This is such a weird post for me to write. I’m not finding it difficult or challenging, per se, I am more in disbelief that the day has finally come. You may know that I’ve been blogging for almost 12 years now. I started off on Blogger after discovering that book blogs were a thing, and a few years later I migrated my blog over to WordPress because that seemed like the more elegant option.
I had the same theme for years (designed and created by my wonderful friend Judith @ Paper Riot, who is sadly no longer blogging), and I didn’t really mix things up. I continued to post wrap ups, reviews, and memes. Everything slowly started to feel more and more stagnant. I tried to introduce a few new things to my blog, but to be honest I lost a lot of the passion that I once had for it, partly because a lot of my blogging friends had stopped blogging by 2015.
I went on a long blogging break at the beginning of 2016 (I somehow got a social life), and while I kept trying to make a return over the years, nothing really stuck. This year – 2022 – is the most consistent I’ve been in quite a while.
I love blogging, and I love the book community. I really do. But I somehow lost my spark, and when my blog started to deteriorite after theme changes and host moves, I wasn’t particularly motivated to fix it. I tried a few times, yes, but without the motivation I found myself becoming more and more frustrated with the site I’d been curating since 2010.
So what did I do? I started a new blog!
BOOK TREK
I’ve decided to completely revamp my brand (if this is even a brand, which I’m not sure it is) and combine my love of reading with my passion for travel. Words cannot express how excited I am for this new adventure, and I really hope that you all want to join me.
I’ve been trying to incorporate travel posts into Books of Amber for a while, but it never really felt right. Books of Amber wasn’t meant to be a travel blog, and that made me sad. So I created a whole new blog, with a whole new purpose.
On Book Trek I’m planning on balancing my time between travel posts and bookish posts. There may well be some lifestyle content thrown in there for fun too, but I’m sure books and travel will be enough to keep me busy to start with.
I’m still tweaking things over there and until I find the perfect layout I’m sure the aesthetics will change a lot over the next few months or so. I’m also still trying to figure out the best schedule that works for me, and I’m dipping my toes into the travel community – which is SO different to the book community, but also similar in some ways. It’s a big change, but I’m finally very much enjoying myself when it comes to blogging again.
And that is all for Books of Amber! I’ll be leaving my site up for the foreseeable, but it will no longer be updated. In the meantime, please come and visit me on Book Trek and give me a follow. I’d love to see some familiar faces over there!