I hope you are having a wonderful holiday season! For me, December is a month to step back a bit from blogging, so I haven’t had a lot to say, and no time to post when I DO have something to say. But it’s time to get back to my books!
2014 is almost at a close, so I want to do a wrap up post or two before I head into next year with new goals. First a look at where I’ve been….
In 2014 I had both reading goals and blogging goals. Today I will talk about my blog. I liked the look of the old blog, but I was ready for a change. With spring coming, I decided to go with a spring look and put together some new graphics using ‘He Has Risen’, a scrapbooking kit by Connie Prince.
Originally I’d planned to change it up quarterly, with graphics for each of the seasons, but to be honest, I’m still happy with the purple, so I have no plans to update anytime soon. Instead I want to work on content.
One thing I did was to eliminate my weekly posting of Contests and Giveaways. I’d been doing this for about a year, with limited success. Though I tried to update every Friday, I often fell behind, and had no reason to think anyone actually found it useful. About the same time, I’d started a Facebook page for my blog where I post links to my reviews as well as other fun stuff I find on the interwebs. I often share links to giveaways there, where it is much easier to just click share, and to be honest, I think readers found this more helpful. So I just quit posting to the blog, and a no one has mentioned the missed it, I think it was the right decision.
Another thing I did to help with my blogging is to participate in Bloggiesta several times throughout the year, as well as join the Bloggiesta Facebook page. For the most part, I use this to catch up with all the things I SHOULD have done but didn’t, but also for new ideas about resources. This is where I learned about Riffle! And I also learn there is more I could be doing! If you haven’t participated in Bloggiesta before, check it out. The next one is coming up next month!
One thing I didn’t do so well on this year was to post reviews on ALL the books I read. I like to do this because it helps ‘stick’ a book in my mind. If I don’t write a review, often six months later I don’t even remember reading the book! I’ll probably be mentioning this again when I post my reading wrap-up later this week, but for now, I will just say I hope to do better!
One other thing I hope to do is find a better way to DISCUSS the books we read, rather than just post a review. This also helps stick the book in my mind. I have a couple of ideas I hope to work on early in 2015...just as soon as I catch up on my reviewing! LOL!
Another thing I am knocking around is moving my blog to Wordpress. I’m not sure WHY I want to do this. I don’t really have any issues with Blogger, but everyone tells me Wordpress is better. If you have an opinion on this, please leave a comment. Tell my WHY I want to move to Wordpress….or why I should just be happy with what I have!
And please DO leave a comment. I have just (TODAY) installed Disqus on my blog to manage my comments and I have no idea if I did it successfully. But I’m pretty sure that if it works, it will my having an actual discussion, with notification of replies to comments, much more likely. So leave a comment and let me know if it works! Thanks! And Happy New Year!
UPDATE: I tried...but I can't seem to get Disqus to work on my blog. After I installed it, the comments box completely disappeared! I have removed Disqus for now, and don't know if I will add it back. Do you have Disqus installed on your Blogger blog? If so, how did you get it to work?
UPDATE: I tried...but I can't seem to get Disqus to work on my blog. After I installed it, the comments box completely disappeared! I have removed Disqus for now, and don't know if I will add it back. Do you have Disqus installed on your Blogger blog? If so, how did you get it to work?
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