Where The BookTrail is Travelling Next
Why The BookTrail Went Quiet (and Where We’re Travelling Next)
The World via Pages: Welcome Back to the Ultimate Literary Journey
They say that a book is a passport that lets you travel without moving your feet. For a while, I put my own passport away. I stepped back from this blog, paused the reviews, and closed the laptop.
But I never stopped reading. And I never stopped exploring.
Where I’ve Been
When I paused this blog, life simply took over. It kicked me up the you know what for a while. But, books brought me back to life and I found a new love and appreciation for this website, the Bookish community and my dear bookish friends.
Most importantly, I fell back in love with reading purely for pleasure and finding fun ways to share that. I wanted to do more with the booktrail, to expand what it offers and where readers and travellers alike can go to explore together. Where we are all on the same page.
Books with a strong sense of place truly are magical. I have been to the darkest places in life recently yet, even though this might sound cheesy, books have kept me going. Fiction doesn’t just describe a place; it captures its heartbeat. That is why I am back.
Where We’re Going
Moving forward, this blog is evolving. It will focus heavily on international fiction from more places and more countries – with novels that are deeply rooted in their settings. No matter the genre, if a book makes a country feel like a living, breathing character, you will find it here. More fun reading and travel mixes, more quirkiness and a deeper insight into what I do behind the scenes with all the foreign language fiction I read, travels I do and insights into translated fiction. Just a few tweaks but ones which will take the site in ways I have always wanted to take it in and for the first time in ages, I feel ready to do that. I lost myself for a while, but now I am back.
The site will remain free to use but there will be a paid option for authors to get bigger and better booktrails with extended PR. As the site expands into the USA book club scene with Belletrist, and I work more as a literary scout across more territories, I want to ensure more authors get a unique way of being seen in a way that their books can travel globally. However, the cost of this site has risen quite a lot and I need to cover a little at least of its maintenance.
I need your help. If you think this site has helped you in some way, consider buying me a coffee? If you are an author and wish for your book to have a place on The BookTrail for eternity – then please consider submitting and paying for a one off fee. There are avenues ahead of me that I can only explore with a little support.
Here is what you can expect in this new chapter:
Literary Travel Guides, Atmospheric Reading Lists, Monthly Reading Challenges, Insights into Reading Across Languages and Territories and Reading the World with competitions and giveaways.
A unique spin on travel and reading combined. More MAPS!!! And an even bigger sense of adventure than what you have seen before.
And things I can’t even talk about yet…………..
The suitcase is packed, the bookshelves are stacked, and the next chapter starts very soon….
Susan BookTrail x
