July 27, 2020

Balloon Image Source: Unsplash

Three-Year Blogiversary & Giveaway!

See my second-year reflections here.

See my first-year reflections here.

Grown Up

At THREE, I feel pretty “grown-up.” I’m fairly steady on my feet; I’m becoming more fluent in my ability to craft and format reviews; I’m thoroughly enjoying the ‘playground’ of the world wide web.

Growth

Areas of growth this year include:

• Using Alt Text
• Using Gifs
• Improving SEO
• Gaining Followers and Views (THANK YOU!)
• Expanding the types of posts (beyond book reviews) and participating in more memes
• Updating Old Posts (in progress)

Virtual Friendships

One of the most treasured surprises this year is realizing how many virtual bookish friendships I’ve made in the book-blogging community! I’m not mentioning names here, but you KNOW who you are if you’ve interacted with me on our blogs! One result of the friendships is this recent collaborative post with twelve blogging friends. Right after I hit ‘publish’ I thought “I need to expand this next year to include more friends!” It’s not only friendly conversations, but it’s also the fact that these blogging friends are scattered around the world! It’s a diverse and interesting community!  It was this year that I realized I probably have at least twenty book/blogging friends that I could call for a coffee meetup if I were ever in their countries and their neck of the woods. From these virtual friendships, I’ve gained a support system that I’ve discovered is essential in the blogging community. I hope in your blogging world that you are connecting and conversing!

Followers!

A special SHOUT OUT to each of my followers!
Your views, comments, and shares are treasures to me and they do not go unappreciated!

• I return comments as soon as I read them, so if you leave a legit comment and for some reason you do not receive a ‘like’ or return comment, please connect with me in an email because I do occasionally find legit comments in the spam folder. Regarding spam, I trust WordPress to do their thing and filter the spam, so I usually don’t question their filtering system unless I happen to recognize you as a regular visitor. I try to check spam at least once a month, but they add up fast (hundreds in a month) so please let me know if I’ve missed your comment.

WordPress Reader

As long as you’re here, I want to mention how dependent I am upon the WordPress Reader to read YOUR blogs. The notifications in my email inbox are overwhelming ….in fact, my inbox on a typical day is exploding with spam. For myself, I find that using a ‘reader’ is more efficient than email.

Goals:

• Make progress toward updating all my old posts
  (#throwbackthursday has helped motivate me as I reshare one older review each week); by the way, I discovered that when I started updating my old posts in January that my DA increased several points in a few months!
• Start using the new WP Block Editor (I’m doing a ‘work-around’ right now by copying an older Classic Editor post as a template)
• Continue working on SEO
  
• Create my own Meme and Link-Up post

Stats:

I don’t compete with other bloggers. There’s space for each one of us and our unique voices. However, I do compete with myself! I love to look at my stats, and it seems that the learning curve is never-ending. For other stats nerds and new bloggers who are interested in what three years might look like for one blogger, here are a few stats with a comparison to the same time last year (scroll past if this doesn’t interest you!):

Total views: 130,558 (2019: 45,534)

Total followers: 1,924 (2019: 1,059)

Total posts: 393 (2019: 197)

Most viewed post: Where the Crawdads Sing 

First follower: Gail @ The Junia Project (thank you dear, faithful friend!)

Most recent follower: Amy @ Read.Dream.Live (thanks for the follow and welcome!)

Most frequent commenters (tied): Carla @ Carla Loves to Read and Davida @ The Chocolate Lady’s Book Review Blog (your positive, encouraging, and supportive comments are dearly appreciated!)

Thank you again, everyone!
Regarding blogs, Lashaan @ Bookidote recently said, “I cherish its existence with my whole heart.” I completely concur Lashaan! Blogging requires a great deal of effort, determination, persistence, and time…but I love its existence with my whole heart!

Signing off for now because I’ve used up my quota of exclamation points!
With gratitude, Carol

Year THREE Blogiversary GIVEAWAY!

Thank you, Readers and Followers, for supporting me! I hope my reviews have encouraged you in your reading endeavors and have helped you find some great reads! To celebrate I’m offering a Giveaway!

Giveaway limited to followers who can receive an Amazon (U.S.) digital title (sorry I don’t have an international account….it’s on my to-do list).

I’m giving away ONE ebook of your choice not to exceed $20.00 (U.S.). You must supply an email address and be able to receive an ebook from Amazon (U.S.). ***edited to add….if you are international, I’m willing to try out Book Despository!

To enter the giveaway:

1. You must be following this blog (please don’t follow to unfollow because that’s rude and uncool), and you must be at least 18 years old.

2. To enter, please comment on this post and let me know if you’ve read a book or added a book to your TBR as a result of reading the blog.

3.  Entries close at midnight PST on Sunday, August 9, 2020.

Good Luck! The winner will be chosen at random using a random number generator on August 11 and announced on the blog on Wednesday, August 12 (and I’ll respond to your comment so that you receive a notification). If I don’t hear from the winner in 24 hours, I will draw another winner.

This is a GREAT chance to win that last book you’d like to read this summer!

Happy Reading Book Buddies!

“Ah, how good it is to be among people who are reading.”
~Rainer Maria Rilke

“I love the world of words, where life and literature connect.”
~Denise J Hughes

“Reading good books ruins you for enjoying bad ones.”
~Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

“I read because books are a form of transportation, of teaching, and of connection! Books take us to places we’ve never been, they teach us about our world, and they help us to understand human experience.”
~Madeleine Riley, Top Shelf Text

Looking Ahead:

At the end of the week, I’ll publish my July Wrap Up post.

ICYMI:

Summer’s ONE “Must-Read” Book

Summer 2020 TBR

Book Club Recommendations

My Best Reads of the Year So Far

10+ Highly Rated and Favorite WW1 and WW11 Reads

Let’s Get Social!

Thank you for visiting and reading today! I’d be honored and thrilled if you choose to enjoy and follow along (see subscribe or follow option), promote, and/or share my blog. Every share helps us grow.

Find me at:
Twitter
Instagram
Goodreads
Pinterest

***Blogs posts may contain affiliate links. This means that at no extra cost to you, I can earn a small percentage of your purchase price.

Unless explicitly stated that they are free, all books that I review have been purchased by me or borrowed from the library.

Book covers and author photos are credited to Amazon or an author’s (or publisher’s) website.

© ReadingLadies.com

July 28, 2019

Balloon Image Source: Unspash

To celebrate my two-year Blogiversary, I’ll reflect on what I wish I knew two years ago and offer a GIVEAWAY!

10 Things I Wish I Knew Two Years Ago as a Beginning Blogger:

I wish I knew how much time I would devote to social media.

• I wish I knew about the amount of time social media requires.
• Time: 2-3 hours every morning on Instagram, Twitter, Goodreads, Facebook. Pinterest, and blog comments (my blog and others). As I read blogs, I comment, like, and often share the posts on Twitter. Sometimes I link up with other bloggers (Top Ten Tuesday for example).
• Instagram: Engage with the bookstagram community and post my own content. In order to share posts on Instagram, I first need to create a picture (because I read digitally, I use PhotoGrid to create graphics using book covers in lieu of using physical books……setting up physical books for a photo shoot would take even more time than creating a graphic in PhotoGrid). One more option to consider with Instagram is setting up the LinkTr.ee app which will enable you to add more than one link to your profile.
• Goodreads: Check in at least once a day and engage with the reviews in my feed, or I post a review (always adding my blog link to the end of the review).
• Pinterest: Check for notifications and look to see what I can pin. On days that I publish a post, I pin my post to several group boards (it took me a while to figure out how to find and join the boards in my niche). I create my Pinterest images using a Canva template.
• Twitter: Check my notifications, retweet, comment, and look for opportunities to share a blog link.
• Facebook: From my personal page, I engage with many book groups I follow and post my blog links when the opportunity arises. Then I post links or memes on my blog’s FB page.
• Throughout the day, I also respond to various notifications from my morning’s engagement on social media. In the evening, I will often revisit my morning routine to take advantage of more opportunities to share my blog link.
• I wish I had all the social media set up and ready to go the day I launched my blog, it would have been a lot smoother and more effective. It took me months to set up all my social media accounts. It took me about a year to finally get around to Twitter (eventually, Jennefer-TarHeelReader was kind enough to comment that she couldn’t share my blog on twitter and offered encouragement to help me get that set up!). I missed a lot of promotion opportunities by not having Twitter set up from Day One because I receive more views from Twitter than any other social media platform. It’s extremely easy for readers to click and share your blog post to Twitter for you!
• Best Tip: Make sure all your social media accounts reflect your blog name in some way.

I wish I knew how much bloggers benefit from each other’s support and encouragement.

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