Hello, everyone and thank you for dropping in at the Virtual Book Festival today. For event number 18 it’s my pleasure to welcome book blogger Kate Noble who is going to share with us how she got into blogging about books and what it means to her.

Hello, Kate, and thank you so much for agreeing to take part in the festival. So, tell us, what got you into book blogging and how long have you been doing it?

Book blogging was something I stumbled upon one day. Having just started using Twitter after my daughter was born, I discovered a few people to follow who reviewed books that I loved and soon I was logging on daily to see if they had any new books to recommend. Friends and family would often ask me about what books I’d read recently and what I would recommend, so it seemed like an obvious step to head in the direction of book blogging as I’d had a blogging account for random ramblings before. That was almost five years ago, and I’m still here …

Anne: And it’s great that you are. You have built a first-class blog and brought many books and readers together and long may that continue.

 

How do you find/choose what to review?              

With an eclectic taste in books I find it quite fun choosing what to review. It’s no secret that I have a soft spot for indie authors and indie presses, there’s something so wonderfully unique about the books from these sources and I love being able to champion books and authors that might not appear on everyone’s radars. More often than not, it’s an eye catching cover or a blurb with that “something” special that grabs my attention and I’m hooked!
I’m also really lucky that my name is on a few publisher lists, so that means I occasionally get some books in the post or emails with book details with a review request, which is a huge honour.

Anne: I believe the honour works both ways. It’s an honour for authors and publishers to get a review from people like you who do it out of book love. And it’s great that you’re so supportive of indie writers and publishers.

 

What’s the best thing about doing a book blog?

This is a hard one, one of the nice things is the camaraderie of “meeting” fellow book lovers, who share your excitement about books being published or, for example, fantastic characters that have made you both laugh.
But it’s also really nice being able to open a world of books up to people and helping them find books they might not have previously considered. I’ve been lucky enough to have had feedback from someone who read a review on my blog, the person went on to say they’d bought the book and read it because of my review and they loved it.

Anne: I’m sure there are lots of readers who’ve bought books after reading your reviews and that’s wonderful!

 

What is your favourite type of read and do you stick mainly to reviewing that type of book?

I’m a lover of Cold War settings and things with a Baltic or Scandinavian setting too, so spy thrillers, police procedurals, noir and the likes. But I also adore historical fiction and will happily curl up with tales from Victorian and earlier periods …

However, I have to admit to being a mood reader, and a lot of my reading is influenced by the mood I am in when I pick up a book. Sometimes I just crave the atmospheric Victorian Edinburgh details or perhaps a tantalising tale of German espionage.

Anne: What a great mix of genres there. And I agree mood is an important factor when choosing what to read.

 

Apart from posting book reviews on your blog, what other types of post do you like to include?

I do feature guest posts that an author has penned or the occasional promotional post for books. But if you pop over to my blog on a Friday you will see my longstanding feature Celebrating Indie Publishing, which usually has a review of an indie book and/or an author feature where I torture lovely authors with a few questions so that readers can get to know a little more about the person behind the book. There have been occasions that an author has written something for this feature, perhaps giving an explanation about where their ideas come from or what drives them to write.

Anne: It’s a good to have a bit of variety and it’s good to let readers get a bit of an insight into authors. I doubt any author would describe being interviewed about their work by you as torture. And, as I said above, I love how you’re so supportive of indie publishers.

 

And finally, I know your blog has won awards – tell us about that

I was awarded third place in the Hidden Gem category of the 2017 Bloggers Bash Awards, and I won the Hidden Gem category of the 2018 Bloggers Bash Awards.

Anne: Well-deserved awards! And thank you so much, Kate, for taking part in the festival and for sharing your book blogging story here.

 

About Kate:

I’m an Aberdeen quine who has always enjoyed reading, I try to read as often as I can and it’s a love that I’ve passed on to my young daughter. I’m a mum, a knitter, an average baker and cook, and I’m slowly getting used to life in the countryside, but I’ll never stop excitedly pointing out tractors to my long-suffering husband!

I’m also a proofreader over at Noble Owl Proofreading, so I have a great excuse to have my nose stuck in a book.

 

You can connect with Kate online at the links below:

Blog link is: https://thequietknitterer.wordpress.com/
Twitter is: https://twitter.com/TheQuietKnitter