Book Blogger Appreciation Week--How Do You Do Community?

Today's discussion topic over at BBAW is community--how do you find your place in the overwhelmingly large (and getting larger) world of book blogging?

The number of book blogs that have joined technorati is now up to 15, 216. That's about 6000 more than it was around a year and a half ago....Happily, within this seething morass of book blogging, it's possible to find a community. I blogged on Monday about the marvellous Kidlitosphere, my main community.

But even the Kidlitosphere is pretty darn big. Fortunately, there are niches. There's the Poetry niche, that comes to life on Poetry Friday, when bloggers share poems, or books of poetry. I know that the regular participants have become close as a direct result! There's Non-Fiction Monday, for those that tilt non-fiction-ward, and monthly carnivals--these too foster a sense of a cozy community. And other bloggers have taken the initiative and started themed days of their own, like Shannon Whitney Messenger's Marvellous Middle Grade Monday.

I myself wanted a community of bloggers passionately interested in middle grade (for ages 9-12) science fiction and fantasy. So I started gathering together each week all the posts I could find about mg sff books and authors, and posting a weekly round-up every Sunday (94 of them so far). I'm not sure that this has resulted in a "community" -- there's not a whole lot of direct interaction -- but I do like making the scattered posts I find into a little cluster where those of us who love mg sff can find them easily! Many of the same blogs show up in my round-ups on a regular basis, as well as new ones (always exciting) and so my mental map of my part of the book blogging world becomes brighter and clearer with every round-up (and someday I'll magically find the time to leave appreciative comments on all the posts I gather ha ha).

(If anyone writes about mg sff during the week, do feel free to email me your link directly (charlotteslibrary at gmail dot com)! I have a long long list of blogs I check, but I know I miss people all the time, even when they are on my list....)