Is it really the end of May already? I guess this is what happens when you've got your nose stuck in a book! Or your fingers flying over a keyboard! I continue to feel completely overwhelmed by my blogging endeavors, but I'm loving it too much to back off.
Learning to Blog Progress Report: I'm developing a format and structure for my reviews, and I have decided to start giving each book a rating based on the five-star plan. In early May, there was a long discussion at Books on the Brain called To Rate or Not to Rate. Prior to that, I was completely undecided. I appreciate so many bloggers weighing in on the subject. My thought is that the rating is there if you want to use it as a guide, but it can be easily ignored if you are so inclined. I'll be rating the books I read in Library Thing and GoodReads, so I might as well carry it through.
I'm also going to number my reviews as I see several bloggers do that, and I think it will be useful down the line.
Finally, I've learned that some days are better than others for releasing certain kinds of posts. After struggling for weeks with my review of THE RISK OF DARKNESS, I finally posted it on a Saturday and received a very limited response. I think in the future I'll save the weekends for reviews of picture books and early readers. This week, I've got two: JIBBERWILLIES AT NIGHT and THE CRICKET OF TIMES SQUARE.
Checking in on Challenges: Well, I have failed dismally in fulfilling my first challenge, The Unshelved Reading Challenge, hosted by Becky of Becky's Book Reviews. Only 3 books, and I couldn't do it! I think I took on too much too soon. Basically, I just misremembered the deadline as June 30 instead of June 1st! I'll still complete it, just late! Is there a penalty? Will it involve my credit card?! I expect to improve my performance with the 3rd Southern Reading Challenge, but I'd better buckle down because August 15th will be here before I know it!
BEA: I didn't go to BEA this year, but I did try to participate in the BEATwittyParty last Friday night. Whew! What a hailstorm of activity that was! I made my first foray into TwitterChat, which helped, but the party was almost over before I realized that I could control the speed at which the comments refreshed. Once again, I was in over my head, but I did have some fun and met several new-to-me bloggers. I count that as a success! A big THANK YOU! to Rebecca of The Book Lady's Blog for organizing the event. GIVEAWAYS: Tonight at midnight, EST, is the deadline to enter the Hachette Book Group Mother's Day Giveaway here at A Sea of Books. This is a wonderful and varied selection of books that would really get your summer reading off to a good start. If you haven't entered yet, you've still got a little bit of time! AWARDS!: I have been the lucky and humbled recipient of several awards over the last couple of weeks. I'll do a couple of posts where I formally thank my generous blogging friends as well as announce with whom I will be sharing some of the awards. LOOKING AHEAD: There's some good stuff in store for June: great giveaways, blog tours, maybe even an author guest post! You'll just have to keep an eye on me to see what happens!
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5 comments:
I had a great time at the Twitter Party too! TweetChat was great - I'm so glad somebody introduced me to it. (I don't remember who it was in all of that craziness.)
Gwen, nice progress report! Can you point me in the direction of someone who numbers their reviews - I'd like to take a look. I am also new to the blogging world - less than two months - and am still doing the never-ending tweeking of my site and how to do things.
Gwen, I hear you when about the time this blogging thing takes! Who knew? Looks like you've developed a nice format.
Cathy: Thank you! I think you're blog is coming along nicely - and I love the name! (One Eyed Stuffed Bunny) Three bloggers who number their reviews are Unmainstream Mom, Confessions of a Bibliophile, and Literate Housewife. (I'd put in the links but I haven't learned how to do that in a comment yet!)
I've been blogging for years and I still struggle with what to post when. I inevitably post something that *I* find interesting on a weekend when all the bloggers are gone or otherwise busy. I go in waves of wanting to build traffic and not caring.
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