I’m currently participating in an amazing event running from October 22nd to 26th. It’s called Foster an Author week and organized by three amazing women over on Facebook who decided a few years ago to hook authors up with bloggers in a mutual love and promotion fest.
This is my first year with the event but my blogger is a three year veteran. I asked Shirley, from Shirley’s bookshelf, to provide some information about how she became a book blogger and FB page owner where she promotes all things romance. Her page is amazing, I’ve already found some exciting new authors by checking out her posts. I hope after reading Shirley’s story you’ll visit her page and share some love by liking and following Shirley’s bookshelf.
Take it away, Shirley 
I fell in love with reading when I was in the fourth grade and read Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder and have spent my life reading whenever I had a free moment.
In 2012, when everyone was coming down off the high of reading the Fifty Shades series, I stumbled across a blog post about a soon to be released series and learned that one of the authors was a native of my home state, Pennsylvania, and also a man. I was intrigued and couldn’t wait to see what a male writer could give readers in a predominantly female dominated industry. I was not disappointed, and shared his work on my personal FB page. Of course, once you’ve purchased books on Amazon, they make suggestions for other authors/books you might also like. I came across a series by a western romance writer who included historical facts about her home state of Texas in her books and they greatly appealed to the history geek in me. And, because I wanted others to hear about her work, I shared on FB. Well, some friends and family weren’t appreciating some of the things I was sharing, and I can understand that, so in May of 2013 I set up my own page, Shirley’s Bookshelf, where I could share whatever I wanted and people who liked what they saw could follow me and my family and friends didn’t have “suggestive” images showing up in their newsfeed. Initially I simply shared what I was reading at the time, and cover reveals, releases and sales for authors I followed.
In 2014, I attended my first ever book signing, where I met new to me authors, and had myself added to their mailing lists. I started to get invites to their book release events, and it was then that I learned about bloggers who also coordinated events for authors, and I signed myself up for their mailing lists as well. 2014, into 2015 is when I began to share more than just authors whose work I’ve read, and it was then that my page grew from the maybe 200 followers I had at the time, to the 2700 I have now. For some, that’s not many, but I’m happy when I introduce even just one person to an author they had not heard of previously.
I have had the opportunity to attend at least three signings each year since 2015, and the authors whose work I share on my page has continued to grow. I have been privileged to meet authors from around the country (a few from outside the USA), and from many different walks of life. Some of them have become treasured friends, and I feel blessed that they’ve come into my life and that I’ve had experiences with them that I might not have had otherwise.
I really enjoy spreading the word about author’s work and I especially feel great satisfaction when I’ve introduced a reader to a “new to them” author and they find a new favorite writer.
Shirley resides in Central Pennsylvania, USA, with her husband and fur babies Sugar and Maya. She is the proud mom to a son and daughter, and recently celebrated the 1stbirthday of her grandson. Her Monday through Friday, nine to five job is working as the executive assistant to the department that provides services to students with special needs at an educational agency, and evenings are spent with her family and spreading the word about her favorite books and authors.
Find Shirley’s Bookshelf on
Twitter: https://twitter.com/PAMrsB
Email: shirleysbookshelf@yahoo.com
