Showing posts with label book blogger love-a-thon. Show all posts
Showing posts with label book blogger love-a-thon. Show all posts

Sunday, 24 February 2013

Book Blogger Love-a-Thon: Wrap Up (#LoveAThon)


I've had an awesome day taking part in the Love-a-Thon! I'm writing this a bit early as it'll post around 5 am my time when I will be snuggled up in bed fast asleep...unless The Archived forces me to keep reading late into the night in which case I'll either be reading or passed out with a book on my face again.

I've found so many epic blogs and been recommended soooooo many others. I've stashed all the addresses in a spreadsheet because it's going to take me ages to check them all out. I'm blown away by the epicness of all the bloggers taking part and I'm looking forward to hanging out on their blogs a bit more and staying in touch with them.

I've loved all the challenge answers I've seen - from creative poems to heartfelt letters - every one has been epic. I've picked up so many tips and added more books to my "perfect for book poetry" mental list, not to mention a massive list of books I really need to read :)

Anyways, it's late and I'm running out of brain power and positive adjectives so I'm going to sign off here. It's been a blast guys!

Book Blogger Love-a-Thon: Mini Challenge 5 (#LoveAThon)


And it's time for the final Love-a-Thon mini challenge!!!
Mini Challenge #5! It's relatively simple, this challenge. All you have to do is share about your top blogging moments so far! It can be the events you’ve gone to, the reviews you’ve written, the connections you’ve made because of blogging, or whatever else comes to mind. Once you have your post go live at 8 P.M., link up on either of our blogs and visit everyone else’s posts to see what their favorite blogging moments were!
There have been so many awesome blogging moments for me. It's hard to think of all of them because I get caught up in remembering how great each one was and then I get distracted lol :) So here are some of my highlights:

My first unsolicited review book. It was an interesting read but when I received a later review book that I adored that I tightened up my review policy. I'm fussy about leaving my bookish comfort zone and I don't want to negatively impact review books.

My first follower! I purposefully didn't tell anyone I knew about my blog until I had a follower purely because I wanted that first person to be following because of the blog, rather than because of knowing me.

My first comment was cool, but my second blew me away. It was on my review of Shiver so I wasn't expecting it at all. It was really polite and chatty and I was astounded anyone would choose to leave such an awesome comment on my shiny new blog :)

Taking part in the Magnificently Magic Read-a-Thon. This wasn't my first read-a-thon, but it was the first one I adored every minute of. I loved the twitter chat, met loads of awesome bloggy people and got a a little bit of reading done. I also managed to post daily updates which help when I'm looking back.

Getting my custom design done! I had my blog design done by Lori @ Imagination Designs and I absolutely love it. Lori was brilliant about getting things exactly as I wanted them and I love my design as much today as I did when I first saw the completed version, maybe even more given all the compliments!

Getting picked by Vicky @ Books, Biscuits and Tea as her favourite discovered blog of 2012. I pretty much ran around the room alternating between happy dancing and screaming. My Mum may need therapy lol :)

My first twitter chat. It was incredible, intense, insane...and introduced me to the joys of tweet chat :) I chatted with loads of bloggers about books, blogging, life, snacks and pretty much everything. I love twitter chats!

Saturday, 23 February 2013

Book Blogger Love-a-Thon: Mini Challenge 4 (#LoveAThon)


We're heading towards the end of the Love-a-Thon now. Here's challenge number 4:

Mini Challenge #4! Write a letter to your blogging self and post it on your blog at 4 P.M. For the blogging oldies, you can write about whatever you’d like - advice you would give your younger self, things you would tell yourself to stop doing, things you’d tell yourself to continue doing, or things you’d tell yourself to start doing. If you're a newbie blogger, your directions are a little different. Write a letter to yourself in the future. Talk about the stuff you like so far and what you hope to accomplish in the future. Once you have this posted, you can link up on either of our sites and then go around and check out everyone else’s letters!
Dear Claire,

It looks like you've made it through a bunch of Love-a-Thon challenges today! Go you! Here are some tips to help you keep up this streak:

When it comes to blogging, it's really easy to get overwhelmed which is why you need to schedule more posts in advance. So it means you won't be posting as soon as you've read a book - so what? It is pushing you waaaaaay past your limits trying to read and post like that and as awesome as blogging is, your health is more important.

Don't worry about gaps. The more you get used to scheduling, the less gaps will bother you because you will choose when they are. You can't change the past so let those past gaps go and move forward with a positive attitude.

Start keeping a closer eye on your review backlog. Yes that review backlog. The one that is almost at 20 books. Start chipping away at it - you've read the books, so organize your thoughts and get them all typed up. This will also help you with the scheduling thing!

Keep a closer eye on your comments - they are there, they are awesome! Respond to people who've taken the time to comment, and try and comment back on their blogs more whenever you can.

Try to tweet more. You've met some incredible bloggers on twitter so try using it to connect. Plus if you're having a bad health day/week/month, twitter is a quick and easy way to let people know you are still around.

Above all, remember why you love blogging!
Me

Book Blogger Love-a-Thon: Mini Challenge 3 (#LoveAThon)


It's time for another Love-a-Thon Mini Challenge :)
Mini Challenge #3! For this mini-challenge, we are going to ask you to pump up the music with a book playlist post! Book playlists can be done in any number of ways. First, they can be made up using Spotify, YouTube, or just a list of song titles on your blog. Second, they can be one you made up for a certain book, one you made up for A LOT of certain books, or it can be one that an author made up for their book that you happen to be a fan of. Regardless of which way it is done, share your book playlist with us on a post set to go live at 12 P.M. As always, there will be a special place on both blogs for you to link up. Feel free to visit the other participant’s blogs to see what playlists they came up with!

I pretty much suck at putting playlists together because I have weird muscial tastes. My MP3 player has almost every kind of music on and what I listen to on any given day really depends on my mood. The idea of putting music to a book scares me, which is ironic because most of my music is from movie soundtracks. I do love reading the playlists put together by authors though!

I first came across the idea of a book playlist with Ill Wind by Rachel Caine and I adore that every book of hers includes a playlist so what better to pimp here?! Below is her playlist for the most recent Morganville book Bitter Blood (playlist belongs to Rachel Caine, all links lead to youtube where available - videos belong to youtubers, songs and lyrics to the musicians):

'Seven Devils' by Florence + The Machine
'Haunted' by Kelley Clarkson
'Cold Morning' by Kitty Kat Stew (couldn't find)
'Sonata Rapidus Revamp' by b.hantoot (couldn't find)
'I Disappear' by The Faint
'Big Wheel' by The Bridge
'Black' by Danger Mouse & Daniele Luppi (feat. Norah Jones)
'Fresh Blood' by Eels
'Killing My Dreams' by Elysion
'Good Idea' by Peter Himmelman
'Immigrant Song' by Karen O, Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross
'The Recluse' by Cursive
'Oblivion' by Winter in Eden
'Haunted' by Evanescence
'Things Have Changed' by Bob Dylan
'Afraid' by Sarah Fimm
'What If I Were Talkin' to Me' by Louise Goffin (couldn't find)
'Victoria' by Krypteria
'Snow White Queen' by Evanescence
'Somebody That I Used to Know' by Gotye (feat. Kimbra)
'Young Blood' by The Naked and Famous
'Stare into the Sun' by Graffiti6
'Second Chance' by Peter Bjorn and John
'Who Wants to Live Forever' by Queen
'Bullet in My Hand' by Redlight King
'Dark Horses' by Switchfoot
'Soldiers' by Otherwise
'Strangeness and Charm' by Florence + The Machine
'Ease My Pain' by Declan Flynn
'Gold on the Ceiling' by The Black Keys
'In My Veins' by Andrew Belle (feat. Erin McCarley)
'Natives' by blink-182

Book Blogger Love-a-Thon: Mini Challenge 2 (#LoveAThon)


It's now time for the second mini challenge of the Love-a-Thon.
Mini Challenge #2! This is your second opportunity to win something from us! For this challenge, we ask that you get deep and poetic (or not-so-deep but still poetic!) This is how the challenge will work: Grab some of your favorite books (it can be any amount) and make up a poem with the titles alone! That’s right people, we are doing some book spine poetry. We ask that you have this post set to go up at 7 A.M. There will be a place for you to link up this challenge, just like the previous one. If you have time, please go around and look at what others did for their book spine poems!


Insatiable killer hair
looking for Alaska.
A Breath of Magic,
no humans involved.


Book Blogger Love-a-Thon: Mini Challenge 1 (#LoveAThon)


So we are three hours into the Love-a-Thon and it's time for the first mini challenge :)

Mini Challenge #1! It's time for the first mini-challenge (and your first chance to win an awesome prize!). Since it's a bit early on in the day, we'll make it easy for you. Here's how it will work: There are four categories - best reviews, best book discussion posts, best blog design/layout and best random category (which you get to make up!). Your post should go live at 3 A.M. with 3-5 favorite blogs for each of these categories. There will be a place for you to link up to these posts on my blog and Katelyn's blog (and it's the same linky, so feel free to link on just one of our blogs!). You can then hop around and see who everyone else picked out for this challenge!

The award for best reviews goes to Mist @ Bookaholics Book Club. Mist always has awesome reviews. She manages to be fair and explain what she did and didn't like about the book, adding in her favourite quotes and thoughts on the cover. My favourite reviews of hers are Fever, Under the Never Sky and Need.

The award for best book discussion posts goes to Jenni @ Jenni Elyse! Jenni always has the best discussion posts on everything book related. Some of my favourite posts of hers are Distractions, Audio Books (Love Them or Hate Them) and Time to Move On. She's even inspired me to have the confidence to do my own discussion posts!

Books, Biscuits, and TeaThe award for best blog design/layout goes to Vicky @ Books, Biscuits and Tea. She recently revamped her blog and I adore her new design. It really fits with her personality, it looks professional and it's easy to navigate and use.


The award for best blog for making me smile goes to April @ Good Books and Good Wine. April has the best writing style ever and visiting her blog always makes my day. She balances snark, sarcasm and raving about awesome books perfectly :)

Book Blogger Love-a-Thon: Kick Off and Interview (#LoveAThon)


The Book Blogger Love-a-Thon is being hosted by Katelyn @ Kate's Tales of Books and Bands and Alexa @ Alexa Loves Books from 12am-12am EST today. It's a brilliant event where bloggers get to spend an entire day celebrating everything they love about blogging while connecting with new bloggers and finding great new blogs to follow.

Part of the Love-a-Thon is an interview swap with the awesome Faye @ A Daydreamer's Thoughts :) It's been great getting to know Faye better and the perfect way to kick of the event. So without further ado, here is Faye's inteview:

Name five bloggers who inspire you or who you just love.
Brodie @ Eleusinian Mysteries; Because she supported me from the start, I’ve known her for about eight years now and her blog posts always make me love her a little bit more.
Sarah @ Saz101; Another who supported me at the start when I really needed it, she’s a fun, lovely, and amazing person, and her blog posts are so spectacular that I try not to read them all the time to avoid the pores of jealousy.
Michelle @ Fluttering Butterflies; She’s been doing this for SEVEN years, if that’s not inspiration to every beginner blogger, I don’t know what is. But, on top of that, all of her posts are well-thought out and I love how personal her blog becomes. Oh, and she’s a smashing person herself!
Daphne @ Winged Reviews; Having met her a few times in person, I know that she’s someone I really like talking to and getting to know better, but I also know how hard she works offline and then how much work she also puts into the blog and it’s inspiring to me. Her posts are always really informative and interesting to read as well.
Alexandra @ Alexandra Scribblings; If there was ever an award for a blogger who could write in powerful, alluring, fantastic sentences, it would go to Alexandra, hands down. She always blows me away with her writing and makes me want to jump into her brain to share her most wonderful thoughts! And again, not to mention that she is also just a super lovely and incredible girl too.

Blogging can get tough, what makes you look past that to continue blogging?
It is also fun. It can get tough, especially when I’m busy (like I have been for like, the last month or so) so I struggle to get posts written in time or forget to send important e-mails, etc, but then I remember that when I do get that post written, people will be reading it and some will comment and respond, and I know that all that hard-work and tough parts will all be worth it. Besides, the blogging community is just... there are no words to explain how amazing the community is. They help to make it all worth it. Which is saying a lot as I never thought I would still be blogging almost a year and a half later!

Do you have a favourite genre to read? If so, what is it? If not, what are your top three?
I’m one of those readers that likes variety in my reading, because I’m usually a bit ADHD and need things to keep me interested. I would bawl my eyes out if I had to read the SAME genre over and over again. So choosing just one favourite genre is too difficult for me. So my top three are: Fantasy, Paranormal, and Contemporary.

Are there any books/genres that you feel you will never read?
Historical fiction, for some reason, is a genre that always makes my stomach sink. Not sure what it is about this one but if I hear the words “Set in Elizabethan times, Roman times, Victorian times, etc”, I usually stop reading the synopsis and carry on. I have no idea why because I love history and the few historical fiction books I have read, I absolutely adored. It’s very odd.
But the book I will NEVER read is Fifty Shades of Grey.

What do you love most about blogging?
Without sounding too repetitive, the blogging community is definitely high on my list. Especially now I’ve met so many of the bloggers I’ve come to know at blogging events. Everyone is so friendly and welcoming, and while we have our bits of drama, in general we’re a great bunch of people who all just want to share our love of books with other bookworms. It is the first time I’ve really connected with people over books and that, to me, is just the best thing about it all.

If you could travel back in time to when you started your blog, what piece of advice would you give yourself?
Don’t accept or ask for too many review books! I heard this piece of advice when I was starting out but I was certain it would never be a problem for me. But it turns out it was. It’s so easy to get caught up in the “shiny”new things but a lot of the books I’ve accepted haven’t been great reads, or have arrived along with others, or arrive when it just starts to get busy at work and so my reading and staying on top of it all just fell down the slide a bit. So, if I could stop myself from doing that in the first place, I would.

What are your top five books and why?
This was always going to be the trickiest question! How do I narrow it down to five? Here are five of my favourites, in no particular order.
- Harry Potter Series (Yes, this counts as ONE book)
- Noughts & Crosses Trilogy (See above)
- Divergent by Veronica Roth
- Black Heart Blue by Louisa Reid
- Lucas by Kevin Brooks

If you could live in the world of any book or series (as yourself), which would you pick?
It would make sense to choose a none-threatening series to live within but I think I’m going to have to pick the world in Seraphina by Rachel Hartman simply because the world sounds so fascinating! The idea of dragons and half-dragons is so amazing that I couldn’t not want to live there. I just think it would be so interesting and magical and brilliant. Yes. There is where I’d love to live.
 
 
Typecast

Faye's blog is awesome so I'd definitely recommend visiting. Just click the button on the left to be transported :)
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