I got my blog back, but my brief foray into promoting authors is over.

 

My wordpress.com blog (NOT self-hosted) was temporarily suspended for breaking Wordpress TOS.

 

It was suspended because for the past two months while I've been neglecting my reading I have been taking part in a LOT of one-shot book blitz/book blast promotional-type activity. I figured that even if I wasn't reading I could do what authors want us bloggers to do and still promote them, right?

 

FYI, Wordpress prohibits the following:

"Book tour blogs: Blogs that consist of scraped, pre-written content, as opposed to original book reviews, for the purpose of promoting books and driving traffic to other promotional and giveaway sites."

 

So this was what I was doing. i was promoting the fuck out of authors. I was adding in buy links, as most of the tour companies demanded. Those promotional posts are what got me suspended.

 

If I was on Blogspot of self-hosted I would still be okay. I didn't know about this rule for Wordpress. I've been running my blog for over two years and only recently started taking part in tours because I know how much authors are supposed to appreciate us promoting and supporting them.

 

I didn't want the pressure of having to fit in reading a ton more books into my already crippling huge to-read pile, so I signed up to all of the posts that required minimal effort on my part.

 

I've learned my lesson. I was going to take a break away from the blog for the rest of the year anyway. I've been thinking about self-hosting for a while. This was my call to arms.

 

When I start blogging again it'll be with a brand new self-hosted blog.

 

Thanks so much for all your support guys, you really made the agonizing wait so much easier. It's so nice to know that people care.

 

FOR CLARIFICATION: If I was adding in reviews to all those promotional posts I did, I'd be OK. But I didn't, because I wasn't reading. I was promoting only. Wordpress didn't like that.