New Year's Challenge-Day 13 and 14

 

Okay I oopsed yesterday.  I had day 13 scheduled to post but it didn't.  I hit 'save' instead or 'publish.'  So my error now means that once again I am combining days.

Day 13

Share a Blogger Horror Story

I think one horrific experience I had was learning of Picasa and seeing all my blog pics on there so I started deleting them from the site, not realizing I was deleting them from my blog. Suddenly my blog was empty!   Talk about panic.  I was just a few months old and first impressions were critical!  I never was able to replace all images even as I didn't have anything backed up yet.  Foolish Newbie Blogger...Needless to say, lesson learned.

Day 14 

Blogging Wish List of 2014

• To inspired readers to look into different books.  
• To get a new blog layout.  I am working on learning HTML but I still see so many amazing blogs that I am envious of their pages, sidebars, etc.  
• To go to BEA or other large Con.   I cannot afford it this year but being this is a wishlist here you go! :)
• More active followers, commentors on this blog
• Print Arcs being offered/sent from publishers. I want them to want me to be involved. :)
• To REALLY connect with a couple other bloggers.  To make some real friends.  Even it is is just online (emails, chat, skype, etc) through this business.
• To read several AMAZING books this year that I utterly love.
• To co-host a blog event/hop
• To exceed my reading Goal on Goodreads!

So there they are.  Some big, some small.  

This was the end of the New Years Eve Challenge. In case you missed any here are the other days:

DAY 1:  My Blogger Resolutions 

Day 2: My Pros and Cons of blogging.

Day 3: 2013 books that I am sad I missed.

Day 4: THE BOOKS OF 2014 I WON’T MISS.

Day 5: The worst book of 2013 

Day 6:  Best book I read of 2013

Day 7 and 8:  TOP TEN BOOK BLOGGER PET PEEVES and My FAVORITE BOOK BLOGGER MOMENT

Day 9 and 10: Cons or Events I Hope To Attend and New Things I Will Be Doing This Year

Day 11: TBR Shelf: How Many?

Day 12:  How do I plan on getting more followers this year?

 

New Year's Challenge-Day 12

 

Day 12 

How do I plan on getting more followers this year?

 

Well, actually great as follower numbers are I instead will strive more for loyal followers.  I would rather have a handful of people would come to this blog and like what they see, maybe get some book ideas or just learn more about books they like that to have a large number of followers who MIGHT stop by 1-2 times a years, usually just for a giveaway hop.  While I will still do hops I want to focus more on quality content and activity involvements.

I do plan on more interaction on other blogs, facebook pages and Goodreads.  While I have a twitter account I must be honest, that I do not use to very well for contacts so not nearly as active there.  Commenting on other blogs, challenges etc will be a big focus.  

Regardless loyal, repeat followers I my main focus.  And if there is something I can do to get you interested, as always, please let me know.

New Years Challenge Day 11

 

Day 11

TBR Shelf: How Many?

 

*Clears throat*........*Clears throat again*....

 An embarrassingly high count has yet to be completed. 

 I currently have over 4000 listed and a many more I am still adding as I list my books I own.  There are SO many books I want to read.  Many are series' so those can add up fast but it varies greatly what I have listed.  I am hoping that by the end of this year, my list of books I own is complete so so that adding books to my TBR starts to stabilize and that in 2015 I can actually start to make progress toward lowering that number over time.  Yet it will be high for many years.  After all, there are still wonderful books I have yet to hear of, and even more that have yet to be written.

New Year's Challenge-Days 9 and 10 combined

 

Well I didn't have much to say for day 9 so I am combining it with Day 10

So Day 9 was  

Cons or Events I Hope To Attend

Well, there never seems to be much near where I love that is affordable.  There are a few Comic and Anime cons I might check out but not much else within a few hours drive.  Being money is extremely  tight this year, travel or high cost events are out.  I live in Northern/Central California so if anyone knows of anything in the Sacremento/San Fransisco type areas let me know! :)

Now for Day 10! 

New Things I Will Be Doing This Year

Now this is quite a bit!  

• I want to get more interactive things going so I will be going mini games on my blog and/or Facebook page.  Some will be for prizes, others just for fun!
• I am going to try and finish on my book list of books I own, that way I can go through my TBR and separate books I do not own into a wishlist.  My TBR is so long I need to slit things up a bit better.

New Year's Challenge-Day 7 and 8

 

So I was unable to post on the 7th for this challenge so I am doing both the 7th and the 8th today.  

Day 7 

TOP TEN BOOK BLOGGER PET PEEVES

In no particular order:

1)  Being asked to review books that go against my review policy.  When I state I am not accepting ebooks yet still asked.  OR nonfiction that I do not review.  It does not take long to skip my policy or peruse the types of books I read.  I organize by genre on my blog, and Goodreads so seeing what I like should be relatively easy.  So them I put in the uncomfortable position of either accepting a book I do not want or having to decline.  And sometimes, when I decline ebooks stating that I have too many (as I cannot take electronics to work sites so print books are always easier for me) they send it to me anyways!   This can lead to my next peeve.

2)  Pressure.  Be it reading, reviewing, deadlines, declines, reader demands, publisher demands, author demands, etc.  Everyone wants something and it is impossible to please everyone. It can quicly become overwhelming, especially to a new blogger still learning the ropes.  Pressure to go to cons, events or tours.  Pressure to buy books that I cannot afford to read or giveaways for followers, etc

3)  Book bashing or low blows.  I hate seeing people leaving negative reviews of books the never even read.  Or tried to read.  They hate something the author did or stands for so they give it a bad rating and review.  The author is a person and the book is a story that one should be able to keep separate.  The book might be quite good but due to a personal annoyance a person will bash a book they never picked up.  Or perhaps they simply heard about a book or read the synopsis and decided the book is not for them.  No need to review or rate what you never actually read!  Just my opinion.  Also, no matter how bad a book, using insults against the author, publisher, etc is never necessary and is quite rude.  There are other more product words one can use to describe their displeasure. 

4)  Captcha- Grrr...The bane of trying to leave comments on other blogs.  I understand protecting against spam but it also discourages readers from reaching out!  I wish those that use captcha would disable it and simply spend a few minutes filtering comments.  One could set them for being viewed before being published.

5)  Lots of GIFs.  These can be quite distracting and when one is tired or in a hurry can be frankly annoying.  Every once in a while they are fun to express certain things.  but if I see a lot of them in posts I often will stop following a blog.  

New Years Challenge day 6

  

Day 6

Best book I read of 2013

This was WAY to tough.  My opinion changes everything I read a new book or as time passes.  However, here are a few that I considered top books that were published in 2013

 

What 2013 title did you love?

New Year's Challenge-Day 5

 

Day 5

The worst book of 2013

Well, I didn't really read many books that were bad that came out 2013.   With the exception of 2 DNF's (one due to major plagerism) but all 2013 pulished titles I read were decent ti excellent.  So I will simply show the worst of what I read in 2013.  Those were:

   

Then Came the Evening just was not at all type of book with the writing style.  Hush, Hush graphic novel was utterly disappointing with character changes and the fact that that it doesn't even cover 1/3 of the first book!   

 

What was your disappointment for 2013?

New Years Challenge-Day 4

 

Day 4:

THE BOOKS OF 2014 I WON’T MISS

     

What about you?  What books are coming out that you plan to get and read right away?

New Year's Challenge-Day 3

 

Day 3-2013 books that I am sad I missed.

Well, that can be a long list.  Some I own but didn't have the time to read, others I could not obtain for financial reasons.  And finally some I didn't get far enough in the series to read the latest title yet.

These are some of the books I missed reading.   Please note that I intend to still read these titles and that there were (sadly) many others as well but these are some that are currently stuck strongly in my mind

  

 

New Year's Challenge Day 2

 

My Pros and Cons of blogging.

In no particular order...

Pros-

Lots of great new book suggestions and ideas- I love blog hopping an seeing and reading about new books or when people tell me of a book they loved.

Free Books-be it hearing of free ebooks, Arcs, early releases, etc giveaways, swaps, etc. 

Sharing my love of books with others.

Getting to know some great authors  Be it emailing each other over a book or post or just reading interviews and others guest posts.

Encouragement  to read more.  Reading now feels more rewarding.  A little pressure can be good to push me to finish more books.  Even better when it pays off by someone else taking an interest in the book.

2014 New Year's Challenge Day 1

   

DAY 1:  My Blogger Resolutions   

Be more active in content.  

November and December were pretty dead months for me.  I had no extra posts ready to fill in time gabs.  I do not want to do that again.  So I want to work ahead more to have back-ups.  Alsoto have a better schedule so that there is a good variety of  blitzes, giveaways, reviews, memes, and other posts.  

To catch up on my review books.  

I accepted a lot of books for review thinking I had a lot of time and was approved for more books that I thought and ended up with a HUGE list of books I committed to.  I quickly found myself way behind when I listed them all down.  So this year is catch-up!  I will probably be getting a lot less books this year as my focus will be on what I missed.  but I still plan to share some great 2014 books as well so fear not about new books!  

To better connect with other bloggers.