Even as a seasoned career travel and book blogger with a loyal readership since 2017, I sometimes need a little writer’s block or what’s “trending” push. These are my favorite book blog post ideas to keep content fresh, re-engage your audience, and have readers coming back for more. I’ll also tell you what to no longer write about: Topics (and practices) that may be destroying your book blog. Think major Dos and Don’ts.
Thrive in the sea of endless (and sometimes toxic) online content and blogs: Be memorable and helpful. Practice *good* SEO. With unregulated generative AI and copycat bloggers trying to make a quick buck, it is even more important to build a unique book blogging brand with your own voice and blog posts, especially in 2026 and beyond. Here’s how!
✨ The number one rule (and mistake I see) before you start: don’t copy anyone else. You’ll remain stagnant with few engaged and dedicated book blog readers. Ad networks won’t accept you, and you will face Copyright challenges. ✨
P.S. I have my MLIS degree and have worked in public libraries – I know what readers want, along with how to professionally book blog as a career (The Uncorked Librarian LLC is my small business – your online publication can be one, too). 💜 Christine
Quick List Of Successful Book Blog Post Ideas
Just a few topics I’ll cover below with dos, don’ts, and unique twists that still work well today:
- Book lists (I’ll give you a large list below)
- Book club books, discussion questions, and themed guides to host that book club
- Unique author interviews and spotlights (consider a $$ membership here)
- Reading tips, tricks, spaces, and more
- Literary travel, bookstores, libraries, literary-themed places to visit
- Reading challenges
- A second niche to pair with books – Lifestyle, nails, your Etsy store, fashion, gardening, cooking (recipes are still blogging king), hobbies, travel…
- Book reviews that resonate
- Literary lifestyle topics like shopping and gift guides
Book Blog Post Topics That No Longer Work
These are old-school book blog post topics that were popular when I first started blogging that I’d leave behind today:
- Book tags – This was a big Twitter/X thing back in the day, but Elon destroyed that platform
- Random guest posts and round-ups from equally random bloggers – I used to do these; people want your voice now (we’d do these for backlinks, which is a bad SEO practice today…)
- Books for a series and author in order (this is all readily available and easily searchable unless you add some unique twist or value)
- Book cover reveals – Save it for social media
- Blog tours
Starter Post Topics (The Basics)
If you are a beginner blogger, these are a few staple, basic book blog posts that avid readers rely on day-to-day, with the biggest mistakes that I see.
📚 Book Reviews
DON’T: Review those books, but don’t be snoozy or cut and paste publisher book summaries onto your site; that’s lazy, not helpful to your audience, and search engines may punish you for duplicate content. Plus, you’ll look like an AI bot (or maybe you are one), just trying to make a quick buck off affiliate links with no value or authority. Anyone can search and view a publisher’s summary independently.
DO: Write an authentic and brief summary with a memorable opinion. Use fresh ideas: List 5 reasons why you should read a book, or 10 things you learned from the title. Go for a catchy perspective, such as “Why [Book Name] Will Inspire You.” Or, try for top three character traits, 10 best reasons to read this book, or why you would sleep with the antagonist.
Use your book review as an opportunity to create a deeper niche. Think book review and recipe pairing. Quote other hilarious book reviews you find online. Paint your nails or make earrings to match the book. You get the idea. Start building your voice, and be YOU. Maybe you only focus on classics or romance novels. What are you passionate about and want to share?
Extra Tip: Where Else To Post Book Reviews
After years of writing book reviews directly on my website, I decided to move and post all individual book reviews on Goodreads and The StoryGraph as well as in our private Reading Challenge Facebook group (Uncorked Readers). This demonstrates my authority on the topic and that I read the books discussed (this is so important for 2026 blogging), while also not having too much content to update/maintain on the website. You don’t want content decay (guilty here!).
📚 Book Lists & Round-Ups (AKA The “Listicle”)
DON’T: Book lists are my personal favorite to write and go-to book blogging topic. However, what I’ve learned over the years and am now updating… Don’t make them massive like I used to. I’m talking 5,000 to 7,000 words with 50+ books. Don’t do it!
Your blog readers will skim, and you want the best of the best to prove you are also the best person to follow. Don’t copy someone else’s list, either. It’s not only unethical and illegal (I would send you a DMCA takedown), but it will only hurt you in the long run. You want and need a loyal following based on your tastes, your voice, and YOU. Readers won’t come back if your lists are generic and like everyone else’s. They can use ChatGPT for that. They won’t even remember you or your website.
DO: Write shorter book lists – 1,000 to 3,500 words maximum – with your top 5 to 20 books. Be diverse in selections and update this yearly. People like choices and short, digestible summaries. Make your book list posts fun and authentic. Choose books that people don’t normally read. You don’t have to read every book on every list – poll your readers, too – but you should, ya know, read and write what you know. Be the expert for your audience.
Book List Ideas
Just a few book lists to consider for your book blog (I’ve left these more generic because if you found a *very specific* list online, everyone else did too; you want to spice these up for your website with your twist):
- Genres – Contemporary fiction, romantasy, cozy mysteries, thrillers, graphic novels
- Periods, eras
- Famous people recommend
- Bestsellers and bestselling lists; anything ratings; read this, not that
- What’s trending on social media (BookTok loves…)
- By an author
- Seasonal, holiday, special day
- Book club recs
- For certain age groups
- Audiobooks
- Books on sale
- Read alikes (“Books if you like”)
- Anything themed (detectives, teachers, sports, royalty, shapes, growing up, animals, colors…)
- Destinations
- Related to specific reading challenges
- Quotes
- What you are currently reading
- Most anticipated and upcoming books
- New releases
- Best of
- Reading tropes
- Banned books
- Ugly, favorite, best, worst, pink, etc. book covers
- Retellings
- Adaptations: Books to movies and TV series
- Gift guides (gifts for book lovers)
- Anything inspirational, happy, cozy, escapist, fluffy (or the opposite if you specialize in “darker” media)
- Book pairings: wine, food, tea, music, Taylor Swift
Popular Book Features For Your Website
A few more book blog post ideas that are fairly standard include author interviews, reading challenges, book club discussion guides, and reading tips.
Author Interviews
DON’T: Truth be told, for engaging book blogging ideas, I find many author interviews tedious and poorly done. You can lose me quickly here. Don’t just have author interviews to play the SEO game or because you think you have to. You don’t. Think intention and value before tackling this…
DO: Pick authors you champion and want to highlight. Write engaging and authentic questions that you’ve gathered from your audience. These interviews and authors have to fit with your website, or no one will read them. Make sure readers leave with more value, more books to read, and inspiration.
A Better Way To Do Author Interviews
Consider a book club membership with monthly book club discussions and guest authors. OR, host an in-person event like a book club at a bookstore with an author interview and signing.
Reading Challenges
DON’T: When January hits, so do the reading challenges. First, don’t copy someone else’s; that hurts everyone, including you. Second, reading challenges are ridiculously oversaturated from when I first started book blogging – so if you aren’t a long-time book blogger or aren’t offering something wildly unique or fun, you might want to skip this. Like author interviews, don’t just host one to have it.
DO: I’ve been running our Uncorked Reading Challenge since the beginning. I’ve changed formats over the years, and I poll my readers each year to see what they want to keep them coming back. The challenge is FOR THEM, after all. My Uncorked Readers help decide our format, rewards, where we share, and topics. We’ve had monthly, yearly, quarterly, and bonus challenges.
Book Club Discussion Guides
Along with your book club reading lists, create solid book club discussion guides. You might even want to sell these or offer them as a newsletter opt-in. If you pop on Etsy, you’ll see some cool book club discussion guides for new release/trending books paired with questions to discuss, snacks and drinks to serve, and decorations to buy.
Reading Tips, Tricks, And More
Help your audience accomplish their yearly reading goals. Readers never have enough time to read. Amiright?! Write book blog posts about:
- How to read more
- Reading trackers, review platforms, reading journals, and more
- Reading tips for families, children, and educators
- Great reading and bookish spaces: libraries, bookstores, home design, and decor; favorite teas, cozy blankets, lighting, and more
- Tools that you love for reading (your Kindle page turner and protective book sleeves)
- Reading lifestyle
- Book subscriptions
- Social media people to follow for book recommendations: Bookstagrammers and best Bookstagram accounts, Book Bloggers, BookTubers, BookTokers, and more
- Reading quizzes
Even More To Share On Your Book Blog To Stand Out
As noted above, it’s important to stand out in a sea of blogs and AI. Create a well-rounded book community. You can write off-topic and off-niche. Don’t let any SEO tell you otherwise (trust me, I’ve hired the best of the best over the years, spending tens of thousands of dollars). Try to incorporate more of you and your life in your blog posts, like:
Home Bookshelves
I appreciate Marie Kondo (and we’ve moved a lot over the years), so I don’t have walls upon walls of books; however, I do have a cute home office with book carts, bookshelves, LEGO builds (my geeky jam), and bookish decor.
Travel
I love sharing not only literary travel to bookstores, libraries, literary-themed hotels and restaurants/cafes, and historic & literary sites, but also just my favorite places that I know my readers will appreciate. I blog about where I live, too.
Shared Hobbies
My readers and I tend to have similar interests, so I try to share hobby posts like gardening, yoga, gaming, podcasts I enjoy, favorite movies, and more. Cats. Grape juice. You know.
Lifestyle
Like my hobbies, my readers and I discuss and share aging, fashion, working out, candles, and things like what supportive shoes to wear in your 40s…
Health
I have multiple autoimmune diseases like Graves’, TED, Ulcerative Colitis, and UC-induced arthritis. It can be inspiring and just soothing to find your people and connect about chronic illness.
Legal Resources For Monetized Book Bloggers
If you use (or have goals to use) affiliate marketing, ads, sponsorships, etc. for your book blog to make income for your hard work, I highly recommend and use these resources:
👩🏻💻 Legal Bundle (this is a must; legal pages at the bottom of your website written by a lawyer and 6-figure blogger)
👩🏻💻 Affiliate Agreement
👩🏻💻 Sponsored Posts Agreement
👩🏻💻 Freelancer Contract (I use this for my writing contributors and when people ask me to freelance for them)
👩🏻💻 LLC Operating Agreement – Once you make more than $400 a year, I highly recommend forming an LLC for your blog. This 11-page document legitimizes your business, separating your blog from personal assets like your (personal) bank account, car, and house.
Before You Go: What To Read & Do Next
Monetize your book blog posts with affiliate links. These are my favorite (and easy to use) book affiliate programs.
This is an amazing list! I will be implementing couple of these this month! Thank you so much for sharing.
Thank you so much–and thanks for letting me know. I am going to try to add a few more book blogging post ideas for 2020, too.
So glad to have found your blog – and this post, too. You validated some ideas I have for my own blog I started last year. Thanks to this post, I don’t feel I’m totally out in left field by posting both book reviews AND short stories/essays. Your site is very inspiring! I’ve followed you on Pinterest and can’t wait to keep reading more here!
Hey! Aw, thanks so much, Caryn. I am so glad that this post helped. I will look for you on Pinterest. I love pinning there. I hope you had a great weekend.
When doing a book blog do you have to write a book review on newer books that just came out within the pass year or so? Or can you write and review on older books like ones that came out in 2001 or 2010; something that’s not new and has been out for a while?
That’s such a good question! The answer really depends on what your book blogging niche is about. I write about books that are travel-related. Because of that, I try to do both new releases and older titles that readers love or may not have heard about. Some book bloggers solely discuss new releases. Others will only go back as far as 6 months. When I book review older titles, I review them more for comprehensive book lists (like books set in Iceland).
Lots and lots of inspiration here!! Thanks for sharing!
Thanks so much for the positive feedback!
Such a helpful post Christine! You seriously are awesome at teaching especially the way your very cool personality comes out in your writing. I love it!
I remember that we talked about our mutual indifference to HP.??? These who grew up reading & watching the movies are now in their twenties talking about what house their in. I will always be out of the loop with that. Oh well. I was starting college when it all started. I had no interest. At least people aren’t still talking about Lord of the Rings. At least I hope they aren’t.?
Awesome post as usual! Thanks so much! Maybe one day I will incorporate some of these ideas when I get faster at posting.??♀️
Aw, thank you so much! I really appreciate that.
I still have NO idea what house I am supposed to be in. I am not sure if I care, but I feel like I should care. Plus, we are literary bloggers so does that make us awful or awesome?!
Gahaha, Lord of the Rings died down quite a bit, IMO. Maybe…
You are doing a great job balancing work, your literary dates, and all of that ice cream! Plus, stalking the cute pups.
So, I was looking up “book tags” and would love for you to give me a simple run down of what they are? Are they just like IG and twitter hashtags? Thnx!
Hey Bri: I just saw the craziest one today; it was something like “The Apple Pie” book tag. Book tags are different than hashtags. They are blog posts that are themed where you tag a group of people to participate in fun questions. Book tags are usually loads of silliness/fun to do and are good for backlinks.
This is an example of “The Entertainer” book tag that I was tagged in via Twitter (it’s basically like a fun nomination that happens on SM or a blog): https://www.theuncorkedlibrarian.com/bookchoices/.
Damn girl, your post has me all fired up and inspired, and I’m not even a book blogger. You really outdid yourself with the overhaul on this blog post. Wow. There are so many great ideas here not just for book bloggers but for other niches, all they have to really do is swap book for travel or whatever else.
And yes, you need your own tag! I tried having one then I realize I just have no time to keep up with it. My IG account is still getting tagged with food pics.
You should start an online book club. Perhaps, I’d actually find time to read. HA. Although I did preorder Sarah’s book “Faker”. Sounds like such a great for the cruise. As you know my list is LONG all thanks to you and your amazing recommendations.
Looking forward to seeing where you take your blog as you niche down and follow your passions.
LOL! You have been so fired up and inspired lately. You are a posting machine. I think you’ve out posted me across channels this month lol, which is awesome.
I am glad that you find these topics helpful for other niches too. Ya just never know.
I rarely run into writer’s block, but I do get overwhelmed with how much I can write about and what I want to link together for SEO. Plus fixing up older posts is endless.
Your foodie hashtag was AWESOME and people were totally using it. You had such a fabulous idea! I love when people on Twitter tag me in bookish and boozy posts. Makes me feel memorable and relatable.
Thanks so much for the kind words!
So helpful! I recently just got into book bloggimg myself and I was wondering what else could I do besides reviews and this list Definitely helped me expand my horizons! I will definitely be trying out some of these!
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Hey! Thank you so much! I am glad that you found these blog post ideas helpful.
Hi Christine, thanks for the multitude of ideas! Very generous of you. I had a chuckle at your intro to blog posts that stir the pot. I only came across your blog a little while ago and I’ve been enjoying your writing voice too 🙂
Hey! Thanks so much for stopping by. I definitely find a lot more engagement on social media by ‘stirring the pot’ too.
P.S. I love your blog homepage! It is beautiful.
Hi! I just came across this post on Pinterest, and it’s amazing! I have two book related blogs right now (one for my author website where I usually post lists of books I’ve recently read, and one about an author’s journey to mental health) and have been looking for creative things to blog about more often. This list is perfect! Thank you!
Hey!
Yay! Pinterest is such a great search engine and platform to share ideas.
I am so glad that you found this list helpful. Thank you for your kind words.
I will also definitely check out your website for book suggestions–I love to see what others are reading, especially authors.
P.S. I think that I have pinned some of your content before…I know those sexy book covers ; )
My blog focuses on books and writing, so a lot of your suggestions fall under my own niche. In reality, the possibilities are endless. Even the list you gave opened up inspiration for even more ideas! So, thank you for such an insightful list 🙂
Hey Amelia! Thank you; I am so glad that you found this list helpful. Originally, I was aiming for fewer ideas, but then they just kept pouring out.
I really love a good list and this is a great one! I am glad that you love YA, too! The older I get, the more I believe that Young Adult refers to any adult that feels young enough to read that book. Any fantasy fiction that creates a whole new world is great to me regardless of the targeted demographic!
I got some ideas for my travel blog from this list as well, so thank you!
I’m so glad that this was helpful for your travel blog too! I love your posts and content.
I love YA so much! I was a teen librarian for awhile–which was a great excuse to read all of the YA that I wanted and start a teen book club.
Amazing list! I’ve been so uninspired lately but this is helpful!
Thank you! I am SO behind and exhausted (vs uninspired) lately, lol. We just got back from vacation, and just one week of not ‘businessing and blogging” is like AHHHHH!!!!!! I have to get writing. I’m sure your inspiration will return soon; I love your posts.
Great post with lots of useful tips !! I am sure to use them in future. I am 12 and just a month ago started a blog it will be great if you could visit my blog and give your feedback !
Hey Krisha! Thanks so much! Your blog is off to a good start.
One thing I definitely recommend right away is having a URL without the numbers. It looks a little spammy, even though your site is clearly not spam. Can you just use “thecozycorner”? You also really want to consider moving to self-hosting one day to get rid of the Wordpress .com in your URL. That’s seen more and more as unprofessional these days. You would just want cosycorner [dot] com. That does cost a little more money, though.
My second suggestion is to pick a tag line that tells people what value you bring to them and what your blog is about–more specifically than your current one. Book reviews and book discussions are extremely vague.
Also, if you just started, I would remove “blogging advice” unless you truly feel like you are an expert at blogging (which even after years of blogging full-time, many cannot do this either). A lot of book bloggers always seem to add that, but they aren’t experts/really don’t know what they are doing (and you can tell you are just starting based on your beginner level site); you will quickly lose the trust of your audience, which you don’t want to do. I’d focus first on the book aspect and what types of reviews you are doing/why readers would come to you. Typically, your audience is readers and not bloggers. I hope that makes sense! It’s best to pick one area and do it really really well!
Best of luck, and congrats on starting a book blog. I hope you love it as much as I do. Thanks so much for stopping by.
This is such an incredible and useful post of suggestions, Christine! Thanks so much for taking the time to put it together, book bestie!
Book bestie! Thank you! I hope this post truly helps someone with writers’ block. We’ve all been there.
I completely missed this blog post! I just noticed it on FB. Now I”m no book blogger, but there are a ton of great ideas for bloggers of other niches. Totally worth the read!
This one came out while I was in Iceland. So glad I scheduled it, but I didn’t start really promoting until now. I was just too slammed trying to see as much of Iceland as I could. My inbox was wild while I was gone, and I just let everything pile up…like blog comments. LOL. Thanks for reading as a travel blogger; I appreciate it.
Lots and lots of great tips. Thank you.
I’m happy to have found your blog 😀
Hey Jules! Thank you so much! I am looking forward to following along with yours too. So sorry for the delayed reply. We were traveling in Iceland with little wifi and time. But, I am back and loved seeing a new follower. Means the world. Thank you, again!