Welcome to Bookish Blatherings, a Bad Bird Reads feature where I ramble about bookish or bloggerish things and hopefully you will join in on the discussion.
I am at a point in my life where I don’t know where I am going to end up. A lot of things are uncertain. Especially in the job department. By summer, my path can go many ways. I have a passion and interest in a lot of things, A LOT of things. I have degrees, certificates, and experience in a lot of stuff as well (since I can’t seem to stick with one career choice). But I don’t know if my final career will be in one of the areas I enjoy, which is a depressing thought, but realistic. But through all this uncertainty, I have had one constant. One job, dream job actually, that would satisfy me to no end. No doubt in my mind that if I was offered this job, I would do it for the next 60 years and enjoy every fucking minute of it. How can I know this? Because any time I have time off from work, school, and so on, I am doing this thing. I am obsessed with this thing. I think about doing this thing all day. What is it?
I would die a happy woman if I could have a career as a book reviewer. Not just any book review job. I want to be able to read the books I want to read and review them (with no outside influence, being 100% honest like am now, doing it for free), and not what other people tell me to read. Now, this doesn’t mean I want to be paid to review books per se. I would read and review books no matter what. But if I could wake up, read and review books until I pass out at night, and make enough money to live off of just doing that, I would be head over heals excited with my job every day.
I feel like all the possible jobs I go for now are great choices, but in the back of my head I know book reviewing is my ultimate dream job. Realistically, this job doesn’t really exist. Book reviewers who get paid usually either don’t get to read what they want, they get paid to write down not so honest opinions because it’s more about book promotion, or they don’t make enough money to live off of. No offense to paid book reviewers though, this is just my opinion based on my knowledge to date.
This all got me thinking about other book bloggers. Do you girls feel the same way?
Is reading and reviewing your ideal books your dream job or does your passions lie elsewhere?
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Renee (@Addictofromance)
That would be such a great job to have!! Loved your thoughts on this.
Jennifer Bielman
Thanks. I wish it existed.
anna (herding cats & burning soup)
LOL yeah I make some money via the blog but not enough to actually live on. Ahh that would be lovely!
My dream job would be owning a used bookstore where I could read between customers, pet all the pretty books, talk books and….well you get the drift. lol
Jennifer Bielman
Yeah, I make very little but enough to get some books every so often. But can you imagine making like 60,000 for this job? Would be awesome. But a bookstore job would be amazing too!
Red Iza
I’ll kill anyone who gets that job before me !!!! Kidding 😉 Maybe !
But really, if I could do that, I’d die a happy woman. Actually, I’m a librarian, I have to study and review books for my job – to tell other librarians if it’s ok to buy them for their libraries, but there are lots of books in there I haven’t chosen to review, believe me, lol !
Jennifer Bielman
Being a librarian seems like a close second in amazing jobs for us book bloggers.
chucklesthescot
My problem was that I never knew what I wanted to do as a career so I just drifted along from job to job and never really got anywhere!
I enjoy book promotion so I think I’d enjoy the job running an Indie publishing agency. I would read the submissions and accept the ones I liked then do everything I could to get them selling! That would be good!
Jennifer Bielman
I feel like I am drifting right now. I love book promotion too. I would love to run a book blog tour site.
benish
Book reviewer sounds pretty fascinating, I wouldn’t mind being paid to do reviews. I’ve always wanted more to work on the publishing side of books, reading manuscripts and editing xD
Jennifer Bielman
I love reading manuscripts! I am in a critique group and love it.
Ashley
I adore this post, Jennifer. The struggle you described here is totally real. You want to make something your life, but there isn’t really a market/industry for it, so it probably won’t happen, but you really WANT it to happen, and anything else will feel like settling.
And settling sucks.
At this point, I honestly don’t know if I’d want to be a book reviewer for a job. But I feel like I kind of want the web design/dev version of what you want. You want to review books, but not be told what to review, and just somehow make money from reading and reviewing what YOU want.
I want to create themes and plugins and other products (maybe ebooks are in my future too). But I don’t want to be told what to create. I want to create the products that *I* want, and magically make money off of that.
I realized that custom work was kind of burning me out. It’s hard and stressful to create something for someone else. Right now my dream job is to create pre-made plugins/themes/whatever that *I* want to make, and sell them, and make a living doing what I want that way.
I guess I’m very lucky in that I’m already doing a great job of that, but there are two big things worrying me:
1. What if the book blogging community disappears? That’s basically where I get all my income right now. Nothing lasts forever, especially not in the internet world. Things are constantly changing. What if my market just disappears?
2. I’m making decent money, but there’s still SO much further I need to go if I want to move forward with my life. You know, actually buy a house or something. That seems like such a pipe dream right now.
Jennifer Bielman
I think if you stuck with premades, themes, plugins, you would do fine. Don’t do custom if it doesn’t make you happy any more. But I agree, you need to branch out. I don’t think book blogging will ever go away, but it could definitely go down at certain times. I think branching out to authors is a VERY smart idea. That market will NEVER go away. Then just keep branching out slowly as a backup.
Lekeisha
That would sooo rock! I’d love to be able to do that and retire happily ever after. Growing up, I wanted to be a math teacher (algebra, geometry, trig) or an author. Reading and numbers were my thing back then but now I just want to read all day and not have to get up and go to work (at a job that I don’t particularly like). It pays the bills but that’s the only thing that keeps me there.
Jennifer Bielman
RIGHT? I hate having to do anything else besides reading. I tried the author thing, and I like it, but not in love with it.
andrea heltsley
I’m doing my dream job! I review books, blog, as well as writing books! Becoming an author was one of my life goals and I’m thankful I get to do it as a career. It’s something I can be proud of and passionate about <3
Jennifer Bielman
That’s amazing. I write too but it never really became my passion.
kindlemom1
That really would be a dream job and one I would happily do each and every day, seven days a week even!
Jennifer Bielman
🙂 Happy you are on my side. hehe
Hilary Cook
You know, I would love to do something like that too. Unfortunately my time is so booked up I rarely have time to read anymore. I also enjoy stitching and know people who get paid to stitch other people’s projects. Imagine! Anyway, I can agree with you completely and I think it is sad that people who are in that field have to fit in a certain mould and are unable to be free with their opinions/reviews. However, in today’s world, everyone is so easily offended, I can see why they do.
Jennifer Bielman
Have you tried etsy for stitching projects? You could make some side money.
Hilary Cook
To be honest, no. I stitch to relax, kind of like reading. My life is too busy to be rushed like that. lol
Jennifer Bielman
Yeah, I can see what your saying.
Braine
The good news is, with all your education an enthusiasm, you just might end up creating this job and making it lucrative not just for you but for the rest of us.
Jennifer Bielman
hehe, thanks girl!
Christy
I want to get paid for just reading. Screw the reviews. lol.
Jennifer Bielman
Bwahahaha!
Angel
This is such a relatable post. I am going to be in my 3rd year of college this coming June and I don’t want the course I’m studying. My dream is to work in a publishing company but I don’t think there are colleges/universities in my country that are offering such program. Maybe I’m just going to grad school. I just want to do what I love for the rest of my life and not consider it as a an actual job, you know?
Jennifer Bielman
I know. You should love to go to work everyday. It should be your second home.
Jaclyn Canada
I’m with you that I think I’d be perfectly happy being a book review blogger for life. My only concern would be getting tired of it. Since I love reading so much, I’d be afraid that I’d lose my passion for it if it was something I had to do. Weird, right? But also, how would you set your hour? Would you always be working? I feel like it may be hard to ‘turn off’ and do everything else.
Jennifer Bielman
It would be really hard to turn off but it would be worth it to figure it out.
Olivia
Book reviewing would be a great job for me, as long as I have time to keep up with my other hobby which is just as equivalent to blogging – and that would be writing. I think my love for reading and reviewing go hand in hand. So my dream job would be a famous enough author to make money and live that way, with a blog like the one I currently have to be a hobby which my fans or whatever can enjoy for free 🙂 But yes, if I could get paid for what I am doing at the moment that would be WONDERFUL. I would be a happy woman 🙂 I hope you do find a job out there that you love. There are plenty of wonderful opportunities out there for you that can be involved with books too 🙂
Jennifer Bielman
I love writing too, but I can’t do it every day. I sometimes need break to decompress and get creative.