Pida Alandrian, A Book Blogger from Aceh - Nia M Wardani | A Logbook of Life Discoveries

 

Pida Alandrian

Pida Alandrian is one of the book bloggers from Indonesia. Her blog, Book And I, covers many topics about books. You can find award-winning book reviews, collection of quotes, and even giveaways!
I get to know Pida Alandrian from the Blogspedia coaching program with Mbak Marita Ningtyas. We are both a mentee there. In the fifth week, Mbak Marita gave us an assignment to interview a partner. I don’t know what comes to my mind that I dare to ask Mbak Pida, that is how I call her, to be my partner. I absolutely love a book blog, but she is way more expert than me. But maybe Allah wants me to learn from Mbak Pida.

This profile writing is quite challenging, though. And remembering the penalty if we submit late or make mistakes in the writing gives me a goosebump. If I make a mistake, Mbak Marita will kick both me and Mbak Pida from the program. Scary! This is just week 4, by the way!

Anyhow, here is the result of my interview and some exploration from her blog, Book And I.

About Pida Alandrian

Pida Alandrian was born in Aceh, 20 December 1992. Pida is not her given name, but people get used to calling her Pida. She has never published her real name, because she wants to be known as Pida. I actually know her name, but I want to respect her choice to keep it a mystery. :)

Mbak Pida is currently living in Aceh, teaching economics in a public high school there. She loves reading books and travelling. She loves romance books, especially by the author Ilana Tan.

How Mbak Pida Start a Blog

She started her blog, Book and I, in February 2016. Previously she had another blog, but later abandoned it after she picked up a different hobby: reading. In Book and I, she already has more than 200 posts about books and related topics (that’s why I say she is much more expert than me). She is also in Kumpulan Emak Blogger (KEB), a blogger community in Indonesia that only accepts female bloggers.

She started Book and I because she wants to share what she read to other people. She chose blogger as the platform because in blog, she is free to write without limitation of maximum number of characters unlike in other platforms such as Instagram.

She makes an analogy of her blog as a house. Blog is a house you own. You are free to do anything to your house. Will you abandon it? Let spiders hang its web on the ceilings? Or do you want to make it a comfortable home where you would like to come back, when you are tired from working outside. To make our house homey, you will need to tidy it, update it, interact in it. She had this experience of not taking a good care of her blog in the last two years and it made her sad. That’s why she is now joining the Blogspedia coaching program.

Pida Alandrian’s Version of Her Future Blog

Mbak Pida hopes that in the future, her blog becomes a reference for people who want to find a good book to read. She expects her blog to have various categories, but still closely related to books.

So far, she has nine categories in her blog, Book and I. Other than Book Review and Book Quotes, she also put interesting interviews with book authors in Ask Author. This blog even offers giveaways! Just click on the categories giveaways, read the requirements and follow the instructions, and best of luck for you winning a book. (This gives me an idea: shall I give giveaway like 1 free homework? Just kidding!)

Blogging Tips from Mbak Pida

1. You should know what you want to write, what you want to share with the readers. To be more specific, determine your blog niche.
2. Intention: for what purpose a blog is made or for what gain a blog is intended. For Mbak Pida, intention is not her first thing to have for blogging. In her case, her intention comes after she already started her blog and knows what she wants to write.
3. Keep yourself taking religious responsibilities
4. Read a lot of articles that are related to our blog niche. This way, we can get variation of content in our blog
5. Be consistent. Posts at least 4 articles a month or one post every week, so that our ‘home’ blog does not look like a house full of spider web.  

You might also be interested with:

• Why and How to Make Time for Blogging for Busy Teacher
• How to Increase Page Views of Your Blog
• Branding Yourself in Social Media and Get Your Blog More Audience

Working with Mbak Pida

Mbak Pida is currently open for book review offers, blog tours with other book bloggers, or other offers as long as the terms make both sides comfortable. When working with others, Mbak Pida keeps her professionalism to her readers. She makes sure that her reviews are honest reviews. If there is something good or bad about the book, she tells everything openly.

Surprising Similarities Between Me and Mbak Pida

Well this is a bonus😁. After getting to know more about Pida Alandrian, I am happy to find several similarities between Mbak Pida and I.

1. We both likes books. Yes, we do. Although we like different genres. She likes romance fiction books like Ilana Tan's, I am currently liking nonfiction books like Malcom Gladwell’s. While Mbak Pida specifically has chosen books as her niche, I choose books as one of the categories in my blog.
2. We both work as a teacher. I am happy that we share the same profession. Although she is teaching social in public school, and I am teaching science in private school, I feel this as a thing to relate between me and Mbak Pida
3. We both live in the same era. Yey! I mean we are only 1 year old apart. Even Aceh and Semarang is very far away from each other, we share the same era that we experience. 
4. We both agree that religious responsibilities should comes first before blogging

I am really happy to have an opportunity to know further about Pida Alandrian. To find people that share a common hobby gives you more courage to move forward. You can also get in touch with Mbak Pida by her social media account that all under same name: Pida Alandrian. And make sure you don’t miss her giveaways. See you in the next post. :)