December 2025 marks eight years of Laura’s Books and Blogs, and this past year was a fun and successful ride. The books were some of the best I’ve read yet, the author interviews were interesting and insightful, and hopefully I created some posts in between that entertained and educated my readers.
Every year, I look back on the past 12 months to review my ups and downs and recap the year on my blog. This year was another record breaker in terms of views. Some classic posts helped lead the way in views while bringing traffic to the newer content, including the authors and books that I wanted to promote.
Below is my recap of Laura’s Books and Blogs in 2025. All links will open in a new tab.
Technology
Right after I started my blog, while researching what it takes to make a blog successful, I read a lot of posts about how blogging was a dying art and was on its way out. Vlogging was the new trend as the Internet was becoming all about the audio and visuals and not so much about the print.
That was discouraging to say the least. And even though there was a lot of truth to it, I also knew it was just one school of thought in terms of how to put your content out there, especially if you were just looking into doing it as a hobby or a side gig.
A lot of the sites that I used to write for or supported as a fellow blogger are now gone. I don’t attribute this to anything other than they ran their course or the authors of them decided to pursue other projects. I know that I often get the urge to set the blog aside while I go back to fiction writing, but I hate to do so when the blog just keeps growing, despite it being “obsolete.”
Today, my biggest threat is AI, which has already begun to steal my work and repost it as its own. At the same time, it’s also drawing viewers to my blog in small numbers.
I personally want nothing to do with AI. I just can’t behind a machine taking the arts away from humans without earning it through lived experiences in a flesh and blood body. And even if the ideas are yours, there’s no honor in taking credit for something a computer wrote.
The hard truths about publishing a book
Back in the spring, I went to a seminar that shared some helpful, yet brutal truths about what the publishing business is like today. Whether you self-publish or traditionally publish, you’re likely going to put in way more time and money into your book than you’re probably going to get back.
That’s why every book should be treated as a passion project. If you’re going to do it, go all in, and hope for the best but expect the worst.
There are so many authors that I have to turn away because I don’t have the time or the space to promote their work. At the same time, I know how helpful sites like mine are to the book world. So, I feel a responsibility to promote the book as best I can, even if it doesn’t benefit me directly, because benefitting the book world in general eventually trickles down to mee and keeps readers interested in reading at all.
This is why I always take the time to post reviews on the big review sites as well as my own. If I want my reviews to do well, the book has to do well, and reviews on Google, Goodreads, and other similar sites encourage that growth.
Connecting with authors
This year, I really began to reach out to local authors and take a chance on indie books that were being sold at vendor fairs and conventions. It takes a lot to book a table and have your pieced together words printed on dead trees compete against the tables full of shiny jewelry and 3D-printed art.
As I attend more horror and sci-fi conventions, I’m beginning to pay more attention to these vendors and listen to their pitches. And thankfully, their work has not disappointed.
I love to see the authors’ eyes light up when I tell them I’m a book blogger and want to post a review after reading. It’s also nice to get a pitch from the horse’s mouth and hold a physical copy in my hand before committing to the purchase and agreeing to read it and work it into my schedule.
I got to travel a lot this year, and I’m hoping to do more of it next year. When I do, I’ll be on the lookout for author tables and hope to eventually support indie authors all over the country.
Affiliates
Late last year, I added US Ghost Adventures to my affiliate programs. This year, I got to take their ghost tours in Cincinnati and Chicago. This has helped me add some content to the travel section of my blog. It also fits into the horror theme that weaves itself throughout all sections of my blog.
Ghost stories are a very important type of storytelling. Half historical, half paranormal, they say a lot about the places and people involved. They also show how important tone and background are in telling a story, and they have taught me a lot about how stories in general should be told.
I’m still waiting to hear some feedback from readers who have taken these tours to learn about what they saw, thought, and experienced. Don’t forget, you can get a discount on your tickets if you use my code, and the tours run year round.
I also continue to be an affiliate for The Whistling Kettle. My summer iced tea post was a lot of fun to write. It’s funny how when I choose the teas I want to sample, I have no idea how I’m going to incorporate them into a post, and once they arrive, it just comes to me and ties so well into the season in which they’re being promoted.
And of course, there’s A Self Guru Legal Bundle, which has been helping those who want to start a blog obtain legal pages to keep them safe. There’s also my store on Bookshop.org which I wish got more attention because of the good those purchases does for the book business as a whole.
The numbers
My number one post on my blog was my review of Jodi Picoult’s Wish You Were Here.
A somewhat distant second was my review of Riley Sager’s The Only One Left.
Rounding out the top five were:
5 Women’s Fiction Novels You Should Read
10 Types of Books that 90s Kids Loved to Read
Ranking The Best Places to Read
Clearly, readers still want to read book reviews and bookish posts, and that helps to push away all of that doubt about blogs drying up.
As for posts written in 2025, my top five were:
How To Solve Your Own Murder by Kristine Perrin Book Review
The Promise of Unbroken Straw by Ken Steele Book Review and Author Interview
An Interview with Author Gary Sherbell
My Favorite Moments in Judy Blume’s Fudge Series
21 YA Indie Book Recommendations
Social media
This year, I gained a new social media account and lost one. My X account, which I’d spent years working to gain thousands of followers on back when it was Twitter, got hacked multiple times throughout the summer. Each time, I’d change my password. Then it would get hacked again, and my feed would be full of dark and disgusting content.
Eventually, X suspended my account, saying I’d posted graphic or violent content. I attempted to appeal to no avail. X rarely brought traffic to my site, and it’s been years since I’d been able to get any meaningful engagement from it. So, I decided to abandon it. Because I’m suspended, they won’t let me delete my account, but it’s essentially gone.
In its absence, I turned to BlueSky. It’s a very close equivalent to X. I really only use it to promote my blog posts, and I’m not looking to try to build up the amount of followers I had with X, which were probably mostly just bots anyway. But so far, so good.
Most of my social media traffic comes from Pinterest. So, I continue to keep that up, even if I don’t re-pin a lot. Like the Internet, the algorithm is always changing over at Pinterest, so it’s hard to grow and adapt to their new rules. So, I just keep doing what I’ve always done, pin once a day, which I schedule out a month in advance so I don’t have to remember to actually do it, and I re-pin whenever I happen to be on there and see something good.
Facebook and Instagram are my runners up. I’ve started to experiment with Instagram Reels which has been fun but time consuming. Like any post, the ones that do well are a surprise, and I’m still learning how to edit and how to create interesting content without getting in front of the camera.
Shoutouts
Finally, I’d like to shout out the readers who consistently feed me likes on social media or send encouraging feedback on my newsletters. The algorithm isn’t kind of me, but they are. This year, that group included:
Anne O’Connell
Trish Ahjel Roberts
Karen Nespoli
Tina Mosetis
Angie Carlson
Peter Aronson
Rick Stevens
As always, thanks to everyone who read even one post, subscribed to my newsletter, or followed me on social media The numbers don’t mean everything, but the individuals who contribute to those numbers mean a lot.
I’m going to do my best to keep it up and continue to grow in 2026. If, however, the blog did peak in 2025, it was a great end to a long run, and I’ll continue to support indie authors and contribute to the book world in however it decides to evolve in the future.
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Always love a year-in-review post and thoughts on what has changed, what is staying the same, and what stands out. The blogging world has definitely changed so much since I started in 2018, especially with the rise of AI and now the pressure to maintain a social media presence.