#Bloggiesta: Getting To Know... The Relentless Reader!

I came across so many new-to-me book blogs during Bloggiesta, it's almost embarrassing. Oh, who am I kidding, it IS embarrassing! I suppose I did fall of the face of the book-blogging earth for awhile and many, many new blogs cropped up, but I even came across some that have been around longer than my blog! Guess it just goes to show what a big world it is out there, and that it is ever-growing!

Today, for the Bloggiesta Getting To Know You mini-challenge, hosted by Suey @ It's All About Books, I am featuring:

Jen @ The Relentless Reader!

In addition to her fantastic book blog, you can find her on...

Twitter: @JenHartling
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheRelentlessReader
Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/user/show/4439671-jennifer
Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/jhartling74/
Bloglovin': http://www.bloglovin.com/en/blog/4025981

Jen hails from Wisconsin and has been reviewing several different genres on her blog since June 2012, including Contemporary Fiction/Literary Fiction, Memoirs, Historical Fiction, Nonfiction, and Autobiography/Biography. Since I have been trying to branch out and read some things outside my comfort zone and noticed that she blogged about a lot of those genres, I knew I had to start following her blog! It also doesn't hurt that her blog is very eye-catching; just look at that grab button up there! I hope you will all go pay her a visit and add her to your blog reading lists!!

#Bloggiesta: Finish Line

Wow, what a whirlwind weekend this was! I accomplished even more than I originally set out to, though I admit I fell behind with reading and scheduling a couple of posts, haha! There just aren't enough hours in the day, are there? I hope everyone's Bloggiesta was successful -- I know mine was. I surprised myself with everything I managed to accomplish!

Here's the condensed version of my original to-do list:

(1) Find a new feed reader to replace Google Reader. - I did, and it's Bloglovin'. (For now. I still need more time to play with it.)

(2) Finish sidebar buttons for labels and clean up miscellaneous labels. - Done!

(3) Add at least 20 grab buttons to my blogroll page. - Done! I think the final tally was just over two dozen, not to mention all the links I added to the alphabetical list!

(4) Participate in as many mini-challenges as possible. - I completed 5! Well, technically my last one will be complete tomorrow when the post goes live... These are the challenges I completed:
     - Feed Readers
     - Through a Visitor's Eyes
     - Declutter Your Sidebar
     - Jump Start Your Traffic With StumbleUpon
     - Getting to Know You (my post goes live tomorrow!)

(5) Update my Review Archive. - Done! I lucked out because I had forgotten that I did this at the beginning of last month, haha!

(6) Visit all blogs participating and follow new-to-me blogs across all the social networks available. - Done... I think. There were so many and I did my best to keep up with you all!!

Here are some additional tasks I worked on that didn't make my original list:

(1) I updated my sharing buttons for my posts via Share This so that they are where I actually want them to appear in the post. I also added several options. This proved to be MUCH more tedious than I thought it would be because I couldn't just use the widget provided -- I had to use the code for a general website. Now that I know that, if I ever have to fix them, it should be easy!

(2) I backed up my blog! I can't remember the last time I did this -- pretty sure it was before I converted to the new Blogger interface *hangs head in shame*. I also backed it up to Wordpress for the time being. I thought that I had done that before, but there was nothing there. Hopefully it sticks this time!

(3) Finally, I added a subscribe by email option. I may continue to play with this. Right now, it uses my Feedburner feed, but I am thinking about switching to something else. (Besides, didn't I hear at one time Feedburner was going away??)

So there you have it! There are still lots of little things I need to continue doing or improve upon, but this weekend went a long way towards achieving some important goals!

#Bloggiesta: Sunday Mini-Challenge Round-up

Today, referring to this as a "round-up" may be a bit of an exaggeration, as I am only going to be sharing a couple of mini-challenges, one of which I will actually be finalizing tomorrow, but I'll go ahead and mention it today. Anyway, here is the continuation of yesterday's Mini-Challenge Round-up Post:


Fourth Mini Challenge: Jump Start Your Traffic with StumbleUpon

I had signed up with StumbleUpon awhile back and then never did much with it. I am going to try to make a conscious effort to change that. April over at Good Books & Good Wine has an interesting post about the traffic she has been able to generate by using StumbleUpon and I think it is well worth the effort. I've made it easy to stumble my posts by adding a button via Share This, so if any of you feel so inclined, I'd love for you to stumble a post you would recommend to others. I'm trying to do the same on other blogs as I visit them.

Fifth Mini Challenge: Getting To Know You

Tomorrow I will be sharing a little "Getting To Know You" post about one of the book bloggers I have discovered while visiting Bloggiesta posts. It amazes me how HUGE this community has gotten since I first started blogging about books over four years ago. It's fun to meet new people to chat about books with, isn't it?!

So, that's it for me as far as the mini-challenges go... Feel free to visit my Bloggiesta To-Do list to see how I'm doing on my own personal goals!

#Bloggiesta: Saturday Mini-Challenge Round-up

Rather than write up individual posts for the mini-challenges I am opting to participate in for Bloggiesta, I thought I'd do one round-up post today and another tomorrow. That way I won't be cluttering your Readers and driving myself nuts typing up multiple posts! :-D

So, here we go!



First Mini-Challenge: Feed Readers

So, um, I didn't even realize that Google Reader was going away later this year until I saw the news on the #Bloggiesta Twitter Chat last night. I can't say I'm particularly sad. I never really cared for it that much and I think it has actually hampered my reading of other blogs. Well, over at The Picky Girl, she has provided an awesome summary of some great replacement options. For now, I am starting out with Feedly, which caught my eye out of all of her descriptions of the pros and cons. I've got the app installed on my computer and iPhone and plan to explore it more as the weekend goes on. I like that it is powered by Google Reader, so hopefully I won't miss out on any of the blogs I currently keep up with!

Second Mini-Challenge: Through a Visitor's Eyes

One really helpful Mini-Challenge is being hosted at On a Book Bender, where we are challenged to navigate our blog and have others navigate it to make sure it is as user-friendly as possible. The biggest change I made as a result of going through that post was allowing anyone, including anonymous users, to comment, as opposed to just registered users. I am not nuts about having to do that, but because I couldn't seem to comment easily when I wasn't signed into Google+, I wondered if other people may be having problems, as well. Hopefully I won't have spam problems as a result... Otherwise, it seemed navigating my blog was pretty easy -- I invite you all to give it a try and see if you have any suggestions of improvements I can make!

Third Mini-Challenge: Declutter your Sidebar

Over at Debz Bookshelf, she discusses the importance of cleaning up your sidebar(s). I actually did this several weeks ago in what I suppose was my own personal Bloggiesta! The first thing I did was move my blogroll and grab buttons to their own page in my navbar. Then I got everything organized a bit more logically -- primarily social networking and things about me on the left (except for my blog archive), and then blog navigation and bookish related items on the right. I created buttons to link to genre and character labels, and I think I want to do the same for reviews by year this weekend. I am sure that ultimately more could be cleaned up, but for now I'm pretty happy with how the sidebars are looking. Feel free to offer any insights and suggestions you might have -- I am always looking for new ideas!

Tomorrow I should have another post with a round-up of two or three mini-challenges. I do love Bloggiesta -- it makes for a fun weekend!

It's #Bloggiesta!

And to think I nearly missed it, yet again! Good thing I hopped on Twitter tonight and saw the tweets. Admittedly, there isn't a TON that I want to do to my blog right now because I did spend a lot of time a few weeks ago cleaning up my sidebars and moving my Blogroll to a page that links from the navbar on my blog. But in the spirit of blog improvement and Bloggiesta, here's a brief to-do list that I want to try to accomplish over the weekend...

(1) Find a new feed reader since I just learned that Google Reader is going away. (Feedly is the first one that I will be investigating.) FYI - after a couple of minutes playing with both Feedly and Bloglovin', it was a no-brainer for me to choose Bloglovin'. I still need to work with it some more, but I infinitely prefer this interface vs. Feedly. I was able to import my Google Reader blogs (it was a piece of cake!) and now I'm going to work on tweaking all of my settings. Follow my blog with Bloglovin.

(2) Finish the buttons for my sidebar for books read in 2009, 2010, and so on, rather than having those years in the miscellaneous labels list. I also need to re-do the one for the two thriller categories I currently have and combine them into just Suspense/Thriller. Should be relatively easy!

(3) Add at least 20 more grab buttons and blogs to my blog roll (10 on Saturday and 10 on Sunday). I know there are a lot of you out there with buttons that I don't yet have, so I will find you!

(4) Visit as many of the Bloggiesta Mini Challenges as possible and participate! It's always great to learn tips from other successful bloggers! The last challenge I needed to complete is done... My "Getting To Know You" post is scheduled for tomorrow, since I've been Bloggiesta-ing so much I haven't read the book I intended to review for Mystery Mondays, haha!

(5) Update my Review (Alpha by Author) Archive.

(6) Visit all the blogs participating in Bloggiesta and follow all the new book blogs I come across via various social networking links offered (Facebook pages, Twitter, Goodreads, Pinterest, etc.)  Done! Whew! :-)

There you have it. Perhaps it is not an overly ambitious list, but it is probably all I feel comfortable committing to this weekend at the last minute, haha! Happy Bloggiesta!!!!