Bloggiesta update - Saturday night

Bloggiesta Update #1

I. Reviews

A. Reviews to prepare and post:

The Night Gardener by George Pelecanos
Good Things by Mia King
Of Bees and Mist by Erick Setiawan
Groundswell
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Schaffer and Annie Barrows

B. Create template posts for future reads for the ARCs I've received, blog tours I've signed up for, and the ARCs am waiting for:

I HATE PEOPLE by Jonathan Littman and Marc Hershon
The Richest Man In Town by W. Randall Jones
My Forbidden Desire by Carolyn Jewel
Loving Rabbi Thalia Kleinman: Sex and Romance in God's House by Gary Morgenstein
One Scream Away by Kate Brady
The Phoenix: Firestorm by Joseph Allen
Hunter by Campbell Jefferys
My Cousin Caroline: The Pemberley Chronicles by Rebecca Ann Collins
Loving Mr. Darcy: Journeys Beyond Pemberley by Sharon Lathan
Shimmer by Eric Barnes
The Natural Laws of Good Luck: A Memoir of an Unlikely Marriage by Ellen Graf


II. Miscellaneous To Do Items:

A. Clean up my blog tags, archives, blog reviewed list - pending

B. Improve my blog template - can I come up with an interesting photo or eye catching art work, clean up sidebars and remove outdated contests, add a favicon and gravatar, look up and into installing plugins. - pending

C. Update my challenges.

D. Come up with a better system for keeping track of ARCs requested, ARCs received, reviews to be posted.

E. Prepare and catch up on correspondence.

F. Prepare for first two author interviews. Very excited to meet with Dorothy and Thomas Hoobler, authors of the samurai mysteries with Seikei and Judge Ooka on Wednesday. Arrange interview with Gary Morgenstein, author of Jesse's Girl.

G. See if there are other housekeeping items to add to the list.


III. Bloggiesta Mini Challenges

A. Challenges completed:

Jill at Fizzy Thoughts - visited 12 new blogs and a few ones that I visit often.

Emily from Emily's Reading Room - set up google alerts. I suspect that my alerts were too broad and I'll end up narrowing them in the next few days, but it's good to cast a wide net to start!

Hey Lady! Whatcha Readin'? - set up my gravatar but had some trouble with the site for my favicon. Will go back to do that, possibly after the challenge. This was something I wouldn't have known about at all - very helpful!

Michelle from Galleysmith - learned and have revised my use of links. Hopefully, reflected in this post. I'll have to go through my old posts and fix them up in the next day or so. Might have to extend beyond the Bloggiesta.

Chronicle of an Infant Biblophile - I'd listed my blog in a few of the directories, but have approached BBAW, Fyrefly's Book Blogs Search Engine, Globe of Blogs to ask to be listed. I'm preparing a spiel and getting ready to sign up for other blogging directories. Haven't opted for those that require a paid subscription yet.

Bookish Ruth - I ran the Website Grader, but the report was a bit dismal. I'll have to change quite a number of items. Some of the fixes seem quite technical and intimidating. Like figuring out how to have searches include my url with and without the "www", to create more links, to reduce the images or the size of images so that my blog pages load faster. There are quite a lot more...Though I've been able to add metadescriptions. I have improved my Website Grader report, though there's much to work on still. It's good to know my baseline though (reminds me of having to get on the scale at the start of a diet and exercise program - painful but good to do!)

B. Challenges Started

The Book Lady's Blog - tidy up my feedreader. Started but having trouble installing the plug in to Firefox. Will have to work on this.

Beth Fish Reads - to prepare a list post

Books, Movies and Chinese Food - to prepare an elevator speech. I really want to do this. It's pretty intimidating but I know it's important.

Devourer of Books - update a key page or post. Have to comb through my review policy, descriptions, "about me" section. I'm having my first giveaways and need to make sure that those descriptions and the corresponding reviews are in good order. - DONE

My Friend Amy - look into approaching other bloggers to become buddies. This might extend to past bloggiesta, but to at least keep an eye out and also be more outgoing (less shy) this weekend.

Book Blather - to read and try some of the blogging tips and tutorials. - DONE

As of 1:20 am on Sunday, I've spent 10.5 hours.