#Augvocacy2018: Creating Your Safe Space as A Reader (plus a giveaway!)

by KB Meniado

If you’re a bookworm that keeps on falling into the FOMO trap whenever you open your social medias, worry not. A hundred thousand others from all over the world feel the way you do, all thanks to a simple scroll-down on a #bookstagram post or a #bookishwish tweet. Book communities online today are so exciting, it’s difficult to not want to be a part of it.

It’s not always a bad thing. In fact, there are so. many. reasons why you as a reader should be social media active (see experiences of my fellow Augvocates here). Being visible helps increase awareness of the habit and promote book pickup, helps build connections and helps in the self-growth of the readers themselves. (Related: “#Augvocacy2018: Ask the Augvocates (Day 3) + book giveaway!”)

But it’s also important to create and maintain this so-called personal safe space. Because when there’s too much noise and pressure, it’s sometimes easy to just succumb to envy and forget what is essential. You read all these books because the online world says so, you request more ARCs than you can handle just to stay relevant. And before you know it, reading becomes a chore—the opposite of what it should be in your life. And then writing and sharing about books become a bore as well.

So here’s your reminder: build that safe space where you can return to the basics and just enjoy your relationship with reading without all this fuss. Because so what if you don’t update your Goodreads or maintain a book blog? Or that you don’t participate in blog tours, attend events or watch the movie adaptations? And book heavens forbid, that you have zero shelf organization?!

Guess what, as long as you still read, you’re still a reader. A bookworm, a bibliophile, a [insert your preferred bookish noun]. Don’t get all hung up on being left out or left behind—we all work at our own pace, be that in reading challenges or in life. Read and learn and read and learn first, so you’ll have more than enough good stories to share to the world. And when that time comes, that’s the beginning of you helping build a world of readers, too. 

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GIVEAWAY!

Win a copy of The Land of Forgotten Girls by Erin Entrada Kelly! Open until September 1, 2018. One FILIPINO winner and one INTERNATIONAL winner (provided that Book Depository ships to their country) will be chosen.

☁️

This post is for #Augvocacy2018, a personal reading advocacy project by Shealea Iral of That Bookshelf Bitch.