Doing Something: Announcing #RomBkBlog

There's a phrase from the Batman movie, The Dark Knight, where doomed Harvey Dent tells Bruce Wayne that you either die a hero or live long enough to become the villain.  In the case of romance book blogging it's more like you live long enough to become the cranky old lady who mutters about "kids these days" and "why can't it be like it used to?"

I've been blogging since 2003. Prior to that I was kicking around a few Yahoo Groups and reviewing for The Romance Reader (which existed from 1996 to 2007-ish).  Do the math.  I'm one of The Olds.  And I'm cranky.  I'll admit it.  I'm about three steps away from a housecoat, foam hair curlers and 3.5 cats.  But we all have hills we're willing to die on and apparently mine is blogging.

In 2003 there were a hardy few bloggers in Romancelandia.  2005/2006 really is when the big explosion happened and blogs were The. Thing.  It's been a slow descent since then, with a lot of bloggers completely closing up shop, either going to platforms like Twitter full time, or simply vanishing entirely.  Even the few of us who have hung on by our fingernails have curtailed our output for various and sundry reasons. (Mine is work - my career now is light years away from where I was professionally in 2003...)

But I still love the small blogging neighborhood occupying a quiet tree-lined street in Romancelandia.  However, it's hard not to get disheartened.  I feel like blogging has regressed back to the early days where you didn't know if anybody was reading.  Which was fine...back then.  But after the boom years when people actually, you know, visited your blog and left comments - to look at the dwindling site visits these days is just depressing.  As in, Why The Heck Am I Even Bothering depressing.  To make it more disheartening?  When word gets out that yet another blog is closing up shop, there's much sadness and boo-hoo'ing and hand-wringing on Twitter.  Which, hello?  The horse done left the barn - did you do anything to try and keep it in the stall?

Look, I get it.  Not everybody gives a hoot about blogging in Romancelandia.  You do you.  But the fact remains that romance bloggers are still writing interesting posts, putting real thought into what they write (well, not me but you know - other people are...), and providing thoughtful content to be consumed, digested, and savored. 

I love you Romancelandia Bloggers.  I feel like we're survivors of a shipwreck living on a tiny island and occasionally The Love Boat stops by.  Well, I want more people to visit us.  I'm thinking me writing this snotty blog post alone isn't going to do it - so I'm creating a hashtag.  I'm hoping it will increase visibility.  I'm hoping readers of our blogs will use it to highlight posts they like.  I'm hoping we'll use it when promoting our own, and others', posts.  Am I deluding myself?  Probably.  It is, after all, one of my favorite pastimes.  But I want to do something and this is what I can do.  Create a hashtag.

And so #RomBkBlog was born.  Use it. Follow it. Nurture it. Love it.  Promote blogs you like, promote interesting blog content you see. Help readers desperate for book related talk find it.