Ambassador of Books ~ Book Club Madam ~ Blogger Gal

Monday, January 25, 2010

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!

19 comments:

Ryan said...

Good luck on your goals for this year and I look forward to reading your progress on them.

KyleeJ said...

Good luck! I've got similar goals for this year. My little one is about to turn 4 (/sob) and I try to get 20 minutes of reading time with her everyday. There are some days she just refuses to sit still for that long. =)

Serena said...

good luck with your new goals, though I'm sure you'll do well given your progress on the 2009 goals!

Anna said...

Those are some good goals, and I wish you luck! I also plan to accept fewer review copies (I'm doing good on that front) and reading more of my own books while clearing away the review copies on my shelf.

--Anna
Diary of an Eccentric

Heather J. @ TLC Book Tours said...

Ryan G - Thanks!

KyleeJ - That's a great goal - good luck!

Serena - Thanks.

Anna - Ah yes ... clearing the shelves ... a lofty - and difficult! - goal. :)

bermudaonion said...

Great goals! I love the one about not worrying about the number of books you read!

Michelle Fluttering Butterflies said...

Those sound like excellent goals to have! Good luck :)

Carrin Mahmood said...

Loving your blog, good luck with the goals. I am doing a blog for our book club. So far it has just been little niblets to enhance our read for each month, but I'm thinking it needs more....something? I will definetly post a link to your blog as one of my favorites!
White Bear Girl

Alyce said...

Good luck with your goals! One of my goals is similar to your of signing up for things that include books that I was already planning to read.

Heather J. @ TLC Book Tours said...

bermudaonion - Yes, it is CRAZY the stress we put on ourselves over unimportant things, isn't it?!

Clover - Thanks!

White Bear Girl - Thanks for coming by! I just checked out your book club blog and posted a comment - hope that was ok. :)

Alyce - I love those "pat-yourself-on-the-back" types of challenges. ;)

Valerie said...

those are good goals for this year.

I enjoyed the Dueling Monsters read-a-long, so if you do that again this year, I'm sure I'll participate :-).

Rebecca Reid said...

good goals! Best of luck in the new year!

Heather J. @ TLC Book Tours said...

Valerie - That's good to hear! I'm pretty sure I'll do it - or something like it - again, so stay tuned.

Rebecca - Thanks!

Cyndel said...

I would love to see a read-along for The Color Purple. I've already read it, but it was great. I'd definitly read it again.

Heather J. @ TLC Book Tours said...

Cyndel - Great! I'm definitely going to do this in the summer sometime so stay tuned.

Dawn @ sheIsTooFondOfBooks said...

Heather - you did really well with your goals in 2009. Some things were beyond your control (guest posts), and I'm sure you and Kiddo read a bunch, even if you didn't specifically post about them.

Good luck to you in reaching the goals you're setting for this next year.

Heather J. @ TLC Book Tours said...

Dawn - Thanks for the encouragement!

Coffeegrljapan said...

A read-along sounds like a fun idea! I've never participated, but the dueling monsters esp. sounds interesting and any read-along sounds like a good idea anyway!

Heather J. @ TLC Book Tours said...

Coffeegrl - I'd love to have you participate in one of my readalongs - it is a lot of fun to read with other bloggers and chat about the books!

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