When People You Know Unsubscribe to Your Blog

It always sucks when people unsubscribe from your blog. It can put you down, make you mope, make you doubt.. but…

How do you feel when someone you know unsubscribes to your blog?

I was looking through my subscribers the other day, and realized that I recognized some of the names who had unsubscribed. They are bloggers! I know them!

Although it sucks when people unsubscribe period, I brush it off. I know people have different tastes, or some people only subscribe for giveaways, etc. So I don’t let the unsubscribes bug me. Plus it helps when the number of new subscribers is greater than the number of unsubscribers in any given week.

But when I actually recognized some of the unsubscribers, I have to admit, that stung a little. It felt more personal than someone I didn’t know unsubscribing.

There are a few good reasons why I shouldn’t let it bother me.

  • Different people read different books. I know there are some bloggers I adore as people, but I don’t subscribe to their blogs because I’m not interested in the same books they are. Maybe some of those people subscribed to my blog, then realized we’re not into the same books, so they unsubscribed.
  • Or, we do read the same books, but we have vastly different opinions on them. I know sometimes I don’t want to read really negative reviews of books I loved. Maybe I loved some of the books they hated, or hated some of the books they loved. We have different opinions and that’s okay. I get that sometimes it means you don’t want to read those reviews or that blog.

But despite those valid reasons, I can’t stop the little voice in the back of my head from saying, “Have I failed them? Am I a bad blogger? Am I doing something wrong? Are my posts boring?” I can’t stop my mind from going over all the possible ways I may have failed as a blogger. It’s like I let that person down, and that’s why they unsubscribed.

Have you ever recognized some of your unsubscribers? Does it feel different when someone you know unsubscribes, versus someone you don’t know?

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42 comments

    1. Just curious: how many blogs do you follow? I don’t follow a ton but I feel like if I visited them manually I’d forget to check a certain blog or something! I guess maybe that’s not an issue if you only follow a few though.

      1. erm… well defintely more than the fingers on both my hands! Most of the time, the blogs I follow/love comment on my blog so it’s easy to not forget about them but I also do have have my blogs I love widget in case I forget. However I do forget sometimes! It makes m feel like poop when I do forget 😐 I’m just not a fan of subscribing, I have enough emails as it is.
        You could say I’m weird and do things really differently! Like I mostly comment, write reviews, go on GR and Twitter via my phone and only do blog posts on my laptop. >.<

        Melanie (YA Midnight Reads) recently posted: Review: These Broken Stars by Amie Kaufman and Meagan Spooner
  1. Oh, I think there’s a big difference between seeing someone you know unsubscribe to you, versus someone who hasn’t really been reaching out. I mean, these people are the same people who used to maybe comment on our blogs and have conversations with us about books and life in general– there’s a stronger connection of sorts, and when they unsubscribe, then I think it would sting more because you’d keep thinking what you did to sever it D: With people you don’t know, there’s not much of an interaction to begin with, so I guess maybe they weren’t really that interested in the first place, which is still disappointing, but not as much. As a sort of newbie blogger, I myself don’t have a massive audience, and haven’t interacted with that many people, and so I don’t remember having seen anyone I know unsubscribe. But I guess that if it happened to me, I’d feel bad, but like you, I’d have to learn to brush it off. You’re right when you say people have differences, and maybe some people would think of unsubscribing as settling it. No worries though, your awesome blog still has the rest of us 😀

  2. I always get a little offended when some of my close friends haven’t even subscribed in the first place! Lol …it does make me wonder when some of my biggest fans / support comes from people that don’t know me as well 🙂 ah well! What can we do eh?!

    1. Yeah I know what you mean. But at the same time, I think I’m one of the people who does that. I have bloggy friends whose blogs I don’t subscribe to. I feel TERRIBLE about it, but ultimately it just comes down to different reading preferences. As much as I may love the person, I don’t want to subscribe to their blog if we read totally different books/genres. 🙁

      1. I see your point! I guess it works kinda different when it’s something so specific as books / genres of books! …but it’s always good to get another perspective y’know 🙂 Like, I follow a few beauty blogs even though I’m not a huge beauty geek…but I may love the look of the blog, or their style of writing! …as they say, different stokes for different folks! 🙂 x

    2. Very few people that I know IRL follow my blog… not even most of my family. My daughter and stepdad check it sometimes, but my daughter’s busy with college and my stepdad and I don’t read a lot of the same books. I know that all my friends and family have their own lives and interests, and my generation seems to be more into Facebook than blogging (at least where I live), so it doesn’t surprise me that I have very few followers whom I know outside the blogging community.

  3. To tell you the truth, I don’t really go through my followers that often to see who has unsubscribed. I have noticed that people unsubscribe sometimes when I post an erotic book review, and that’s okay. They don’t want to read that stuff and I am fine. But If I did notice someone I knew unsubscribed, I would be a little sad, question it a little, but in the end it’s just wasted worry. Nothing you can do. Your blog is as much for your readers as it is for you, so as long as you don’t regret posts and how you run your blog, then it’s all good. 🙂

    Jennifer Bielman recently posted: Review: One Tiny Lie by K.A. Tucker
    1. Yeah I normally don’t do that either. This was kind of a one off thing when I was bored, then I recognized a name, so then I kept digging. I should not have done that! LOL.

  4. I feel bad when anyone unsubscribes. :/ Especially *coughcough* when I’m on the verge of an epic number (like when I first reached 100) and I kept dropping back to 99. Very taxing. 😉 But, yes, I think it makes a difference when you know who’s unsubscribed.
    I feel it’s kind of the same way with commentors. They may still be “followers”, but sometimes people you’ve blogged with for ages stop commenting. It honestly feels like they’ve left. It’s sad.

    1. OMG that totally happened to me!! It was also right before a big milestone. I’d lose one, gain one, lose one, gain one, and I swear that went on for MONTHS. It was taunting me. Grr.

  5. Maybe its a good thing that I don’t really know how to check my unsubscribers. It is kind of like having someone unfriend you on facebook. What did I do? So I get that you have some hurt feelings since the people unsubscribed were people you know. BUT, maybe they don’t want to subscribe by email (clearing out their inbox) but are still following you another way? I guess I’m an optimist.

    Julie S. recently posted: Foreplay Review
  6. Hmm… The way I feel about blogging/bloggy friends in general is it’s a give and take. If I visit a blog often, reading the content and leaving comments, yet that particular blogger never visits me back, I tend to get offended and no longer visit them. Snobby? Maybe. So when I see someone has unsubscribed from my blog, I often think back and make sure I was always diligent in commenting on their posts and taking part in things they did before getting offended. Let’s face it, the biggest thing we all want is people to read and enjoy our posts… And comments are the best proof of that. 🙂

    Lisa (Lost in Literature) recently posted: Book Blitz: A French Girl in New York by Anna Adams
  7. I don’t really look at that. I get a mail if someone (un)subscribes to my blog via mail, but I don’t really look at the numbers and stuff. If people like my blog and subscribe, that’s awesome! If they don’t want to follow my blog anymore, that’s okay. =)
    If it’s someone I know, that would suck, but I won’t dwell on it for long. He or she must have a good reason for doing so. 🙂

    Bieke @ Istyria book blog recently posted: Review: The Iron King by Julie Kagawa
  8. I totally get what you’re saying, Ashley! It definitely hurts when someone you know stops subscribing to your blog but I totally agree with the reasons. Sometimes I unsubscribe when what the blog is posting doesn’t interest me, or when they start posting way too much or stop posting for an extended amount of time. I usually don’t check unsubscribers (because I don’t know how to) but if I ever figured out how to I’d probably be a little hurt (because I definitely feel hurt when someone I know unfollows me on Twitter and I notice, let alone my blog lol)

    Fantastic post, Ashley! <33

    Eileen @ Singing and Reading in the Rain recently posted: The Iron Traitor by Julie Kagawa
  9. When I was changing from email subscriptions to RSS I worried that people would think what you did! Maybe they are just changing services 🙂

    I do find it easier to follow blogs that have similar tastes to me. But I also like reading different opinions on books as long as they aren’t completely bashing my favorite book. 🙂

    Jessica @ Books: A true story recently posted: My Mailbox (50)
  10. I wouldn’t take it personally. For example, I unsubscribed from some of my favorite blogs via email a few months ago…but I still visit them manually. I just couldn’t take the 100 emails a day in my inbox (I’m down to 3 blog subscriptions via email). I used to use Bloglovin to check my favorite blogs, but now I’m subscribed to so many that my favorites get lost in the feed. Some people I’m only following on twitter and if I see them posting just about anything, then I’ll visit their blog and see what I’ve missed since last visit.

  11. Are you sure they really stopped following you? Maybe they decided to follow via another method. I don’t really look at those but if one of my regular visitors stopped, I think I would probably be worried I did something wrong. I prefer using RSS / bloglovin’

    kimbacaffeinate recently posted: The Marriage Wager by Jane Ashford
    1. I agree with Kimba – some unsubscribers may be switching methods. I know that at some point I’ll probably jump from Blogger to WordPress, and at that point I’ll stop checking blogs through GFC and switch entirely to Bloglovin. Right now I’m actually double-subscribed to many of the blogs I follow at least semi-regularly, using both GFC and Bloglovin.

  12. I don’t keep close track of who’s following me, but I DO get sad when long-term followers stop commenting on my blog. Some of them aren’t blogging as much any more, so that makes sense, but others are totally blogging all the time and they’ve stopped visiting me. 🙁 Makes me think I’m doing something wrong!

    Anastasia @ Here There Be Books recently posted: Moment of zen: Why do thumbs look so weird when you photograph them?
  13. I’ve had this happen a few times. It’s the same when a “friend” unfollows me on Twitter. I’ve had that happen a time or two and I just have to take a deep breath and let it go. It hurts a bit because you DO wonder what you did wrong – but sometimes it’s just something as simple as their tastes and yours changed. Or you wrote a negative review of a book they super loved. *shrug* It happens. The true readers stay though. 🙂

  14. Dude you have no idea – at Xpresso Book Tours people subscribe and unsubscribe from the tour host list all the time and often it’s blogs I know who unsub and I’m always like But… BUUT WHY WOULD YOU LEAVE ME!!! And then get paranoid that I did something to offend them lol. When likely they just rather check the posts by other means like Facebook or Feedly, even Bloglovin etc. *shrugs* That’s what I tell myself anyways 😛

  15. I don’t really track my subscribers, but coming at it from the other side… I follow blogs with Feedly, so when I “unfollow,” they really have no way of knowing. And yet I still feel guilty about it, especially if it’s a blog I’ve followed for a long time. Sometimes it’s the blog, sometimes it’s me, but if it’s not a good fit anymore there’s not much point in sticking around.

    I think it would sting if I knew someone had stopped following my blog… but I’d just try to focus on the fact that I do the same thing. It’s not personal. It’s not malicious. It doesn’t mean I hate them or they’re a bad blogger. It’s just not a good fit anymore.

    Charleen recently posted: ITW Must-Reads: The Eight
  16. I don’t pay attention to the subs and unsubs. Luckily April gets the email sub/unsub notifications so I never have to think about it. Personally I do not like subscribing via email. I get enough email into my box everyday. So as for the unsubbing by other methods – I don’t know of a way to check that on RSS/Feedly and maybe there is a way to check that on Bloglovin but I’ve never bothered looking into it. Which method were you using to check I’m curious now. haha

    I definitely wouldn’t take it personally. There are a lot of bloggers out there that I like but like you said we usually don’t read the same things so then I end up with subscriptions to blogs that I feel like I can’t interact with because I don’t have an honest interest in what they are reading/reviewing.

    1. I was just checking my email subscriptions. I use a WordPress plugin and it shows me when people have subscribed and unsubscribed, and I just recognized some of the emails because they had the blog name in them!

      I normally don’t check though. I have a graph on my dashboard that shows me new subscriptions (just the number) and unsubscribes. I do look at that, but I’d never actually gone through the list of actual emails that had unsubscribed. A bad stroke of curiosity overtook me!

  17. Interesting question. I don’t actually pay attention to who is subscribed to my blog. I don’t know how many subscribers I have, so I don’t know who unsubscribes. For me, a person is following my blog if they comment at least periodically. I know I sometimes read posts and don’t comment on them, but if I follow your blog you see me in your comments at least sometimes. And I don’t actually subscribe to any blogs. Technically I follow blogs on bloglovin – but I follow so many there that I only browse the list after I’ve visited the blogs I stalk. My Blogs I Stalk page is basically my subscription – when I sit down to read blogs (and actually have time – I’ve been super behind lately) I just click through all the blogs I stalk. And most of them I’ve already visited because they’ve left a comment on my blog and I always comment back.

    LOL I guess that was a really long winded way of saying, I wouldn’t have a reaction because I wouldn’t know! 🙂

    Berls @ Fantasy is More Fun recently posted: Dead Dreams Blog Tour | Guest Post
  18. I have never noticed someone I know unsubscribe. Since I use blogger it’s hard to sift through GFC anyways and look.. bloglovin doesn’t look like it let’s you see who is following you. Which kind of sucks there.. I never looked over there before. I guess the only way I would know is if the people who normally comment on my blog just stopped commenting.

    Angie recently posted: Goodreads and it's book clubs
  19. That would definitely sting! But, I agree with Kim, they probably decided to follow you another way 🙂 I prefer bloglovin or Feedly personally, bc I get way too many emails. I think it’s hurt more if I saw a regular commenter stop commenting…I think of my regular commenters as close friends at this point 🙂

    Diamond "dee" recently posted: Cover Reveal : The Legend of Me

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