Blogger Spotlight: Zoe Toft, Playing by the Book

Zoe Toft is the mother-of-two blogger behind Playing by the Book. Focusing on Zoe’s favourite family activity, Playing by the Book recently ranked in the Top 10 Literature Blogs. Here Zoe told us about good books, owning a lot(!) of books and working with PRs.

How would you describe your blog?
Honest review of books for children and young people accompanied by the play and exploring they inspire in my family.

Why did you start your blog?
If truth be told, it’s because I have a terrible memory and I wanted to have a way to document, and thereby remember, the good times.

What’s your favourite book, and why?
It’s very hard to pick just one book – it depends on my mood.

What makes a good book?
A good book is any one that hooks a reader. Different people need different hooks to engage them and so I don’t think there’s a single recipe for a good book. For some people, for example, it will be great pace, for others it will be stunningly beautiful writing. Fortunately, like delicious food, there are all sorts of recipes for brilliant books.

Digital books disrupted an age-old industry, what do you think will be the next big disruptor?
I don’t know that I’ve got anything very insightful to respond with. That said I do worry that fear of taking risks and instead becoming over reliant on brands will diminish the industry in the long run.

How many books do you own (roughly)?
About 4,000. Very many of them in piles all around the house!

What makes your blog successful?
My passion. I’ve always worn my heart on my sleeve, and I think that comes through on my blog. Marry my enthusiasm with our family’s sense of playfulness, and the wealth of book knowledge I’ve developed over the past eight years of blogging and I’m pretty happy with the ingredients I have for my blog. I could always do with more time to write more blog posts though!

How do you like to work with PRs?
In a spirit of generosity on both sides!

What’s the one thing PRs should know about you?
Even if I don’t end up reviewing a book sent for review on my blog, it forms part of my bank of knowledge and so that book often ends up being given as a personal recommendation that PRs may not get to see. We all know the power of personal recommendation and so the silent or invisible recommendations I make often have as much impact as the ones that can be more easily measured via blog posts.

What other blogs do you like to read?
All sorts! But three I’ve read today and visit regularly include: tygertale, Rhino Reads and A Fuse #8 Production.

Zoe Toft features on the Vuelio Media Database along with thousands of other bloggers, influencers and journalists.