The Kari AnnAlysis

Last year, I experienced Book Blogger Appreciation Week from the outside. I checked the website, learned about new blogs and hoped that the ones that I already read kicked some major book blogging butt.

This year, I decided to take part. I read through the instructions, looked through my posts and picked the ones I thought made me look the best. I chose 5 reviews that I thought showed that I was decent at what I do. I was semi-pleased with the posts I chose, but quickly realized before I even sent it in, that I had some work to do.

So here are some things I am going to work on for the next year:

*Don’t only post book reviews.I love reading blogs where people just write. I have seen some awesome topics that are still bookish, but are just so much more than blogs. We are writers. That’s what we do. And I was actually checking through a #bblog chat on Twitter recently and someone said something along the lines of “if I wanted to read only reviews, I’d go through a Barnes and Noble.” I never thought of it like that, but I think I worry too much about reviews and not just writing. I know there are many times that I think of a good post, but I forget about it and it never happens. I am changing that. I have already started posting ideas. I’ll start a post with just an idea or two so that I don’t forget them and every time I log on, I see the looming post. Plus, all I really had to turn in this year were reviews and I saw that a lot of the posts I liked the most that others turned in were just posts about books in general, or authors.

*Interview some authors.When I first started blogging, I never thought this would be possible. But now, through Twitter especially, I talk to authors on a daily basis. It’s still crazy to me. I have recently found that most of the authors that I have been reading are on Twitter and will usually write me back or retweet my posts that involve them. Plus, in most of the books I get from publishers, they tell me this could be available if I wanted. I guess I am just now feeling comfortable enough to do this. Maybe….

*Don’t do all memes.I love memes because I love the traffic it brings to my blog. I write these reviews for me. I started writing so I would remember, if I ever needed to, what I liked and didn’t like about a book. But, I still like seeing that other people are at least coming by to see what I am writing about. I am going to stick with a couple of memes though. I still love Teaser Tuesday and will always check Musing Monday and Booking Through Thursday and judge those based on the topic and how much I can discuss it. But this goes back up to the first bullet point of just doing reviews. This helps me do a little more writing, but sometimes it feels like just a cop out and something easy for me to do to get a post up. I think I need to push myself to come up with unconventional topics, rather than wait for someone else to think of them. Now there is one meme type that I really want to work on. I have seen a couple of bloggers do posts with book covers that are similar. I have started making folders and putting similar book covers together. Hopefully in the next couple of months I will be able to get at least one post out of this! I think it’s cute and creative.

*Post more. There are times in the past year that I went a week or two without posts. There are days when I check other blogs every day or so. If they don’t have new posts for me, I’ll stay away for a while. I don’t want people doing that to me. On the other hand though, I do want these to be stellar posts that I may need to spend a day or two working on.

*Schedule posts. I started doing this already. This week, for instance, I posted a review on Tuesday and had posts scheduled for every other day during the week. Now, I don’t have to worry about my posts for at least 5 more days,  unless something comes up that I want to get out there. I have already felt like this has taken a bit of pressure off of me to get posts done. I finished 3 books in the past week and have scheduled their reviews to be posted over a 5 day period. I used to just post them as soon as I got them done, meaning some days I had 2 or 3, then I would go another week without a review.

*Keep my theme awesome. I am a big fan of the theme I have now. It allows me to be creative and change it all the time. I am very phase-y, so I like change. Changing my picture allows me to do that. Speaking of, it’s about time. I think I’m about done at the pool for the year. One thing I do need to work on is spacing. The post I published earlier this week about cupcakes looked great before I saved it, but after I saved, no matter what I did, it didn’t post the way I wanted it to. And no matter how many times I changed and saved, it stayed the same. Simplicity is best

I feel like I am doing a lot of rambling, but I am trying to keep my head clear and let you guys know what is going on in there. New year, new leaf.

What did you learn from other blogs this year?

Books Read:
Gatecrasher
2 in the Hat
Running from the Devil
Infinite Days
Crepe Makers’ Bond
Majix: Notes from a Serious Teen Witch
Love Remains
Diary of a Beverly Hills Matchmaker
Click here to check out the reviews on all of these books

Pages Read:
2280

Bookmarks Given:
1 bookmark: 0
2 bookmarks: 1
3 bookmarks: 1
4 bookmarks: 3
5 bookmarks 3

Favorite Book:
I would have to say this is a tough decision for me – I had a couple of books that I really liked, but I’ll have to give this month’s award to Running from the Devil.  It was a great, great read!

Least Favorite Book:
My least favorite book was Gatecrasher. I really loved the Sophie Kinsella books and think I had too many expectations for this.

Goals for August:
Honestly, I have nothing major in the pipeline for August. I have a few books on NetGalley that I need to get through, a couple that just came out this week. I want to make sure I get on a better schedule with them and get to them before they are released. I also have some books coming to me from the Crazy Book Tours. I have found a lot of new bookish websites lately. A post on this is in the pipeline!

Now, I did put a book in the grave yard this month, which I hate to do. I started Stephen King’s Duma Key. I think I was just intimidated by the length of it. It’s like a million pages long. LOL Not really, but I was also concerned about getting some of my galley’s done in time and just had a lot on my mind. I heard if I keep at it, it will pick up, I just couldn’t get into it.

Oh, I did finish my one challenge I am taking part in this year. The Crepe Makers’ Bond put me at 25 YA Books for the year so far. I was more of Chick Lit girl last year and wanted to branch out. I thought 25 would be tough. I guess I underestimated myself. Not sure if I can double it or not though by the end of the year.

Aside from reading, I kind of had a big month, with personal accomplishments. I started writing in May and actually finished up the first draft of my book in July. I am super excited about it, although I know I still have a lot of work to do on it. I am going to go back through and add quite a bit of scenes and spice it up a little. I am trying not to get TOO excited, because I know how hard it is to get a book published, but I am just happy to say that I sat down, started writing and did it!

What did you guys do this month??

So my mom and her friend were geniuses when it came to the wedding. All of their ideas were so creative, even down to the guest book. My mom said she looked everywhere for something to match our colors, which were black and gold. She wanted something classy, but simple. She looked at all the wedding and craft stores and couldn’t find anything.

So when she and her friends were on a girls trip to the mall, they decided to hit up borders, where they hit the jackpot. They found this:

Isn’t it cool? Nice little leather book. The pages have gold around the edges. It’s very fitting. And yes, you can see on the front, mom had our names and the wedding date put on in gold.

And on the inside, for the first 30 or so pages, she had the art teacher at her school write Name and Address in pretty handwriting.

After the first 30 pages, she left the rest blank. She knows that I like to write and thought it would be cool if I used it to write about our marriage from the beginning. As much as I do love to write, I am bad about writing in these. I wrote in it the day she gave it to me, but haven’t since then. I need to get in there and write everything down while it’s still fresh in my memory.