Book Blogging Glossary

Hi guys!

I have been planning on writing this for ages because I’ve been trying collate loads of these words for my glossary. I originally had this in physical form in the back of a notebook when I first started book blogging because OMG there are so many terms and when you first start it’s pretty overwhelming! And after I did my Top Tips for New Bloggers post last month (which you guys seemed to love! Thank you so much btw <3) I realised that it would probably be super helpful to put my notes on the internet to help anyone who was just as confused as me when I started. I’ll keep it updated if I come across any other terms I want to remember.
I’ve split them into different categories to try and make it less of a ramble and a bit more organised so I hope you enjoy and that it’s helpful!

Basics:

ARC – Advanced Reader Copy. (Sometimes called a proof) It’s a copy of the book that’s sent to bloggers to review before the book is actually released.
DNF – Did Not Finish.
WIP – Work In Progress. A book that an author is currently working on.
TBR – To Be Read. Any book that you want to read at some point. Sometimes referred to as a TBR shelf (from Goodreads) or as a monthly TBR (the books you want to read that month)
MC – Main Character
POV – Point Of View.
TSTL – Too Stupid To Live. When a character keeps making stupid decisions and you can’t believe their still alive.
Reading Slump – When you aren’t in the mood to read, your stuck in a slump. Normally follows an incredible book because you’re not ready to move on from it yet haha.
Info-Dump – When the author gives you lots of background information all at once via narration or dialogue.
Goodreads – Where you can save books, post reviews, find new books to read, get recommendations etc.
Netgalley – A place where you can get ARC’s

Genre Abbreviations:

YA – Young Adult Fiction, any book where the characters are between 12-18 (usually targeted to that age group also but most of it’s readers are older – Like me 🙂 )
NA – New Adult Fiction, any book where the characters are between 18-30 but it’s normally set at uni or college. (Again it’s usually targeted for the same age group)
MG – Middle Grade Fiction, any book for 8-12 year olds – aka middle grade age.

Relationship Terms:

This does venture outwith the blogging community but I still thought they were important to list just in case.

HEA – Happily Ever After
OTP – One True Pairing, your favoruite couple ever.
NOTP – It’s just the opposite of an OTP. You never want this couple to get together, these go really well for love triangles.
BROTP/Bromance – a pair of friends (guys) that you love. The girl version is a Sismance.
Shipping –  If you want a couple to be together, then you ship them. Originated from Relationship.
Book Boyfriend/Girlfriend – The book character you would want to date IRL (in real life)
Insta-love – When characters fall in love after only one meeting. It’s way too common!
Insta-lust – When characters have an instant attraction to each other, this is much more believable than Insta-love.

Post Terms:

Blog Tour: A blog tour is a virtual tour, by an author, around a number of blogs usually to garner press before it’s release. Usually it runs for a fortnight or so. Blog tours often include a giveaway. Different stops on the tour will have different kinds of posts. These might include:

• Spotlight – It just gives the important information about the book such as cover, description, release date, author info, buy links, etc.
• Interview – An interview with the author. These are super fun because you normally get to write the questions you ask.
• Guest Post – The author writes a short guest post about a topic relevant to the book.
• Excerpt – All the same info as a spotlight but you get an excerpt of the book to include.
• Review – Same as a normal review, only you’ve normally been gifted a copy in exchange for the honest review.

Cover Reveal – An organized reveal of the cover for an upcoming book where the cover is revealed for the first time. I’ve seen some on Instagram too though!
Book Blitz – This type of tour typically includes a giveaway and the same info as a spotlight.
Top Post of the Day – If a tour company says that the tour post needs to be your top post of the day, that means that it should be the last thing you post that day so that it’s the top of your page. If I do a post that’s through a tour company I never post more than once that day to ensure it’s the top post.
Tag: A post where you answer fun questions and then tag other bloggers to do the same thing.
Award: Similar to a tag in which you are nominated, and then answer questions you have been asked, before nominating others and giving them a different set of questions to answer. Unlike a tag, you cannot just do it for fun – you have to be nominated for the award to participate.
Bookish Meme: An post that is spread from blog to blog via the comment section or by doing a post on it yourself covering a variety of topics (Believe me there are 1010 different bookish memes to pick from that all discuss different things. They are all very fun) HERE is a list of some of the most popular, along with a far better description of a bookish meme than the one I just provided haha.

Technical Things I Still Don’t Understand:

I see all of these so frequently in the community and I don’t understand them, and I think they are for people who treat their blog like a business rather than a fun and personal space to share thoughts etc. But I’m going to put them in here anyway.

SEO – I know it means Search Engine Optimization. And I think it has something to do which how frequently your blog appears in searches? If I’m wrong please correct me.
DA – This means Domain Authority. And I know it’s tied into your domain name and your SEO. I know a score of 25 is good but that’s about it.
Media Kit – Basically a CV for your blog, but I get the impression this is more for companies and less for fun blogs.

Other:

Blogosphere – The blogging community.
Bookstagram – Like a book blog but on Instagram.
BookTube – A book blog on Youtube
Blogoversary – The anniversary of your blog.
Shelfie – A photo of your bookshelf. A combination of Selfie and Shelf.
Book Spine Poetry – Where you make a peice of poetry from the spines of your book. I’ve done this a few times.

I hope this helped some of you! I’m sure there are some obvious ones missing that I need to go back and add in but I hope this will do for now. If you have any others pop them below and I’ll add them in. Anyway, have a great weekend and see you on Monday.