Confessions of a Lawyer Turned Book Blogger & Influencer

Jules Buonocore makes as much as she used to and she has 20,000 subscribers. How she did it.

I first met the lovely Jules Buonocore on Instagram during lockdown; she reached out to me about my debut novel. “Summer Darlings was one of the first books I listened to during those dark days of the pandemic,” she said. We realized quickly that we had a lot in common: My novel was set on Martha’s Vineyard, and the island is also dear to her heart.

We’ve stayed in touch over the years, and I’ve been so amazed watching her grow her website The Literary Lifestyle into a successful book hub with over 750,000 readers a month. Two years after launching her website, she quit her job as a lawyer and went full-time producing a newsletter, the website and an endless series of fascinating articles about books and reading. We chatted last week about how she’s transformed her hobby into a career. Go Jules! Here are my favorite parts of the interview.

How she got started: After a well-planned (and dreamy) honeymoon to Italy, Jules realized that she had a lot of fantastic information to share. At the time she was working in product liability law and she needed a creative outlet, so she created a blog to post what she learned planning her wedding and honeymoon. Then she started posting book reviews, which soon expanded into writing all sorts of book content. “Writing was my escape,” she says.

One year into building The Literary Lifestyle: She founded The Rory Gilmore Book Club to entice more readers. I had no idea, but apparently, book references are a huge part of the beloved 90s show Gilmore Girls. There are about 300 mentions of novels snuck into the dialogue or set of the show, some obscure references, some classic. For example, Life of Pi is mentioned in the show as is The Lovely Bones. Buonocore found that there were so many people interested in these books that she created a list of every book ever listed in Gilmore Girls and a plan for how readers can tackle them. “They’re my most loyal subscribers,” she says.

On starting a newsletter: “I realized really early on that there were all of these cool things you could do with email,” Jules says. It started out as a way to pair a lifestyle story with a book. Think: A seasonal recipe with an accompanying book review. But that didn’t seem to get traction. Since then Jules tweaked her newsletter. Now it’s a twice-weekly book-focused catch-up. On Tuesdays, she’ll write about what’s new and noteworthy in the book world and she shares links to stories she posted the week before. On Thursdays, she reports on what she’s currently loving – and it’s not just books. One of her recent newsletters included a nail polish she’s into. In the months since she focused on her newsletter, she’s racked up 20,000 subscribers. There’s a button on her website to sign up, so it helps her drive more readers on email.

What she’s learned about newsletter success: Keep posts on the short side, and don’t include too many links. Three to five links is key, she says. Otherwise, the email can feel too crowded. She also recommends that newsletter writers opt to read aloud podcast-style. “Sometimes I really want to read a post, but I’m too busy, so this would allow me to listen,” she says.

Her most popular posts in 2022: All Colleen Hoover Books, Colleen Hoover Books Ranked, Best Fiction for Men and Best Beach Reads.

Her biggest tip for writers: “Focus on your money-making tasks,” she says. While she loves the writing aspect of her job most, she realized quickly that she couldn’t just post whatever idea popped in her head (although sometimes she did). Jules began researching what literary-themed questions readers searched for most online. Then she wrote articles to answer them. (Sometimes she records Tiktoks to answer them, too.) For example, if she noticed that readers often went to Google searching for great beach reads, Buonocore would write a post listing her favorite Elin Hilderbrand and Beatriz Williams novels, among others.

How did she quit her job as a lawyer? If you get enough eyeballs on your website, you can opt into an ad network. "I get paid based on how many thousands of readers view each article and how much advertisers are willing to spend for ads on each specific article. It can be anywhere from a few dollars per thousand readers on one article to much more.” Once she had enough strategically developed content and her audience grew larger, she got invited to better ad networks, making her enough money to quit the law firm. She works incredibly hard to keep her site relevant and profitable, but she loves the job. Says Buonocore: “People have been saying blogs are dead since they came out, but clearly they’re not.”

Favorite book she read last year: “I’m 100 pages into Ann Napolitano’s Hello Beautiful, and I’m absolutely loving it. It’s a family drama, and I don’t think anything will surpass this one for me this year.”

Biggest letdown book of 2022: “Definitely The House Across the Lake by Riley Sager. It’s a thriller, but it goes into the supernatural. I’m such a logical person that when things stray into supernatural, it just doesn’t jive with me. I gave that one two stars.”

Favorite bookshop ever: The Oxford Exchange in Tampa. “It’s one of those super cool bookshops, but it’s also a coffee shop, a restaurant, a champagne bar, and a gift shop. Every square inch of it is something you want to experience and take a picture in.”

Thank you for stopping into Dear Fiction, Jules! We learned so much and it’s been a pleasure getting to know you better. To my dear readers, do you have a bookshop you love as much as Jules loves the Oxford Exchange? Tell me about it.