Who Reads Your Blog?

Something I wonder about from time to time is what other people think about having their friends and family read their blog. I know my sister reads my blog because she has one too, and I’ve let a couple of my close friends have a look at it because they were especially interested, but other than that none of my friends and family have seen my blog.

To indulge my curiosity, a long little while back I created a poll on Twitter in order to see what some of my blogger and booktuber friends thought about the matter.

Blogger/booktuber friends: do you family/irl friends read your blog/watch your videos? Would be interested to know reasons!

— Jess (@bookendsendings) January 8, 2017

As you can see, the results were split almost exactly 50-50, with Yep! winning marginally over Nope. That answered my question then – generally slightly more people let their family and friends read their blog than not. (On reflection, I think I should have included an option of ‘a select few’, as I don’t feel I fit in to either of the options I gave, but never mind.)

However, the other thing I was curious about was why. I’ve pretty much not let my friends and family see my blog, as when I started it I wanted to see if I could get views from people who I didn’t know in real life (I knew if I asked my friends to read it, they all would, as they are a kind and supportive group of people). After that, I did let a few friends see it, as they were interested in books and asked to look, but I haven’t changed matters in general even though I get a fair amount of views from people I didn’t know before starting my blog. Recently, though, I have been contemplating letting some of my friends look if they wanted to. I asked in my poll what other people’s reasons were, and this was what was said.

Amber (@MileLongBookS): “Family: they’ve always known about it and enjoy keeping up with it. I don’t really know how people hide it from them, like, do they not wonder why lots of books are suddenly arriving to the house? My friends know about it too: one of them reads my blog sometimes, the rest couldn’t care less and never read/watch my stuff ”

Lottie (@LottieFrancess): “My parents know that I do some kind of book blogging but I don’t know if they know it’s booktube?”

Grace (@_gracelatter): “I used to get upset when my parents didn’t read my posts. They always had excuses! But then when they do I blush, so…!? ”

Liv (@Livsescape): “I don’t think I want all my friends knowing about my blog but I can’t exactly pinpoint why?”

Aimee (@Geordie_Aimee): “Nope. Blogging is an outlet for me. Tbh my parents have never really been interested in what I do unless it’s in their interests…”

Maia (@andalittlemoore): “My partner and one friend does but I haven’t told anyone else about it. I like it being separate from real life!”

Steph (@eenalol): “I voted nope because the majority of my IRL folk don’t read/know about it but I know some do!”

Ashleigh (@frolic_fiction): “Family, no. Friends occasionally read my blog, but always watch my videos ”

(all formatted like that because I couldn’t work out how to make HTML not present each tweet as a reply to the original…)

Personally, I found it really interesting to see other people’s reasons – and I definitely agree with Maia that, for the moment, I think I like it being separate from real life.

What’s your opinion on this? If you run a blog, do your friends and family read it?