One of those bloggers...

Agh! How did it happen? How did I become one of those bloggers. You know the sort. The kind of person who posts apologies for not posting more... followed by weeks or even months of silence and more posts promising to pick up the posting again soon.

All I can say is that the end of my maternity leave, I created plenty of posts, all set to auto-publish. Gradually... I've run out of material. Well, I've run out of things that are ready to go, I guess I should say. I still have plenty of ideas percolating. At least a few times a week, I think to myself, "I should write a blog post about that."

This little lady is keeping me very busy. And, I'm at a new job! Altogether, I find myself looking at my list of "rough draft" posts of book reviews that are looking increasingly dated and wondering if I just want to abandon my goals of posting so regularly for now. In years past, I've posted 3 times a week, and for one year, I even took up the challenge of posting something every single day. Looking ahead, I do have some good posts I'd like to share. But, I think I'm aiming for quality, not quantity, and so, I hope my blog readers will forgive me if those posts don't come like clockwork the way they used to.

ALA recaps 2015

I didn't go to the American Library Association's Annual Conference in San Francisco this year, much as I might have liked to. I lived in San Francisco for a brief while (and worked in the TransAmerica Pyramid!) and have always enjoyed going back for visits. But, I've done the next best thing, and read up on other conference-goers experiences there.

Travis Jonker at 100 Scope Notes gives a three-part wrap-up. One, two and three.

The ALSC blog is a treasure trove of conference related posts.

Abby Johnson at Abby the Librarian shares her experiences, especially the Newbery Caldecott banquet.

Paul Signorelli at Building Creative Bridges talks about the warmly supportive and hug-worthy excitement being in San Francisco during Pride Week, as the historic Supreme Court decision on gay marriages was released and has more resources for those who are #alaleftbehind.

Top 10 Reasons I Love Blogging

This week's topic from The Broke and the Bookish is a rewind week - pick your own topic. Here are 10 reasons I love blogging.

It's a great way to keep track of what I've read. Listing what I've read each month and doing a year-end review of what I've been reading is enormously helpful to me. I can go back and re-read a review to refresh my memory, or look at the list of what I've read and think about if I want to change what I'm reading in the upcoming year (more middle-grade, or more sports fiction, for example)

It's opened some great doors for me professionally. Because of my blog, I've been interviewed as a children's literature expert on CNN, had the opportunity to meet and hang out with New York Times bestselling authors and serve on book award committees. I'm also certain that it's been helpful in job interviews, as a kind of portfolio of work that I've done, especially in creating displays or hosting programs.

My blog has been a great way to meet people - other bloggers and librarians, especially at conferences. I enjoy challenging myself to try new things - reading other people's blogs is frequently an inspiration for me to try a new program or add a new book to my to be read list. And of course, I've had the opportunity to read Advance Review Copies and show off some terrific book hauls.

Top 10 Reasons I Love Being a Blogger

Top Ten Tuesdays is a meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. This week's topic is: Top Ten Reasons I Love Being a Blogger.

Here are (in no particular order) my top ten reasons:

Connecting with other bloggers at book festivals or library conferences - always fun!

Having my blog running for several years - it's so great to go back and read old posts. It's like an archive of what I was reading/thinking about at that time.

The feeling of accomplishment - It's definitely a labor of love, but it is very satisfying to finish up a blog post and hit "publish."

Reading other blogger's blogs, and adding to my ever growing Mt. TBR.

I love reading people's comments and keeping the conversation going.

Writing reviews helps me cement my thoughts about a particular book. It is so helpful when I'm doing reader's advisory.

Posting a monthly tally of books that I've read helps keep me on track with my reading goals.

As a bookseller, and then a librarian, I was no stranger to ARCs before I started my blog, but I do think being a blogger has opened some great opportunities for me to snag free books before they're published - it's like peeking into the future, when you get to read an Advance Reader's Copy and just know that this is going to be a hit that everyone is going to be talking about soon.

I love putting a variety of things on the blog: book reviews, book trailers, news from the library world, library program and craft ideas, whatever!

This blog is something that is completely mine. In this economy, I might lose my library job, or have to move across the country in order to stay employed, but as long as I keep paying my web-hosting fees, nobody can stop me from keeping my blog up to date.

Comment Challenge prize

Wow! Special thanks to Lee Wind and MotherReader for once again hosting this year's Comment Challenge. Ah, how I wish it could be Comment Challenge every day - it's so nice to have those conversations with your readers. And I always end up discovering so many neat new blogs. No one was more surprised than me to hear that I was a winner of some free books.

When I got this package in the mail, I literally jumped for joy! Yes, now it's time for my other favorite part of blogging - settling in and reading!

Drama Llama

photo by iregretjumping

Unfortunate rumors are swirling about one of YA book blogger's top celebrities, The Story Siren. It appears that she's plagiarized some material from another blog. I am incredibly bummed out about this.


More posts, with more details, here and here.


There is so much that I like about Kristi at The Story Siren:

• Her incredibly successful (and sometimes controversial) meme, In My Mailbox draws the participation of 300+ bloggers a week. While many have said that these posts seem braggy, "Look how much publishers love me, more than you! My swag! Let me tell you of it!," her apologist answer was that she never asked for all this free stuff publishers send her, and she genuinely wanted to give a shout-out to authors so that their effort in sending out freebies wasn't wasted, struck me as quite genuine.
• Ditto to her Debut Authors Challenge - what a great way to shine a spotlight on new authors. Yes, she's recruited lots of volunteers to help organize what's become a fairly large undertaking, but this is still another really neat way to stay au courant with the constantly shifting world of YA publishing, and honestly has gotten to the size where it couldn't be managed by one person anymore anyway.
• She has a wonderful "camera-ready" presence as a vlogger. How many people can say the same? Good lighting, casual but clean clothing, smooth vocal delivery with little to no stumbling and an honest level of enthusiasm about YA literature all shine through on her weekly videos.

I will say, my concerns with The Story Siren have always been: her reviews are few and far between, and when they do come along, they tend to be rather short, contain plenty of filler from the publisher's copy, and nearly always are fairly glowing. Why are such short tidbits rewarded with an "everyday is Christmas" cavalcade of free books and other merch? I chalked it up to the internet principle of "FIRST!!!" The Story Siren's been around a lot longer than some of these other johnny-come-lately blogs, plus I imagined that Kristi must be awesome at following up with folks - e-mailing PR staff, maximizing any and all exposure for her reviews, being a social media maven and so-on. Stuff, that, I admit it, I rarely follow through on.


I've certainly been in that position myself: sweating bullets over some of the reviews I've written, when I've realized that I used the same pull-quote as someone else, or used the same word. I pride myself on writing unique reviews, always from my own perspective, but I've comforted myself thinking, you know it's the same exact book - it's not shocking that two or more people with similar backgrounds and book knowledge would both describe it with the same word, "charming" or whatever. But whole sentences? Whole paragraphs, lifted word, for word? That's just not right. I await further developments on this whole set of dramatic events with interest. In the meantime, there's a hashtag on twitter, #stopthestorysiren.

Captcha

It seems to be ubiquitous. Everywhere you go, bloggers have their captcha spam-fighting options turned on, forcing you to re-type strange, wiggly, blurry nonsense words in order to prove you're not a robot. Now that the default for Blogger includes, not one, but two very hard to read words (I find myself nearly always having to give at least two or three tries before I get it right) I found this video particularly apropos.



Captcha from Gabrielle de Vietri on Vimeo.


The sad thing is: I don't think most people don't need this much protection. I turned off my word verification and have only gotten a teeny-tiny amount of spam that I need to moderate. More, and more, I find myself not leaving comments at all, especially when faced with a byzantine number of hoops to jump before my comments will even be accepted for blogger approval.


Anyhow, I really enjoyed this video - a very creative and funny use of nonsense words, consistently conjugated - great job!

2012 Comment Challenge Round-up

Hurrah! It's MotherReader and Lee Wind's annual Comment Challenge! I've participated in years past and it's always fun... I feel like I'm a commenting champ these days, and it's hard to remember that I used to be so shy. I've always been impressed in year's past with folks who keep track of every comment during the challenge -- I decided to try and do the same this year. So, here's to enjoying book blogs old and new.

I started listing these, and the list just seemed unmanageable. So, to try to avoid a tragic case of tl;dr, I've divided this up (roughly) by categories.

The lovely sponsors of the 2012 Comment Challenge:

1. MotherReader
2. Lee Wind

Some of my favorites. These are my "go to" blogs. Love you guys!

1. Oops, Wrong Cookie
2. Small Review
3. Abby the Librarian
4. Stacked
5. Forever Young Adult
6. Charlotte's Library 

My new favorites! I've found some new people to follow.

1. Teacher Ninja
2. Storytime Secrets
3. Beneath the Jacket
4. Lisa is Busy Nerding 

The creators: writers, authors, poets, artists, illustrators, etc.

1. Carol A. Bender
2. Julie True Kingsley
3. The Write Stuff
4. Smiling Otis Studio
5. Helena Juhasz Illustration
6. Jessica Lawlor
7. The Patient Dreamer
8. Jen Klein
9. Annie Cardi
10. Think, Kid, Think
11. Stacy Gray Illustration
12. Reading on the F Train
13. Lindsay Writes
14. Sylvia Liu Land
15. Redheaded Stepchild
16. Book Aunt
17. Swagger Writers
18. Teaching Authors
19. Heather Newman Illustrations
20. John Rocco
21. Rena J. Traxel
22. A Journey Illustrated 

Teachers, educators, school media specialists and parents

1. The Castle Library
2. Polliwog on Safari
3. A Teaching Life
4. Teacher Dance
5. Leaning Tower of Books
6. Children's Lit Crossroads
7. Chronicles of a Mountain Librarian
8. Happy Birthday, Author!
9. Writing on the Wall
10. Ms. O Reads Books 

Miscellaneous awesomeness

1. Geekery Converged
2. Ari's Garden
3. Jeff Directs
4. Doggy Montessori 

Librarians and booksellers, a.k.a. "my people"

1. The Happy Nappy Bookseller
2. Books YA Love
3. The Rogue Librarian
4. Crazy Quilt Edi 
5. A Random Hodgepodge of Bookishness 

Known and loved around the book blogosphere

1. Breaking the Spine
2. Parajunkee
3. Greg Pincus at The Happy Accident
4. Green Bean Teen Queen
5. The Story Siren 

Amazing reviewers

1. Book Sake
2. i swim for oceans
3. Not Another Book Blog
4. Winged Reviews
5. Reading Extensively
6. My Words Ate Me
7. Booking in Heels
8. The Book Nut
9. Library Chicken
10. The Children's War
11. Books Together

Booky bloggers

1. Books, Biscuits & Tea
2. Teresa's Reading Corner
3. Mimi Valentine
4. L'Amour Books
5. Melanie's Musing
6. Mug of Moxie
7. Opening Lines
8. Makeshift Bookmark
9. A Beautiful Madness
10. Reading With Style
11. She Is Too Fond of Books
12. Even in Australia
13. The Screaming Nitpicker
14. Bibliophile by the Sea
15. Books are Vital
16. Y.A. Love
17. Turn the Page
18. Five Alarm Book Reviews
19. Dazzling Reads
20. A Cupcake and a Latte
21. Some Like it Paranormal
22. We Need Reads
23. Shabby Reading
24. Lady Book Stuff
25. Reading for a Living
26. YA Bookie Monster
27. Fictional Distraction
28. Coma Calm
29. Bibliosaurus Text
30. Muggle Born
31. See It or Read It 

Itty Bitty Baby Bloggers (aka, Brand Spankin' New!)

1. Unpacking the Power of Picture Books

Altogether, that's 101 blogs commented on! It's actually a lot more than 101 comments... because for many of these blogs, I left more than one comment. It's been great, starting some interesting conversations with a lot of these bloggers. I say it all the time: sometimes I wish the Comment Challenge was year-round. It's definitely more effort, but like most things, you get out of it what you put into it, and I've taken the chance to "meet" some really cool people this go around. And hopefully, we'll continue keeping tabs on each other. So, don't be a stranger, and keep the comments (and conversations) flowing, throughout the rest of the year!

The Betsy Bird Project

Early in 2011, I embarked on a seekrit project. I thought it might be good to see if I could blog everything that legendary blogger Elizabeth Bird did. I got off to a spectacular start, but as the year picked up, it became harder and harder for me to acquire a lot of these books. The library budget being what it is, and non-availability of ARCs on some of these titles made it a real challenge. Normally, I don't have much overlap because obviously, she doesn't review YA (usually) and I do (it's the majority of what I review.) I'm glad I tried it, even though things kind of fell apart during the middle of the year. It inspired me to blog some great picture books. And I got out of my comfort zone and read some interesting, well-written middle-grade fiction. There are a number of books on the list that I read, but didn't review. I marked those with italics and an asterisk. 

1. Perfect Square - Michael Hall
2. Eliza’s Freedom Road: An Underground Railroad Diary - Jerdine Nolen
3. Queen of the Falls - Chris Van Allsburg
4. Manners Mash-Up: A Goofy Guide to Good Behavior - Tedd Arnold, et. al.
5. Words in the Dust - Trend Reedy
6. Won Ton: A Cat Tale Told in Haiku - Lee Wardlaw, illustrated by Eugene Yelchin
7. Fortune Cookies - A. Bitterman
8. Season of Secrets - Sally Nicholls
9. Amelia Lost: The Life and Disappearance of Amelia Earhart - Candace Fleming
10. Hot, Hot Rot for Dada-ji - F. Zia, illustrated by Ken Min
11. Okay for Now - Gary D. Schmidt
12. Zita the Spacegirl - Ben Hatke
13. A Pet for Petunia - Paul Schmid
14. Small Persons with Wings - Ellen Booraem
15. Me... Jane - Patrick McDonnell*
16. I Must Have Bobo! - Eileen Rosenthal
17. Inside Out and Back Again - Thanhha Lai
18. Cousins of Clouds: Elephant Poems - Tracie Vaughn Zimmer*
19. Press Here - Herve Tullet
20. The Penderwicks at Point Mouette - Jeanne Birdsall
21. The Many Faces of George Washington: Remaking a Presidential Icon - Carla Killough McClafferty
22. Ice - Arthur Geisert
23. Fly Trap - Frances Hardinge
24. Vincent van Gogh and the Colors of the Wind - Chiara Lossani
25. Blue Chicken - Deborah Freedman*
26. Kat, Incorrigible - Stephanie Burgis
27. Sidekicks - Dan Santat*
28. My Side of the Car - Kate Feiffer, illustrated by Jules Feiffer*
29. Dead End in Norvelt - Jack Gantos
30. Wheels of Change: How Women Rode the Bicycle to Freedom - Sue Macy
31. The Greedy Sparrow - Lucine Kasbarian, illustrated by Maria Zaikina*
32. EllRay Jakes is Not a Chicken! - Sally Warner
33. Lemonade: And Other Poems Squeezed from a Single Word - Bob Raczka, illustrated by Nancy Doniger
34. Chuckling Ducklings and Baby Animal Friends - Aaron Zenz*
35. The Boy at the End of the World - Greg van Eekhout
36. Nurse, Soldier, Spy: The Story of Sarah Edmonds, a Civil War Hero - Marissa Moss, illustrated by John Hendrix
37. I Want My Hat Back - Jon Klassen
38. The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making - Catherynne M. Valente
39. Bad Island - Doug TenNapel
40. Do You Know Which Ones Will Grow? - Susan A. Shea, illustrated by Tom Slaughter
41. The Chronicles of Harris Burdick: Fourteen Amazing Authors Tell the Tales - Chris Van Allsburg, et. al.
42. Eat Your Math Homework: Recipes for Hungry Minds - Ann McCallum, illustrated by Leeza Hernandez
43. Lola’s Fandango - Anna Witte, illustrated by Micha Archer
44. Breadcrumbs - Anne Ursu
45. Hidden - Helen Frost
46. My Name Is Elizabeth - Annika Dunklee, illustrated by Matthew Forsythe*
47. Peter Nimble and His Fantastic Eyes - Jonathan Auxier
48. The Incredible Life of Balto - Meghan McCarthy
49. Orani: My Father’s Village - Claire A. Nivola
50. Marty McGuire - Kate Messner, illustrated by Brian Floca
51. Around the World - Matt Phelan
52. The Book That Zack Wrote - Ethan Long
53. Hound Dog True - Linda Urban
54. Trapped: How the World Rescued 33 Miners from 2,000 Feet Below the Chilean Desert - Marc Aronson
55. The Cazuela That the Farm Maiden Stirred - Samantha R. Vamos, illustrated by Rafael Lopez
56. The Chesire Cheese Cat - Carmen Agra Deedy and Randall Wright
57. A Little Bitty Man - Halfdan Rasmussen
58. When Life Gives You O.J. - Erica S. Perl
59. Hera - George O'Connor
60. The No. 1 Car Spotter - Atinuke
61. Lily Renee, Escape Artist - Trina Robbins
62. The Unforgotten Coat - Frank Cottrell Boyce
63. Never Forgotten - Patricia McKissack
64. Jefferson's Sons - Kimberly Brubaker Bradley
65. Witches - Rosalyn Schanzer
66. What Do You See? - Martine Perrin
67. Wonderstruck - Brian Selznick
68. Peaceful Pieces - Anna Grossnickle Hines
69. Hopper and Wilson - Maria van Lieshout*
70. Charlie Joe Jackson's Guide to Not Reading - Tommy Greenwald
71. The Fabulous Flying Machines of Alberto Santos-Dumont - Victoria Griffith
72. A Dog is a Dog - Stephen Shaskan
73. Ghetto Cowboy - G. Neri
74. The Meaning of Life and other Stuff - Jimmy Gownley
75. Icefall - Matthew Kirby
76. Nursery Rhyme Comics - Chris Duffy
77. Little Chicken's Big Day - Katie Davis
78. A Monster Calls - Patrick Ness
79. Heart and Soul - Kadir Nelson
80. What Animals Really Like - Fiona Robinson
81. Dragon Castle - Joseph Bruchac
82. Alicia Alonso: Prima Ballerina - Carmen T. Bernier-Grand
83. Belle, the Last Mule at Gee's Bend - Calvin Alexander Ramsey and Bettye Stroud*
84. The Romeo and Juliet Code - Phoebe Stone
85. From Then to Now - Christopher Moore
86. Everything Goes on Land - Brian Biggs
87. The Trouble With May Amelia - Jennifer L. Holm
88. Coral Reefs - Jason Chin
89. Come to Bed, Red! - Jonathan Allen
90. The Luck of the Buttons - Anne Ylvisaker
91. Big City Otto: Elephants Never Forget - Bill Slavin
92. The Princess and the Pig - Jonathan Emmett*
93. Toys Come Home - Emily Jenkins
94. Drawing from Memory - Allen Say
95. A House in the Woods - Inga Moore

Busting the Blogger Blues

Small Review is hosting an awesome event, a follow-up to the Busting the Newbie Blues event she hosted last year. This time, it comes in two editions: Newbies and Oldies.



When did you start your blog?

I started this blog in 2009. It feels like so much longer though (I mean that in a good way.) I had an idea to do a blog featuring different libraries around the world. I love to travel, and always pop by a library whenever I can... I have tons of photos I'd taken of libraries all over the U.S. and Europe, meaning to post them on a blog, but never got around to. I had a livejournal since 2003, which I used mainly to communicate with RL friends who'd scattered around the country. When I realized more and more of my posts were bookish, and that I was less and less happy with LJ's layouts, I finally made the leap and started fresh over here. I quickly determined that posting about library buildings would be hard to keep up with, and decided to try posting book reviews and thoughts about libraries instead.

Do you ever still feel like a newbie?

Yes, absolutely. I compare myself to some of the old-school bloggers on kidlitosphere.org, and I feel like I'll never "catch up" to how awesome they are.

What has been the biggest challenge you’ve faced so far? Did you make any mistakes new bloggers can learn from?

Yeah, my biggest challenge was getting started! I was intimidated to start fresh with a new blog, especially such a public one, and I put it off for way too long!

What did you find most discouraging about being a new blogger? How did you deal with this?

Probably the most discouraging thing was posting for weeks on end with no comments or feedback whatsoever. When I first started, I'd be over the moon if I got one comment per week. I just kept at it. Soon enough, the comments started increasing.

What do you find most encouraging?

The community is so awesome and supportive.

If you could go back in time and speak with your newbie self, what five bits of wisdom would you tell yourself?

• If I could go back in time, I think I would try to take advantage of being a newbie more! I wanted so much to NOT be a newbie, I didn't realize how much potential help I was squandering. Seriously!
• I wish I'd gotten involved in memes sooner. It's a great way to check out new folks and make yourself known. Right now, I'd say the best ones are: Top Ten Tuesday, Waiting on Wednesday, In My Mailbox, Follow Friday. But don't overdo it!
• When I first started, I tried to think of clever titles for all my posts. It turns out that makes for poor SEO (Search Engine Optimization.) Now I just use simple, descriptive titles. For example, one of my favorite early reviews was for Henry Cole's delightful picture book Trudy, about a spirited girl and her pet goat. I named it, "That's Some Goat" in a subtle homage to Charlotte's Web (which I'm not sure anyone, except for me, even got). Nowadays, I'd just call it, "Trudy Review." It takes less effort AND it's easier for blog traffic to find me. Win-win.
• I would definitely not worry about "numbers" as much. Just enjoy blogging for the sake of blogging!

What do you like best about the blogs you read? Have you tried to replicate this in your blog?

I love snarky reviews written by smart, witty, internet savvy people. I don't try to replicate this in my blog, because I just don't feel like I have the knack for truly high-level snark! Forever Young Adult, The Book Lantern and Supernatural Snark are masters at this. I'm not worthy!

The other thing is consistency. I had some blogs I really loved a few years ago, (now defunct) which would have new posts everyday for a week and then disappear for a month or so. I hated that! Conversely, the people that I thought were really "going somewhere" with their blogs created new posts religiously, usually 3-7 times a week. I knew when I started that I wanted to be seen as posting like clockwork. I started by posting 1-3 times a week, and built my way up to blogging every day, or nearly every day.

What do you dislike about blogs you’ve seen? Do you try to avoid this?

Funny, I just posted about this. My biggest, maybe irrational pet peeve is white font on black background. I definitely avoid this.

How did you bring your blog to the attention of so many people?

I don't feel like I have the attention of that many, really! I still feel like one of the smaller bloggers. It's so hard to know how one stacks up against others, especially since there are so many different measures of "success." Numbers of followers? Numbers of comments? Unique daily visitors? I can tell you that some of my most "popular" blog posts, bar none, are those where I've inadvertently mentioned celebrities. And not author celebrities either -  actual Hollywood types. I suppose, if I just wanted to stretch for more numbers, I could make a point of working that into the conversation somehow, but that feels too much like black-hat SEO to me. Not really an honest reflection of what's going on in my blog.

When and how did you get your first ARC (or first few ARCs)?
I must confess to being positively spoiled rotten for ARCs. Before I was a blogger, and before I was a librarian, I got my start at an independent book store in the mid-1990's. My first day, my new boss led me to the staff room where there were two loooong shelves that went around the perimeter of the room. They were stuffed to bursting with ARCs! She told me I could take as many as I liked, and that she recommended I try to read a smattering of everything, at least two books a week. I was free to read during lunch breaks, but should expect to take some reading home, since reading on the desk or while shelving was frowned upon. My eyes nearly popped out of my head! My heart raced with joy! This was, indeed, the best job ever! I felt like such an important insider! I was going get to read SO MANY BOOKS, and NONE of them had even been published yet! It was like peeking into the FUTURE! I worked there for 6 years and amassed an embarrassing number of ARCs. Sometimes when I feel overwhelmed by my To Be Read list, or the piles of ARC's currently teetering by my nightstand, I remind myself to try to stay as humble and grateful I was when I got my first stack of advanced reader's copies.

Busting the Big Blogger Blues

Ruby at Ruby's Reads is co-hosting Small Review's Busting the Blogger Blues event. Ruby asked a few questions  on her blog for experienced bloggers, and I started to comment... and comment... and comment. Finally, I realized this really needs a whole post of it's own! Do check out the comments on her blog though... lots of good discussion there.

1. How in the heck do people find time to comment? Commenting is a constant struggle for me. Does anyone have any techniques to share?

Here are my commenting tips:

I open up a window with my blog, and then open up new tabs with everyone who left ME a comment the past week. I check out their blogs and see if I have anything to say. If I didn't get many comments that week, I'll take a look at my followers.

The other thing I'll do is when I'm looking at a meme with a listy, rather than going from the top down, (the first participants always get more comments) I'll open new tabs for the blogs at the end of the list - I usually aim for about 5, sometimes I'll go for 10.

The final thing that I do is go to the blog of someone I admire - and look at who commented there... then I check out their blogs and comment, because I assume that they've already proven they're the sort of blogger who leaves comments - so maybe they'll visit me and say something next time!

When I'm reading new blogs, I just kind of let my mind drift and see if their post reminds me of anything, or makes me think. Then I post it! I hate the copy and paste poste - it just shows you that someone didn't even read your blog.

Basically what I'm doing here is commenting on: people I already know and appreciate, commenting on blogs where I already know we'll have something in common (aka, the meme we both just did) and then going out and discovering completely new, but already proven to be friendly people.

2. What are the best ways of networking with other bloggers, authors and publishers? Twitter? Facebook? Please don't tell me it's Facebook.

Twittering and commenting on blogs. I limit myself to friending ONLY people that I have met in Real Life for Facebook, so I don't use it for blog networking.

3. How do you snap out of "reading feels like work" ennui?

I read an adult book. Or I watch TV or play a video game to give my brain a break. I hate it when my inner "reviewer voice" starts to kick in for EVERYTHING that I read no matter what. I think of it as just one of the ways that working with books has changed me as a reader.

4. Tell me more about this thing you call "scheduling."

Last year I did post everyday, and it was awesome, but I began to feel a bit weary towards the end, so I'm going back to the system I used to use.

Basically it involves using the 1st through the 15th of the month to get caught up, and the 16th through the 31st of the month to look ahead. Here's what I do - You can really picture this like an "if... then" diagram.

If it's the 1st through the 15th of the month, and I do not have posts ready to go, I work on getting 3 posts a week written for Sunday, Wednesday and Friday of the current month.

If it's the 1st through the 15th of the month, and all my minimum number of posts are ready to go, I start infilling and creating posts for Tuesdays and Thursdays. I may shuffle dates around, so I get a good balance of reviews vs. other stuff, or so that more time-sensitive news items get posted first.

If it's the 1st through the 15th of the month, and all my posts are DONE for the month, I start working on next month. (This doesn't happen that often.)

If it's the 16th through the 31st of the month, and I don't have 3 posts a week scheduled, I work on those (because that means I'm behind!)

If it's the 1st through the 15th of the month, and I DO have my 3 posts a week for the current month covered, I start working on the NEXT month's posts. No more infilling on the current month! And then if those are done, the next month, and so on.

It sounds a little OCD, I know, but I've gotten as much as two and a half months ahead using this system.

Blogging Pet Peeves

What I really ought to do, is use Google Reader more consistently, so that these kinds of things don't necessarily come across my radar. But, here are the kinds of things that drive me craaaazy on people's blogs.


1. White text on black background. 
I know. I know. I've been there. The first website I designed had white text on black background, and I thought it looked so cool. Plus, there's a certain old-school charm for those of us old enough to remember those old-fashioned green and black, or amber and black computer screens. Except, no. It's murder on the eyes, and there's no reason for it.


2. Curlique fonts.
Can't stand it! Keep the fonts simple. There's a few that are good: Verdana, Georgia, Times New Roman, Helvetica, Arial. Don't stray too far afield from those classics.


3. HUGE blog header.
Don't overdo it! Should I know the name of your blog? Yes. Should it be the only thing that I see when I open the page? No! Blog headers should be wider than they are tall.


4. Auto-play music.
That's an instant close the window for me. Can. Not. Stand. It. I don't care how cleverly you got the sound of ocean waves to play or whatever. I don't want to hear it!


5. Misspellings and grammatical mistakes.
I am terribly judge-y when it comes to these. It's so unfair. I know we in the blogopshere don't have the luxury of editors to smooth over our words. I'll forgive the occasional obvious typo. But when I see a common mistake, like "your" for "you're" I'm clicking on the "x" to close a window faster than fast.


6. Sidebars gone wild.
It might start out simply enough... a link or two, some cool widget, a count-down thingie for the next book in your favorite series, maybe an ad or a shout-out to your other favorite bloggers. Before you know it, things get out of hand, and your blog is all sidebar and no content. I know I lean pretty heavily on the "anti-sidebar" side of things. As it is, I feel like my blog already has too much junk on the sidebar, but my followers have asked for this and that. I think your blog should take up about 75% (or more) of the window. Once a sidebar is at 50%, you've got to be offering something pretty special in your content to compete with all that clutter. And I've seen lots of blogs, that easily have 70% sidebar stuff, 30% reviews and whatnot, which is a total turn-off to me.

Enclave review comparison

Small Review has created an ingenious "meta-review" - comparing reviews from multiple bloggers for the "big picture" take on a book. Kudos to her for the great idea - it's a little bit like Rotten Tomatoes for book reviews!


Right now, she's looking at Enclave by Ann Aguirre, comparing reviews from nearly 20 different bloggers, including me. Check it out!

2011 Debut Authors Challenge complete

I challenged myself to read 12 debut authors in 2011 and I'm simultaneously surprised to be finished so soon, and shocked that I didn't finish earlier, since there were more than 12 interesting debut authors that I wanted to read in January alone.

Here's my list.

1 Unearthly - Cynthia Hand
2 Wither - Lauren deStefano
3 Angelfire - Courtney Allison Moulton
4 Across the Universe - Beth Revis
5 XVI - Julia Karr
6 The False Princess - Eilis O'Neal
7 Lost Voices - Sarah Porter
8 The Goddess Test - Aimee Carter
9 How I Stole Johnny Depp's Alien Girlfriend - Gary Ghislain
10 The Latte Rebellion - Sarah Jamila Stevenson
11 The Great Wall of Lucy Wu - Wendy Wan Long
12 The Demon Trapper's Daughter - Jana Oliver

I'm pleased I gave this challenge a try... I had thought that it might be the sort of thing I'd be accomplishing already without even realizing it, but going back and looking at my reading logs, that wasn't the case. So, it did take a bit of effort to seek out new authors, but it was definitely worthwhile. I'll post again at the end of the year, and see how many more debuts I read.

Waiting on Wednesday

Here's a book that looks fascinating to me. I'm a little disappointed that it doesn't come out until this November! Feels like a long wait.

Faking Faith

by Josie Bloss

Flux

November 2011

After a humiliating "sexting" incident involving a hot and popular senior, seventeen year old Dylan has become a social outcast - harassed, ignored, and estranged from her two best friends.

When Dylan discovers the blogs of homeschooled fundamentalist Christian girls, she's fascinated by their old-fashioned conversation themes, like practicing submission to one's future husband. Blogging as Faith, her devout alter ego, Dylan befriends Abigail, the group's queen bee. But growing closer to Abigail (and her intriguing older brother) forces Dylan to choose: keep living a lie or come clean and face the consequences.

48-Hour Book Challenge Finish Line 2011

This year I only managed a paltry 10 hours or so for the 48-Hour Book Challenge. Nowhere near as impressive as the 30+ hours I managed to log last year. I got off to a nice strong start... but then, it turns out, hammocks are truly ideal for napping, and I slept for a good bit on Saturday. Summer Reading Club at the library started this past week, so I must have needed to recharge after a week of hard work making sure our kick-off events all went smoothly.

What a crazy weekend! One thing after another kept coming up. An aquarium emergency that needed my attention... a family wedding on Sunday... some friends from out of town, and this was my only chance to see them for a while.

I did get some reading done, however, and managed to polish off the following books.


The Demon Trapper's Daughter - Jana Oliver
Hurricane Dancers - Margarita Engle
Skinned - Robin Wasserman
Thunder Over Kandahar - Sharon E. McKay


Ah well. There are those times that "real life" just takes over, and this was one of them. I'm sure I'll get more done next year!

Don't bother me...

...I'm reading. Why am I so excited to do so much reading this weekend? It's Mother Reader's 6th Annual 48-Hour Book Challenge. And, I have a brand-new hammock! It's a beautiful day outside, and I'm going to enjoy it.

Sixth Annual 48-Hour Book Challenge

Hurrah, it's that time of year again! It's Mother Reader's Sixth Annual 48 Hour Book Challenge, set this year for the weekend of June 3-5. That means for some people, they'll be starting today. As for me, I'm getting started on Saturday.

In years past, I've taken the 48-Hour Book Challenge as an opportunity to catch up on creating blog posts. Friends, I cannot even begin to describe to you the deliciousness of having a full month's worth of blog posts all ready to go. This year, my pile of books to be reviewed is as tall and scary as ever... and yet, I think I may be decadent and devote most of my marathon this year to simply reading, since my TBR pile shows no sign of abating, either. 
Can't wait!

Knitting and blogs...

Veteran blogger Liz Burns once famously said about blogging, "When people say, 'Where do you find the time?' my half-serious, half-joking answer is, 'I don't knit' - meaning I don't have a hobby like knitting or scrapbooking; instead, I blog."

Balderdash, I say! Like peanut butter and chocolate, knitting and book blogging are two great tastes that go great together.

Here's my round-up of crafty book bloggers:

The Head Cardigan at Cardigan Nation alternates posts between book reviews, news items of interest to YA librarians and deliciously cozy and stylish cardigan recommendations. What could be better?

Alea at Pop-Culture Junkie alternates posts between cover critiques and her astounding array of knitting projects. Don't miss her "Weekly Dose of Crafts" entries, sure to provoke envy and admiration of her knitting skills.

Do check out Knitting Letters: A to Z, chronicling a woman's quest to knit the entire alphabet. It's not updated very often, but when you see how much work goes into a single post, you'll see why. The gorgeous photos of works in progress alone make it worthwhile. However, each entry delves off into language, geography and history, and has a meticulously footnoted bibliography, making it all the more impressive. She's already made it all the way to the letter U.  Check ou her blog, and soon you'll be cheering for her, just like I am, "Keep it up! Only 5 more letters to go!"

Sad to say, this last one looks like a dead blog, as it hasn't been updated in ages, but it is swoonworthy, all the same. It's called Children's Lit 'n Knit, and it's put together by Shelly. Just as one might expect, each entry pairs a children's picture book classic with some knitting or crocheting projects. Cute knitted giraffes to go with A Giraffe and a Half by Shel Silverstein. Swoon! Adorable little crocheted dolls based on Ladybug Girl by Jackie Davis and David Soman. Swoon, swoon! A sweet, fluffy, felted white terrier based on Good Boy, Fergus by David Shannon. Landsakes, I could nearly die from the wonder of it all. Please, Shelly, come back! Myself (and most of the kidlit blogging world, I suspect) are hungry for more of these marvelous knitting and book match-ups.

Have I missed any knitting/book blogs? Let me know in the comments.

photocredit: knit cover book http://www.flickr.com/photos/emmajane/2442509396/

Bloggiesta Wrap-up

I got to a rarin' start this go around for Bloggiesta. While getting warmed up for it, I've been taking part in the Comments Challenge hosted by MotherReader and Lee Wind.  Ah, how I wish every month was Comments Challenge... I've had so many interesting folks stop by my blog, and I've discovered and reconnected with so many great people!

I had been planning to completely redesign my blog this weekend... but a night of insomnia a couple of weeks ago, meant that I got that done much sooner than I'd planned. I like it! It's still a template, but a customized one, and similar enough to the way things looked before that I'm very happy with it. I was able to do a few things like make the text portion wider (blogs with a verrrry skinny space for posts, surrounded by a million ads, buttons, gadgets and widgets on either side are a total pet peeve of mine.)

Here's what I got accomplished this weekend:

• I finally got around to correcting a minor glitch - madiganreads.com now redirects to www.madiganreads.com, which simply means that readers won't get an error message anymore if they forget to type in the www. It wasn't that hard to do... once I spent a few hours figuring out how to get to the right "edit" screen. :\
• I corrected some typos... quite a few of tiny things that had escaped my notice before.  I hate typos, so stamping out a few of them was very satisfying indeed.
• I cleaned up some labels. I had a number of "orphan labels" where I only had one entry that applied. I consolidated quite a lot of those.  Goodbye, "librarians" label.
• I added additional labels to a ton of posts that needed them.
• Speaking of labels: I corrected something that has been bugging me for a while "newbery," "caldecott," and "printz" are now all capitalized.  Hurrah!
• I had my blog analyzed by Website Grader - something from a past mini-challenge.  Really neat.  Apparently my blog has too many images? Interesting - I always feel like I don't have enough.
• Updated my blog roll.  Removed a few blogs, added a few blogs. I like to mix it up.
• As I mentioned earlier... I've been taking part in the Comments Challenge. I decided to step up my game and go for 10 comments a day, not just 5.
• I'm still kind of stunned -- I can't believe I did it. I've got blog posts for the rest of January and most of February written and scheduled! Phew!
• Best of all! I finally got my official review policy all polished up and posted! Check it out! I'm so happy with it.

I didn't keep track of how many hours I spend working my blog this weekend, but I can tell you this: "sleep" has consisted of 4-hour naps between midnight and 4:00 am, and I am thoroughly tuckered out!