2013 I read Judith O’Reilly’s book A Year of Good Deeds and I decided to set my own challenge of doing a Good Deed a Day for a year. Often my deeds are as small as picking up litter, or writing a book review, but I was so thrilled when I managed a whole year that I have continued my challenge. I post weekly updates on a Sunday and I have encouraged others to follow in my footsteps which is really great.

In September 2013 I joined with Stephanie Hurt from USA and we ran a joint Romance book tour. Thirty authors got the chance of two posts about their book on their allotted day, stretched across the world to a wider audience. The concept worked really well and we are just finishing a second tour. Places on the tour were snapped up in a week, we had a waiting list and people are already asking us about next year’s tour which is fantastic.

My next challenge will be a Mystery book tour in November and I have almost filled all the days. After that I plan on joining the 2015 April A to Z tour and I want to run a beach reads book tour in June.

I really believe in the value of book reviews helping to sell books as we move more and more into buying books online. In June 2014 I ran a book review challenge for a week with posts giving advice on book reviews, guest book reviewers, authors and a publisher all talking about the need for more written book reviews. I had authors offer free copies of their book and challengers were invited to read the book and try writing a review. It went down so well that on the back of this I set up a book review team. This is a no pressure team who review books they choose around their busy lives. They commit to reading and reviewing a book within a reasonable time and we posts reviews to a minimum of two sites plus I get a copy of all reviews to go on my own blog. That way authors get access to several reviewers at once and can get some good feedback on their book.

I love blogging and offer a busy blog for people who love books in all sorts of genres. I’m passionate about reading and I’m always recommending books to others or passing on copies of books I’ve read. Plus I’m happy to get other people who love reading involved with my book review team.