Bloggiesta Day 3 - Wrap Up

As much as I'd like to work all night long, I'm pregnant, tired and I have to get up early tomorrow. So I'm done. However I usually keep up the momentum after a Bloggiesta and get more things done in the next few days. I have over a week's worth of posts set and ready to go!

I spent a total of 18 hours on Bloggiesta which is pretty good considering how many other things I did this weekend (playgroup, doctor's office, birthday party, grocery shopping)

I'm happy with my progress and I love hosting a mini-challenge. I will for sure be thinking up one for next time. I can't wait!

Bloggiesta - Day 2 Update

Getting ready to turn in for the night and wanted to update on my progress.

I was busy a lot on Friday and today but I still managed to log in 12 hours somehow which is better than I thought I'd do. Still have tomorrow though!

I've done the following mini-challenges:

• blogging goals (just as a comment)
• email organization
• book organization (still need to make database though)
• 10 Things Bloggers Should Not Do

I'm still trying to help someone for the Help a Blogger Out challenge. 

I have 4 blog posts schedule for this coming week so far. They are mini-reviews of books I never reviewed from over a year ago. So that's 4 posts but 9 books reviewed. Still have tons to go though.

Bloggiesta - 10 Things Bloggers Should NOT Do Mini-Challenge

The mini-challenge from Word Lily has us rating ourselves (1 to 5) on the following things bloggers should NOT do. It's from an article at Daily Blog Tips.

You Must Not Expect Results Overnight - 4/5 - I know it takes time but sometimes I get impatient. :)
You Must Not Ignore Your Readers - 3/5 - I definitely don't talk all about myself but I don't think I focus on my readers enough either.
You Must Not Scrape Another Bloggers Content - 5/5 - I don't think I do this. I make sure to credit whatever I use and only use it under fair use.
You Must Not Expect Success Without Promoting - 4/5 - Oh I know what it takes to get noticed. I just don't always do it.
You Must Not Be Another Blogger - 5/5 - I am my own blogger. There are very few nonfiction bloggers and even fewer nonfiction and children's book bloggers. I want to have my own style.
You Must Not Fail To Update Your Blog Regularly - 2/5 - Okay this is where I struggle. I build up a readership and visitors and then get side tracked by life and don't post for a while and lose some readership and visitors. I've tried planning posts but I still haven't figured out the best way to do this for me.
You Must Not Ignore SEO - 3/5 - I've researched and implemented some SEO basics but I still have more to learn for sure.
You Must Not Ignore Networking - 2/5 - I know how important this is but I don't do it enough. I've been trying to comment on blogs more but it's not just that. I need to participate in blog events and features more often and perhaps give some link love.
You Must Not Have An Unreadable/Unnavigable Site - 4/5 - I think I do okay in this area. I've not had any complaints and the last two Bloggiesta's I did I really fixed up the design and layout.
You Must Not Throw Mud Around - 5/5 - I've never done this and never will.

TOTAL: 37/50 - Not bad - 74%

Bloggiesta Starting Line!

It's time for the 4th Bloggiesta! I love Bloggiesta, this is my third time participating. I only missed the first one! I'm just starting now because I haven't been home all day! I will also miss a good chunk of tomorrow (11:30-4:30) or so because of a birthday party. However I'm sending the kids to grandma's after the party so hopefully I can get more done then.

Bloggiesta is a blogging to do marathon. A chance to get to that to do list of things that will make your blog better with the addition of mini-challenges and prizes!

I"m hosting my very first mini-challenge ever this year on making your own buttons and banners.

The other bloggiesta's I did I improved my blog in general (labels, links, layout, design etc.) but I only have ONE goal this year:

• Catch up on reviews.

This may sound simple but I am so behind I have books I read a year ago to review. I want to be caught up so that I can review a book within a week of finishing it. I have over 30 books to review. Wish me luck!

Bloggiesta Mini-Challenge: Desiging Your Own Buttons/Banners

Welcome Bloggiesta participants!

Many of you need buttons or banners for a variety of things: reading challenges, entrecard ads, link to you button, blog features or memes and more.


While I'm far from being a professional designer, I can and do make my own buttons as I need them. I didn't do my blog design but I have designed buttons for reading challenges, features and such.  I just Jasc Paint Shop Pro 7 (PSP) to make my graphics but even if you don't have PSP or Photoshop or you have them but don't know how to use them, you can still make a basic button or banner with sites found around the web.

The options aren't that great. You are better off getting a graphic editing program and learning the basics. You don't need to know how to do all the fancy stuff. You can downlaod a free trial of Corel Paint Shop Pro (I believe Jasc was taken over by Corel) although a much older version would do just find for basics and can probably be purchased for very little money if you can find one. I'm sure you can download a free trial version of Photoshop too. You can find tutorials on how to use these programs online.Below I highlight some online places you can use. Please let me know if there is one you know of that is good that I haven't included.

How To Do Mini-Challenge
To do this mini-challenge, you must make a logo, banner or button and put in on your blog, then come back and comment with a link to the post it's on. It can be something you actually need such as a reading challenge button or blog logo or it can just be a quick one for fun to show you tried it out.  All registered Bloggiesta participants who comment with a link to their logo/button/banner will be entered to win a publisher sponsored prize!

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Pros will be in red, cons will be in green.


Cool Text (http://cooltext.com/) is good if you want a logo or button that is just words, no pictures. It's very simple to use but is limited in it's designs. Here's what I made with Cool Text:

My Banner Maker (http://www.mybannermaker.com/) can make banners of many different sizes from micro (88x31) to Photo Sized Banner (728x546) and everything in between. It can make any of the standard banner sizes you see as adverts on blogs or websites. It's a bit harder to figure out, especially if you don't know key words like gradient, opacity etc. but with fiddling around you can figure it out. It does have the option to upload your own photo to use as the background but I had trouble with it. In order for it to work, the photo (or the part of the photo you want) must be close to the size banner you are making. Also you have the option to download the banner yourself, create a myspace banner, post automatically to facebook, twitter etc, download the code for use in forums or download the html, with or without a box telling others how to use the graphic (although it didn't show up right on my site). (see my samples)  However each banner must have the mybannermaker.com credit and before you can save the banner, you must choose between upgrading to pro and staying free. Annoying. Here's what I made with My Banner Maker:

Background © Flickr User Pink Sherbet Photography

Copy this code to your website to display this banner!
<a href="http://www.mybannermaker.com" target="_blank"> <img src="http://i.imgur.com/5h8Dt.jpg" alt='Create your own banner at mybannermaker.com!' border=0>

Online Icon Maker (http://www.rw-designer.com/online_icon_maker.php) is good for making your own fav icons (the little graphic next to the url in the address bar above.) You can design it yourself pixel by pixel or upload a graphic you want it to make an icon out of and download as an .ico file.

Creative Connectivity's Banner Creator (http://www.crecon.com/newbanners.html#form2) allows you to create a banner of adjusted size, with one of their backgrounds or one of your own. You can add gif images and text. There are a few different options. It's not the easiest to add text but if it doesn't go where you want it, you can just hit the back button and do it again. Here's what I made (quickly) with Banner Creator:

Other Tips and Hints:

• You can also design using Microsoft Paint but that is SO basic you basically have to draw everything yourself. 
• If you know how to do the basics in a graphic's program but you are looking for graphics to use, try Flickr Creative Commons (pick only the first group (Attribution Only) but you must give credit to the Flickr user you got it from somewhere. 
• Search the net for dingbats fonts. Either view the full font and screen capture the one you want or download the font, type every letter and number into a document and then screen capture the one you want. Color it in with your program (even Microsoft Paint) and you can use it.
• Ad Designer sounds like a much cooler way to make ads but I didn't try it out because you have to register first. It has good reviews though.
• This site has some other suggestions (including ones I already mentioned)

Have Fun!

Bloggista Wrap-Up

Well I'm tired so I'm wrapping up Bloggiesta, the blogging marathon. I didn't get as much done as I would have liked, mainly because of camping but I got a good head start and usually Bloggiesta gets me out of a blogging funk which I think it did again so I should be able to continue keeping up with things and staying organized.

Stats

Total Time: 4 hrs Friday + 1 hr Saturday + 3hrs Sunday = 8 hours total
Mini Challenges Done: 6 (4 new, 2 old)
Blogs Commented On: Less than 5. I really didn't have time this round, sorry everyone.
What I Got Accomplished:

• Blog Planning
• Fixing up of some old reviews
• Wrote one post (not even near my goal)
• Fixed my labels
• Updated GoodReads
• Updated my Challenge list
• Updated some of the challenges I host
• Got rid of a dead link
• Edited review policy and PR page
• Added email subscription option
• + mini challenges

Thoughts: I love Bloggiesta and wish there were 3 a year. I'd love to see more mini-challenges and ones that can be done more than once are great (like the one about fixing old posts, by next bloggiesta, you'll still have old posts.) I want to host a mini-challenge for next Bloggiesta, I just hope I remember. I also keep forgetting about the fiesta theme. I keep meaning to listen to Mexican music and have tacos but I forget.

I feel bad I didn't visit many people this time but I barely had time to get anything done.

Is it January yet?

Bloggiesta Update 2

Well for those just checking in, I was at Girl Guide Camp this weekend so I did lots of Bloggiesta stuff Friday and I did a few planning things at camp and I'll fit in a few more things tonight.

At camp I didn't get much chance to do anything but I did a bit of blog planning such as:

• brainstorming post ideas
• thinking about my feature idea
• coming up with theme weeks for the future

I'm not sure what I'm working on today, but I'll have a final update done when I'm done working.

Bloggiesta Update

Okay well I leave for Girl Guide camp soon so here's what I accomplished today:

 - 4 mini challenges
 - fixed my label cloud to a list and pruned my labels
 - updated goodreads currently reading list
 - updated my book challenges list for what's done and not done
 - did some work on the challenges I host which have been sadly neglected

Tonight and tomorrow night while at camp I will be:

 - brainstorming my ideas for a new feature
 - planning blog theme weeks
 - writing some blog posts
 - planning the next month's posts

Bloggiesta Mini-Challenges

Puss Reboots is hosting the RSS Mini-Challenge for Bloggiesta.

I already had a feed but I added it into my header which means that if you come across this page and want to subscribe, you can click the little rss icon up there in the url link bar on the right.

I also added an option to subscribe via email in my sidebar if you are interested.

I've also done the Goals mini-challenge and the Review Policy challenge.

Bloggiesta is on!

Bloggiesta, the blogging marathon with a fiesta twist, has officially started!

Here's my schedule for the weekend:

Friday
9am - I started Bloggiesta
4pm - Leaving for Girl Guide Camp

Saturday
While I'm at camp, I have paper and pencil and blog planners and will be planning out my next month and starting to write post ideas and whatever other planning I can do without a computer.

Sunday
Afternoon - I arrive home from camp. I'll be dirty and tired but I'll be making up for lost bloggiesta time by doing more blogging stuff and catching up on mini-challenges I haven't done.

So look for an update Friday afternoon, Sunday afternoon and one last wrap-up as well on Sunday. I'd love to tweet and blog from camp but I don't have a smart phone :(

Here's some of what I'd like to accomplish:

• Make a list of all nonfiction book categorized by dewey decimal system (inspired by PussReboots and ?? - can't remember who had it categorized by dewey decimal system!)
• Link to my Scene of the Blog, Lost in Books 20 Questions and Armchair BEA interview from my about me page.
• Make social media buttons for both blogs
• Put alt tags on photos
• Meta tags and description.
• Clean up labels and look into a different way to display them.
• Mini-challenges
• Write Reviews
• Update GoodReads

I won't get it all done but I hope to make a dent!

Where I've Been and Bloggiesta

First of all, sorry for not posting much lately. May and June are really busy for me and I haven't had a chance to do much blogging.

I hope to have some new stuff up soon but in the meantime, check out some of these old posts:

Adult Fiction: Midwives: A Novel by Chris Bohjalian
Adult Nonfiction: Have You Found Her by Janice Erlbaum
YA/Teen Fiction: The Black Tattoo by Sam Enthoven
Meme: 10 Signs a Book is By Me (The best way to see what I like in a book.)
On Blogging: BBAW: Blogging
On Books: Book Covers

Also, Bloggiesta is coming up next weekend (June 11-13).

For those that don't know, Bloggiesta is a blog marathon. It was created by a book blogger but any blogger is welcome. Click on the link above to find out more information but you can do whatever blogging you need to do and you can win prizes!

I've been waiting since the January Bloggiesta ended for this one and of course it ends up being on a weekend I'm away camping with Girl Guides. However I'm going to do my best to make it work. I'm going to do as much as Friday as I can and work on some blog planning at camp on good ole paper with pen. Maybe I'll draft some blog posts too if I can. Then Sunday after I come home I'll do some more, even if it doesn't count. So I'll post an update probably twice on Friday and Once or twice on Sunday.

Mother Reader's Comment Challenge Wrap-Up

I signed up for the comment challenge during bloggiesta. That weekend I commented on 16 blogs. A day later I commented on 11 more and then the paper I was keeping track of got buried under some books (of course!) and I didn't find it again until 2 days ago. Without my paper to remind me I forgot all about the challenge.

In fact I didn't do the Thursday check in, not even once. I totally forgot.

But I didn't want to end it saying I hadn't made 100 comments so in the last 2 days I've been commenting like CRAZY!

Jan. 27 - 23 blogs
Jan. 28 - 50 blogs (yes 50 today!)

So I just finished commenting a minute ago but I made it, 100 blogs commented. I commented on the same blog only thrice, the other times were different blogs and I found some new blogs too.

Bookie Woogie, New Horizon Reviews, Books Like Breathing and Words, World and Wings are just some of them.

I had lots of fun and found it's really not that much more work to comment. I found I commented more on non review posts. I'm going to make an effort to comment more.

The only thing I'm not as happy about is that I was hoping by signing up my blog would end up with more comments than usual but I must say everyone must have skipped my blog. I only visited a handful of the blogs signed up myself but I was hoping for more people to comment on my blog. Oh well, I still had fun!

Bloggiesta Wrap-Up Post

If I didn't have a headache I'd stay up later but this is about all I can handle for now. I had a great time and can't wait till June. Here are my final stats:

Time Spent Blogging: 12hr 5 minutes
Blogs Commented On: 18
Mini-Challenges Completed: 9 New Ones, 5 old ones (including the one from Book Blather on which comments are closed)
Reviews Completed: 6/33 Not as much as I would have liked to catch up on but between being busy Saturday and headache Sunday, I can't blame myself. At least I got a bunch of little things done.

Favourite Parts of Bloggiesta: Chatting on Twitter. It was great for morale, motivation and asking questions or getting opinions. I also enjoyed the mini-challenges. Unlike the readathon where the challenges detract from my total reading time, doing these challenges still counted as blogging so they helped.

Bloggiesta Mini-Challenge: Website Grader

I decided to do the Website Grader challenge from the last Bloggiesta, courtesy of Bookish Ruth.

I had done this over a year ago and my score was 60 something so I was extremely happy to see my score. I am also happy to see my Google Page Rank is finally a 5!

Here are some things I'd like to work on based on my results:

• Adding Meta Tags and Description
• Make sure all images have alt tags

It also directed me to Blog Grader which is made for blogs. Blog Grader gave me a 79 but I don't know how accurate it is. It also says my feed doesn't match my blog which is weird. How could that be? It looks the same to me.

Bloggiesta Update 5

Today so far I've logged 4hr and 15min of Blogging time which is amazing since I have a splitting headache still. I had to take breaks everytime the pain meds wore off. Not that they took the headache away completely of course.

Anyways today so far I've:

1. Did the following challenges: brainstorm, back-up, goals and joined the forum
2. Scheduled 5 reviews in 2 posts to go up Monday and Tuesday.
3. Commented on three more blogs

I'll try to get some more reviews done today and maybe some of the old mini-challenges but I don't know how much I'll get done with this headache. 

Bloggiesta Mini-Challenge: 2010 Blogging and Reading Goals

I'm doing this as a part of Bloggiesta but I was going to do it anyways so this is my official 2010 goals page.

First I'd like to reflect on 2009's goals:

• I want to write more than just book reviews. I want to write more on books, reading and literacy in general. I did a little of this, not as much as I"d like
  
• I want to get my reviews up shortly after finishing a book instead of having a back log of reviews. Did this well for 2 months and then fell WAY behind.
  
• I want to decide whether to move my blog to wordpress or not and either way, to find a blog design that works for me. I played around with wordpress and decided to stay with blogger. I succeeded in new blog design finally, (Thanks Lily Blue Designs)
  
• I want to participate more with StumbleUpon and Technorati and include a link to follow me on twitter from my blog. I'd like to have way for readers to Stumble my posts too. I use Stumbeupon and added twitter link. I'm still not sure about technorati although I have added some blogs and have button on my blog for others to add me. I'm still working on button for others to stumble my blog.
  
• I'd like to advertise my blog in places other than book places to encourage visitors other than those with book blogs of their own. I haven't really done this. I use entrecard now and I want to put ads on other sites. I just started this.
  
• I'd like to add an easy way for readers to subscribe to my blog. Done.
  
• I'd like to join the amazon associates and get links to buy books through them on my review posts. Done
  

So clearly I wrote those goals and forgot about some of them.

Blogging Goals for 2010

1. Post at least 3 times a week.
2. Make Book News a monthly event.
3. Create one of those other event ideas I had
4. Post reviews within one to two weeks of finishing book.
5. Increase followers with follower giveaways if possible.
6. Write more non-review posts.
7. Get organized with challenges, and not sign up for as much.

Reading Goals for 2010

1. Get through review books I have, catch up.
2. Limit review books I get
3. Read more library books
4. Read older books (I don't want to be a new release only blog)

Thanks to The Book Lady's Blog for motivation to do this post.

Bloggiesta Mini-Challenge: Brainstorm

So Jenn from Jenn's Bookshelf is holding a mini-challenge for Bloggiesta to help us brainstorm some new ideas. First we did a mental mapping chart. I did mine on paper but I redid it on the computer to show everyone so you can read my writing.

The words in circles are what kind of posts my last 5 posts are (that's before I started Bloggiesta) Then I brainstormed ways of extending those posts.

Doing this also showed me that I need more opinion and thinking posts. something other than reviews, giveaways and challenges.

Bloggiesta Update 4

Well yesterday was hectic. After the swimming lessons and birthday party I posted to twitter that I was back to blogging but before I could get much done I realized I was too exhausted to even think, let alone blog. So I took a hiatus and plan to try to make up for it today.

Of course because it's Sunday and I have something I'm planning to do, I have a headache, it never fails. But I'll try my best.

The only thing I accomplished last night before giving up was added announcements to my side bar in my blog.

Bloggiesta Mini-Challenge: Put Your Best Forward

Tempting Persephone is running this one. We're to look through some of our past posts and pick some posts that we feel represent our best work.

I'm working on something similar for my 1000th post celebration so I don't want to link to any of those posts. So I'll highlight some of my best reviews:

Book Whisperer by Donalyn Miller (I took my time, quoted a lot and really expressed my opinion)

Real Real by Emma Mclaughlin and Nicola Kraus ( like my explanation of how the end of the book made me feel)

Anytime Playdate by Dade Hayes (I think a did a good job of getting others interested in this book)

Thanks for this mini-challenge. You'll find these in the sidebar for a while too.

Bloggiesta Update 3

Okay well I'm done for today.

In the last little while I've done 1 hr 45 minutes more of work.

I:

1. Did verify links mini-challenge although I haven't comented about it yet.
2. Updated my blogs on blogged
3. Wrote one review (and posted it)

As for tomorrow, I don't know how much I'll get done. This is my non-blogging schedule:

8am - Wake up, Breakfast, Dressed Etc.Maybe a little blogging
10:15  - leave for swimming lessons (kids)
12:15 - get back home, clean house, ready for party
2:00 - go get birthday cake and other items
3 - Birthday Party
6 or so - hopefully everyone goes home and if I'm not completely exhuasted I can squeeze some bloggiesta time in.

I'm tired just thinking about it.