Today I’m thrilled to share my first interview. Meet Emma, the blogger behind Words and Peace. I first “met” Emma when she served as a cheerleader for Armchair BEA. A few months later we connected again via France Book Tours. Recently we discovered that not only do we live fairly close to one another, we actually work(ed) at the same library! How cool is that?! So of course we had to get together for coffee to talk about books and blogging. We thought it would be fun to interview each other for our blogs.

Be sure to visit Emma’s links below and you can check out my answers to our interview questions at Words and Peace HERE.

Emma

1. How long have you been blogging and how did you get into blogging?
   Thanks Chris, it is so much fun to interview each other on our mutual blog!
   I actually just celebrated my 3^rd blogiversary on September 29!
   Those who know me have noticed that I can’t refrain from talking about what I read. When I discovered there was a species called book bloggers, who keep raving about the books they love, I knew had to join! The first book blog I discovered, I believe, was Devourer of Books
2. How did you come up with your blog name?
   I enjoy words and nouns, and great literature. And words bring me peace, so suddenly one day, in the shower as I recall, this name came to me!
3. How has your writing style or how you write posts changed over the years?
   I think, and hope!, my reviews have improved these past 3 years. I used to begin with the synopsis and opinions of others. I was not mentioning anything about the author nor the narrator at the beginning.
   Then I tried to think what made me enjoy others’ reviews. Since then, my style has evolved. I now start with what I think about the book, then the synopsis, something about the author, including his/her picture, and occasionally links to other reviews – this used to be much easier to find through Google Reader. I can no longer do that type of search through Bloglovin.
   Also, great audiobook reviewers have taught me to mention the narrator and to express my opinion on the narration, apart from the content of the book itself.
   My future goal is to make my reviews even more personal, trying to include what this book taught me, a bit like what Nina Sankovitch did during her “year of magical reading.” See her Tolstoy And The Purple Chair.
   As I read lot of books connected with France, I also plan to insert extra lines in French, to have a bit of bilingual data, not necessary saying the same thing in both languages.
4. What do you most enjoy about blogging? What do you least enjoy?
   What I enjoy most is when I share about a book so good I  think the whole world should read it. See for instance this sort of unknown gem I just discovered, the best nonfiction book I have read so far this year!
   What I enjoy least is not having enough time to keep up on a regular basis with all the reviews I need to write!
   Starting in November, I will be posting every Sunday on Billy’s blog, Ramblings of a Coffee Addicted Writer. This is a new experience for me, to encourage myself to write more regularly!
   So sounds like I have just expressed both the blessing and the curse of every book blogger, lol!
5. How do you schedule posts and manage your blogging time?
   Well, lots of the scheduling is imposed on me by all the virtual book tours or similar events I take part in.
   So I have this Google spreadsheet where I keep track of when I need to post what, and until when I have access to the free egalley, for instance – already 3 dates in for next year, with 3 fabulous historical novels!
   On top of that, I try – TRY!!- to schedule reviews related to France on Thursdays, since I launched a I Love France meme.
   I need to be more organized in giving myself time regularly for review writing. My professional life is just changing, so I hope that I can do something about that with my new schedule there.
6. What memes, events, or reading challenges do you participate in? Do you host any yourself?
   I just mentioned my own meme. This year, I have also launched a reading challenge, entitled Books On France Reading Challenge. 33 readers have joined, and so far 101 reviews have been listed. Not bad for the first year.
   I used also to post a “good books for your week-end” list on Fridays, to share the latest additions to my Goodreads TBR. I have not done it for a while, but plan to revive it soon.
   Otherwise, this year 2013, I take part in 12 readings challenges, believe it or not, it’s way less than the previous years! I know I will nee 2014 to finish one of them, but the others are doing well.
   I have recently posted several WWW Wednesdays, and will definitely do more, and possibly more memes.
   I have participated in Armchair BEA, BBAW, Bloggiesta, Book Bloggers hops and read-alongs.
7. How hooked are you on your blogs statistics and why?
   Yeah, I confess, I’m quite hooked, though my book blog readership statistics are not that high and so not much to be hooked on!! Why? I’m hyper competitive in all I do…
   Otherwise, I enjoy doing statistics at the end of each month and each year; it’s fun to see the trends in my readings. It is also a great way of recapitulating what has happened on the reading front.
8. What have you learned about yourself through blogging?
   Hmm, very good question. Maybe I have discovered my passion for reading is more addictive than I ever knew it was!
   It has also revealed my need of a community, and the book blogging one is just awesome!
   It has shown me as well that I am more and more comfortable in writing in my second language; readers are so very nice, no one has ever complained of my mistakes with the English language!!
9. What types of books do you like to read and review the most?
   I like reading and reviewing about everything and anything, apart from horror. I have definitely read more graphic novels and above all historical novels since I began book blogging.
10. How has your reading changed or evolved due to blogging?
    My current statistics show a large increase in historical novels. I love history and follow great historical fiction book blogs. I have a hard time refusing the many HF propositions sent by some virtual book tours!, hence my increased reading in that genre.
    If we talk book formats, I have been reading more and more ebooks, this being mostly due to publishers who tend more to send egalleys than ARCs these days.
11. How did you come up with the idea for France Book Tours?
    Book blogging has allowed me to rediscover the cultural wealth of my country of origin.
    Through my meme and my own reading challenge on France, I have been more attentive to the presence of France or French writers in lists of forthcoming releases. I was gradually amazed at the number of books published every month having some type of connection with France.
    This combined with the quite romantic passion of American people with everything Parisian or French, and the idea of France Book Tours was born, that is, organizing virtual book tours not focused on a specific genre, as they are sometimes, but on this special niche: France!
    So I feature there any book with a plot set in France, or about a French theme, or written originally in French. Many genres have already been represented since France Book Tours was born at the end of April:  literary fiction, historical fiction, romance, mystery, thriller, nonfiction, travel, memoir, biography, etc!

    If YOU are interested in reading that type of books for free and posting your review on your own book blog at a specific date, please come along to join our growing team of reviewers, 60+ so far, and fill in the questionnaire you can find here: http://francebooktours.com/be-a-tour-host/

Read my book blog: http://wordsandpeace.com
and http://francebooktours.com