Google Reader Sharing - are you doing it?

How many of you use Google Reader to organize the blogs you want to read? My guess is that most people do.

Of those who do use it, how many of you use the Follow and Share functions? If you don’t, you are missing out on a fabulous tool.

Why is it so fabulous? It’s like having your own personal shopper picking out the best of the blogosphere and bringing it to your attention!

Here’s how it works.

• On the left sidebar of your Google Reader, click on People You Follow. You’ll then choose people to follow by entering their email addresses or blog names.
• Now, whenever those bloggers click Share on a post in their own Google Reader, it will appear in your Reader (it will clearly show who shared it, so you know where it came from). The post they share may be from a blog you’ve never heard of or that you don’t subscribe to, or it could be from one you do subscribe to.
• When you click Share on a post in your Google Reader, it will appear in the Reader of anyone who follows you. This is a great way to bring attention to posts that you really appreciate, especially when those posts are on blogs with a small following.

These Shared posts are often the cream of the blogosphere. Ones I’ve seen recently include details about BEA and other upcoming events, controversial bookish topics, beautifully written posts from a wide variety of (non-bookish) blogs, drawing attention to important causes, and many other topics.

On the right side bar of my blog, about halfway down the page, you’ll see a box titled Posts That Caught My Eye. These are the most recent things I’ve Shared on Google Reader, in case you are interested.

So, to summarize, using the Follow and Share functions is like having a team to scour the blogosphere for all the best posts. Why WOULDN’T you want this?!

Are you a MD/DC/VA-area blogger?

UPDATE: The directory is growing! As of September 2010 we have over 30 bloggers listed.  Please continue to invite local bloggers to add themselves to the database.

I'm compiling a list of book bloggers in the greater Maryland, DC, and Virginia area to us connect with each other for local bookish events.  Those of you in Delaware, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, or somewhere else within easy driving distance are welcome too!

If you would like to be included please add your info to the form below.

The answers you provide will be shared only with the others on the list. 


Note: If you provided me with your info via Twitter I'd love it if you filled out the form anyway.  That way I know all the info is correct.




The answers you provide will be shared only with the others on the list. 

Note: If you provided me with your info via Twitter I'd love it if you filled out the form anyway.  That way I know all the info is correct.

(Please let your blogging friends know about this - I want to get as many bloggers as possible on my list.  Thanks!)

Keeping Track of Challenges and Review Books

Most bloggers I know have some way of organizing the books they plan to read in the immediate future, especially those bloggers who accept review copies.  Below is how I do it - what do you do?


About two years ago I started using an Excel file to keep track of things.  It has worked WONDERS for me, especially in regard to reading challenges and review copies.  (This post doesn't cover my extensive TBR list - that one requires a post all it's own!)

Reading Challenges 

• When I decide to join a challenge I figure out how many books I'll need to read.  For example, the Mind Voyages Challenge includes 12 books over 12 months.  Then I code my chart to include enough spaces for that challenge.  With the Mind Voyages Challenge I filled in 12 places on my chart with MV. As I choose the books I want to read, I update my chart. This month I decided to listen to GENESIS so on my chart I wrote Genesis (MV).  And if my reading plan derails one month, no big deal - I'll simply move that MV to the next month and make it up later.  Looking ahead on my chart, I can see that I need to read about 5 specific books each month in order to complete the challenges I've signed up for.  That is a reasonable goal for me and reminds me not to sign up for any other big challenges.
  

Review Copies

• The best thing my chart does for me it that it keeps me from overcommitting.  If I get a pitch for a book to review and it's one I'm interested in, I look at my file and see when I can reasonably expect to read and review it.  I give that info to the publicist/author/whoever and let him/her decide if my timeframe is acceptable (I'm usually scheduling 2-3 months out).  If so, I write the title in that month on my chart.  By setting my own deadline with the person sending me the book, I feel like we are both benefiting; I'm committed to read/review the book at a time that is convenient for me (AND I won't leave it wasting away on my shelf) and the sender knows to expect a review at a specific time.
  

If you are like me and are fascinated with charts and the way people keep organized, you are welcome to view my chart.  Of course there are some (many?) of you who will think this is completely over-the-top crazy, but that's okay.  My house may not be neat and tidy but my reading schedule certainly is!


And now I want to hear from all of you.  How do you keep track of what you plan to read for challenges?  If you accept review copies, how do you decide when to read them?  How do you keep track of what you've committed to?

2010 (Age 32) Blogging Goals

2009/Age 31 Goals: Review

At the start of 2009 I set some goals for myself regarding this blog. Let's take a look at those and see how I did (and remember, for the most part I'm tracking things from one birthday to the next).

1. I hope to read/listen to 100 books this year. Between audio (33 books) and print (70 books) I DID meet my goal. There were also 12 books that I abandoned.
2. I don't plan to sign up for too many challenges in 2009. My reasoning was that I wanted to be sure I was reading what I WANTED to be reading. In the end I signed up for 11 challenges and completed all but one of them.
3. I will not accept as many books for review as I have this past year. I was more comfortable with the number of review books I accepted this year but I'd still like to reduce that number a bit more.
4. I will have more guest posts on my blog. This didn't work out the way I hoped; the few friends who volunteered to do this all bailed out on me for various reasons. Ah well.
5. I will endeavor to do at least one Mom & Son Book Club post each month. HA! That SO didn't happen. In fact, Kiddo and I only did 3 Mom & Son posts in 12 months; that is just sad.
   

Not bad, in the end. And to be honest, I don't really remember writing those goals last year so I'm lucky that I got any of them accomplished!


2010/Age 32 Goals

My goals for this year are a bit different. Hopefully I'll be able to accomplish them.

1. Read more of the books that I actually own. I've had so many come in from Paperbackswap.com over the past year that I've been a bit overwhelmed. To help with this I've signed up for the TBR 2010 Challenge and listed only books that I already have on my shelf. I'm also declining the vast majority of review requests for that reason.
   
2. Continue to vary my reading. I don't like to stick to any specific genre for too long, nor to any specific time period. I've done well with that so far and I'd like to continue choosing books from different time periods and genres.
3. Don't worry about the number of books read in each month or in the year as a whole. This past year I found myself stressing when I didn't meet my "expected" number of books for a given month and I don't want to do that this year.
4. Sign up for challenges only if I plan to complete them and only if they include books that I really do want to read THIS YEAR. So far I've signed up for seven challenges for 2010 and I have two that continue from 2009 and I'm not feeling overwhelmed.
5. Host more read-a-longs. I had such fun with the two that I did this past year and I want to do more. I'm thinking of one for THE COLOR PURPLE, possibly another "monster" themed one in October, and I've already got one in the works for March/April (details coming soon).
6. Spread out the responsibilities in my book club. I love my book club but I'm feeling extremely overwhelmed by it over the last few months. I really need to step back from my responsibilities in that area in order to make it actually enjoyable for me again. Hopefully the other members will be open to helping out more.
7. Read more with Kiddo and have him read more to me. I need to make it a point to spend time doing this each week. It won't happen every day, but twice a week is a good goal for us.
   

Seven goals doesn't seem like too many I don't think. Besides, they are all important in different ways.

Here's to meeting goals in 2010!

Comment Policy (an admin post)

I love the interaction that comments provide on my blog and I appreciate the time it takes for readers to post comments. Thank you to all my commenters!

A few quick notes about comments:

• I do my best to reply to all the comments on my blog. If you subscribe to the comments for a particular post you will most likely see a reply to your comment within a few hours, or at most a day.
  
• Please be polite. Feel free to disagree with me or with other commenters but do so in a kind way rather than a rude or ultra-confrontational manner.
  
• The written (or typed) word is easy to misunderstand since it is devoid of facial expressions and tone of voice. Keep that in mind when you write your comments.
• I love it when commenters provide links to other books I might enjoy, or to their review of the same book I reviewed.
• I do not appreciate comments that are blatant advertising; they will be deleted.
  

Again, I do love the conversational aspect of comments so please keep them coming!


(This post in not in response to any problems with commenters; it is simply an admin post that I'll be linking to from my sidebar.)

Donate Books Locally, Be Part of a Larger Community

If you are anything like me, you have stacks and stacks of books in your home that you either will never read or have already read and don't plan to re-read. What if those books could brighten someone else's day this holiday season? Well, they can!

Online Publicist came up with a way to honor Dewey, a beloved book blogger who passed away last year, AND to help local communities at the same time. Here's an excerpt from her post:

Here's what you do:
*Gather up the books you can live without. It can be 4 books, 10 books, or 20 books!
*Find a worthy group you would like to donate your overflow books to. It can be your local library, a literacy campaign (mine will go to the literacy center I volunteer for), or overseas. There's a great list of book donation sites here on the ALA. Find a charity that speaks to you!

Complete details are at this link but the idea is simple - give some of your excess books to make someone else's day brighter.

I'm putting together a box of books to donate to my local library, a place I absolutely could not live without. I've already reviewed the library's donation policy so I know which books they will and will not accept; now all I have to do is gather the books and drop them off!

This is something that you can participate in no matter where you are in the world or how many books you have to spare - a single book given to the right person or organization could mean the world. So share the joy of reading this holiday season, in honor of Dewey, in honor of bloggers, and in honor of literacy around the world.

Happy reading to all!

Cleaning House (er, Blog ...) in November

Just letting you know that there will be some random posts throughout this month. I'm doing my annual blog housekeeping and my goal is to get everything updated and organized. I'll be writing posts explaining my Mom & Son Book Club and other semi-regular features and adding links to these explanations in the sidebars. I'll also be updating the buttons to reflect the challenges I'm currently participating in. There will probably be other posts as well.

If things seem a bit odd around here this month, just blame it on Homer ...

A Year In Stats

Back on June 11, 2008 I started using Google Analytics to track my blog's stats. Just for fun I decided to look back at my stats for one year and see what interesting things I find.

• I had a total of 12,122 visitors during the year 06/11/08 to 06/11/09. Those visitors came from 113 countries or territories and they visited a total of 21,079 times.
  
  
• The average reader spend 1.29 minutes on my blog per visit.
  
  
• My first tracking month I had about 40 visitors per day, but it could be as few as 14 or as many as 79. That same month this year I averaged 50 per day with variances between 27 and 96. (This doesn't include subscribers who read my blog through Google Reader or another service.)
  
  
• In that year I had two days with lots more visitors than any other days. My guest post by Laurie R. King drew in 213 readers in one day and my list of my favorite posts for last year's Book Blogger Appreciation week brought in 179 in one day.

I also looked at the posts that have gotten the most attention over the past year. These are the top posts that people arrive at through searches or continue to visit for various reasons. Here are the top 5 most popular from this first year of stat tracking:

1. author Laurie R. King's first guest post
2. the list of books my book club has read
3. my review of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao - this is the one that gets searched for the most
   
4. the list of books I reviewed last year
5. author Laurie R. King's second guest post

Personally I find these results fascinating. I love seeing what interests people and why the visit - and return - to my blog. At this point I haven't given any thought to how I can use these stats to improve my blog ... I'm just having fun KNOWING this stuff.

How about you? Do you use a stat tracker? Which one? Do you use the results to change your blog in any way? If you don't track and don't want to, why not? I'd love you hear you thoughts on this.





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Help Requested - Blog Template Revamp

I've decided that I want to revamp the look of my blog. Not that I don't like green, but after a year and a half I'd like a change. :)

My question to you all is ... who should I use? I know several of you have had wonderful experiences with people who've designed fantastic new blog templates for you.

Who can you suggest to me? Names, links, and contact info would be wonderful. And what should I expect to pay for a service like this?

Please post your suggestions in the comments. And thanks a million!

Goals For The Coming Year - Age 31

In lieu of New Years Resolutions I've decided to set some reading goals and limitations for myself for the coming year.

1. I hope to read/listen to 100 books this year. If you recall, on this blog the year goes from Nov. 4 of the current year to Nov. 3 of the following year (from one birthday to the next). Last year (age 30) I read/listened to 81 books, so I think my new goal is reasonable. I'm already up to 18 books since my birthday so I'm off to a good start.


2. I don't plan to sign up for too many challenges in 2009. Before signing up for a challenge I will carefully consider if it will actually help me read what I want to read already and also if it will not cause me lots of stress to complete it. If either of those are not true, I won't be signing up. I'm also going to create a page to keep track of all my challenges through the year. Hopefully that will be up within the next week.


3. I will not accept as many books for review as I have this past year. Although I loved many of the books I've received from authors and publishers, accepting books for review severely limits my reading flexibility. I feel guilty if I don't read those books in a timely manner, and I end up putting off books that I really want to read. So I will be more careful about which books I accept this year.
   
4. In conjunction with #3, I will have more guest posts on my blog. Several friends have offered to read & review books that I've received from publishers but simply haven't had time to read myself. It will be fun for me (and hopefully for you) to hear what they say.
   
5. I will endeavor to do at least one Mom & Son Book Club post each month. Kiddo and I have been slacking in our reading together lately and I want to make it a real priority for us.

I think that's all for now. Wish me luck in 2009!

BBAW - Wednesday's Giveaways and Blogging Tips

Today's BBAW activity is to answer two questions, so here we go ...

What is one thing you wish you knew about blogging when you started or what advice would you give a newbie blogger?

If you want comments, give comments! Visit other bloggers and make thoughtful comments on their posts ... in most cases they'll head over to your blog to say hi and check you out.

Oh, and make sure you have something posted that is interesting to other people (unless you are really just blogging for yourself which is perfectly fine too) ... if your visitors like what they read, they'll likely come back again.


What is your best blogging tip?

If you want to know how to do something, just ask! Sometimes I post a question directly on my blog, sometimes I ask it to a specific blogger in their comment section. Bloggers love to help! If you want to try something new, make changes to your blog, or just wonder how something is done, they are totally willing to give advice and instructions. That's how I got my blog to the place it is now.

As a side note, whenever I do get some good advice in response to a question, I tag it with "Blogger Tips". You can click on that link in my tags (in the right side bar) and check it out if you're interested.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

And here are the contests I've heard about so far today. Click here and here for previously announced contests, and check back to this post throughout the day as I'll continue to update it.

My Friend Amy has contests going on here and here and I'm sure there will be more later!

Savvy Verse and Wit is giving away a 1-year subscription to Poetry magazine.

Enter to win an audio book of The Last Lecture at Book Club Classics.

The Book Smugglers have a fantasy/romance book up for grabs. They also have another contest going on, and the details are at the bottom of this post.

Bookish Ruth has all 4 books in the Sally Lockheart series by Phillip Pullman up for grabs today.

There are 10 signed copies of Spy Goddess: Live and Let Shop available at Book Club Girl.

Dewey says if you like Seinfeld then you'll like the book she's giving away.

You can get a copy of Guernica AND send money to a charity over at Fashionista Piranha.

Google Reader & the Comment Dilemma

I love Google Reader for it's organizational capabilities. It's so easy to keep up-to-date on all the blogs I like to read. At the same time I also hate it.

I used to read each blog on my list by actually clicking over to the blogger's site and scrolling through the posts. By doing that I could see which posts generated the most comments and occasionally learn something new and interesting by following the discussion in the comment section. Yes, I'm one of those bloggers who really does read through all the comments below each post.

Now that I'm using Google Reader I only click over to posts that I want to comment on. That means I'm missing out on all the good comment discussions and it's depressing me. I feel like part of what I love about blog reading is gone. Of course I realize that I could still click over to each post but then what is the purpose of having a handy Reader?

Anyone else in this situation or am I alone in the blogosphere?

Tracking My Blog Stats

A big THANK YOU to Natasha at Maw Books for introducing me to Google Analytics. I'm having lots of fun tracking the # of visitors to my site and all that goes along with that. I've been blogging since January but July 10th marked exactly 30 days since I starting tracking statistics, so I thought I'd share a bit of what I learned about my blog.

About my visitors ...

• # of visits = 1,165
  
• # of unique visitors = 620
  
• % of those who are 1st time visitors = 53%
  
• total # of page views = 1,961
  
• average time spent on my site per visit = 2.5 minutes
  
• average # of pages viewed per visit = 1.7
  

My most popular pages ...

• my first book giveaway - yeah, I figured that would top the list
• the post where I combined Weekly Geeks and Show & Tell
• my interview with author Kristy Keirnan
• and the list of books I've reviewed on this blog
  

Search engine terms ...

• most searches were for specific book titles or authors
  
• many searched for my blog by name ... please bookmark me once you find me!
  
• some wanted to know what books they should read by age 30 ... not sure there's a real list, but I can make lots of recommendations
  
• one was looking for Sgt. Heather Johnson -... that's not me, sorry.
  

Other things I've learned ...

• One person spent over an hour on my blog and read 18 different posts - woohoo!
• Blogger and Google both send me tons of referrals
• 4% of my visitors come from what google calls OTHER sources (not direct traffic, referrals, or search engines) ... where exactly are they coming from?!
• I don't know if google analytics counts the people who subscribe to me on google reader or other reader programs - any idea?
• I check my stats way too often during the day

I must say, I do enjoy this stat thing. It's sort of like a pat on the back letting me know I'm doing a good job. People wouldn't be coming back if they didn't like reading what I wrote, right? That's how I see it and that makes me happy. Thank you all my wonderful readers! :)

Tag Update & IComLeavWe

We got back from Boston this morning completely exhausted from a crazy wedding weekend. I'll have a picture or two to post later on, once I've downloaded my camera. FYI, kiddo was completely adorable as the ring bearer. Oh, and I drank WAY too much the night of the wedding (usually one or two drinks is the limit for me ... this time I lost count at 6!) and was completely miserable the next day. Stupid, stupid, stupid ... but so much fun at the time! I got a bit of reading done and should finish Unholy Grail within the next day or so. Keep an eye out for my review, and for pics from the wedding, over the next few days!

Tag Update

I added some new tags to my posts and I want to take a quick minute to explain them. All my book reviews were always tagged BOOK REVIEW. Now they will also include one of the following: Fiction, Non-Fiction, Memoir, Graphic Novel, or Creative Non-Fiction.

What is Creative Non-Fiction? According to one website:

Creative Nonfiction may include dramatized biography, compilations of articles and essays and book-length memoirs. CNF must go beyond an expression of the self. The personal experiences should connect with the rest of the world and include some kind of research (i.e. secondary research of primary research where the writer interviews other people about the experience) and thus connects the personal experience to the rest of the world. CNF includes such fiction techniques as dialogue, description, point of view and character development.

So if you are looking for a particular type of book I think my tags will make it easier to find something you're interested in. Let me know what you think!


IComLeavWe

The sign up list is open now! Join us for a week of intense blog reading and comment leaving at the end of July. Click on the button below for details or to sign up.




IComLeavWe: Join the Conversation


That's all for now!

Tidbits

First off, I added a link in the upper left sidebar to all the books my book club has read. The link takes you to a list of books. From there, if you click on the title or author it takes you to my book club's blog where you'll find a recap of our meeting. You won't find a traditional book review, but you WILL find random thoughts from the group and often, discussion questions or links to additional info.

Second, I just figured out that Blogger has a new feature. If you use Google Reader you can import ALL the blogs you read into your Blog roll in one quick & easy step! I've been putting off updating my Blog roll because it takes so long - now I'm glad I waited because this was SO simple. So now YOU can check out all the people that I'M checking out every day.

Third and finally, although I don't usually mention NEWS type items here, this story absolutely floored me. Please read it if you haven't already. I mean, I KNOW teens think they know everything - I certainly thought so when I was a teen - but these girls have no idea what they've gotten themselves into! My son is 6, and I had him when I was 24. It is a tough job, being a parent; I wouldn't trade a minute of it for anything, but it IS really hard ... and tiring ... and time-consuming ... and life-changing ... and ... and .. and ...

I do hope that reporters follow this story for the next 10+ years ... I wish the girls the very best, but I'm afraid to see how things turn out down the road ...

Children's Books, Harry Potter, Lost, and other Randomness

Thanks to Book Chatter for turning me on to this cool link on Paper Cuts. Anyone who loves children's books or needs to shop for them should definitely check it out!

Harry Potter fans - check out the VERY BRIEF prequel that JK Rowling did for a charity event. Read ABOUT it here, and actually READ it here. It's very short but cool all the same.

As a side note, I've finally let kiddo watch the Harry Potter movies without fast forwarding anything. Out of all the movies, do you know the only two things that even partly give him the creeps? The basilisk (giant snake) in movie 2 and the creepy mer-people in movie 4. He's much braver than I am!

My Friend Amy has a great new challenge going on that ties in with one of my favorite shows, Lost. Click on the button to check it out. The challenge includes 5 books and we have until the end of the year to read them, so I'm definitely in ... piece-of-cake!

FYI, I've only watched the first two seasons so PLEASE no one drop any hints about what happens next. And no, I don't know which books I'll be reading yet but I DO know I'll be participating.

Blog help needed - again! This time I want to know how to make a tag cloud. I actually don't like them all that much but my tag list is getting out of hand ... I mean, it takes up A LOT of my right sidebar. So can anyone tell me how to do the cloud thing?!

And of course, here's my daily reminder about my book giveaway - don't forget to enter! I'll give an extra entry to you if you help with the tag cloud thing. :)

Changes to Blog Template - coming soon!

Just a head's up that I'm going to be messing with my blog's template tonight. I'm trying to convert to a 3-column format. I don't know how long this will take, or if I'll get it up quickly ... so if you're trying to get on here and having issues (or if the screen keeps changing on you) that's what's going on.

Wish me luck!