Category Archives: Armchair BEA

June 8, 2012 · 3:51 am

Armchair BEA! Day 5: Ask the Experts

Good morning! I can’t believe it’s the last day!

So, here’s the prompt for today:

Today’s topic is Ask The Experts. In your post, ask the visitors to your blog for blogging advice. What did you always want to know about blogging but were afraid to ask? Now is the time!

Alternatively, if you’ve been blogging for a while, you’ve probably learned a thing or two. Whether you stumbled upon a something that makes blogging easier or made a mistake you’d never want anyone to repeat, share your experience and wisdom with others.

I’m not sure I have any questions for other bloggers. I’m feeling pretty happy about where my blog is right now – I like my design, I’m happy with the features / memes I take part in, I’ve been making it a point to put myself out there in the book blogosphere and try to be a part of things, etc. I don’t want any advice on how to seek out free books, because that’s not my style. The books I review are ones I own or that I borrow from the library, for the most part. Maybe all those lucky BEA-ers can come and share their advice on how to save up to go to BEA? Lol.

So, here are some of my tips for bloggers – cause you know, I’m so wise and stuff…

  • Turn off word verification in your comments. If you’re that worried about spam, you might want to look for a plug-in or something that prevents spam, or you can change your comment settings so that you have to approve comments before they’re published. But if you’re wondering why you don’t get a lot of discussion and comments, this is probably why. Go double-check your settings now to make sure word verification is turned off.
  • Add a search bar to your blog. There’s no excuse, both Blogger and WordPress have widgets for this. It makes everyone’s life easier.
  • Befriend like-minded bloggers. You’ll find some blogs that you really like, probably because your reading tastes are really similar. Follow them, comment on them, get to know them. We’re all friendly here and making friends is a big part of being part of the community. To find other bloggers, join readalongs, partake in memes, sign up for readathons.
  • Read what you want. Meaning that your readers can tell if you’re just reading a bunch of review books out of obligation, not because you particularly want to read them. Your blog will seem much more interesting and appeal to a wider audience if you read a variety of books, both new and old.
  • Let your personality shine. I don’t know how to make this much clearer – if you’re funny, be funny. If you’re crass, be crass. If you’re prim and proper, be that. Don’t censor yourself too much when you blog, because it’ll take away the uniqueness of your voice and style. Also, include some personal posts! Share events in your life with your readers - it makes you seem more like a real person rather than just another nameless blogger.
  • Don’t take it too seriously. Honestly, book blogging is meant to be FUN! Don’t get pressured and stressed about how often you should post or not having anything to post about. This should never feel like a chore – if it does, take a break. Your readers will understand and will love you all the more if and when you return.

There you have it, my oh-so-humble tips for book blogging. What are some of your tips? Tell me!

I also just wanted to say that I had  HELLA GOOD TIME participating in Armchair BEA. I mean, the hours and hours spent online this week kind of kicked my ass, but I really loved visiting new blogs and posting everyday. I added a few new bloggers to my Google Reader too! I’m sad I didn’t get to join in on the Twitter parties more, but after all the blogging and commenting I was beat. But anyways, thanks to the folks who set up Armchair BEA, cause ya’ll are awesome. And a big thanks to all the bloggers who participated this week  – even though we’re not at BEA in NYC, you guys totally made this a huge fun event. *HUGS*

 

~Sarah

 

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June 7, 2012 · 3:57 am

Armchair BEA! Day 4: Beyond the Blog

Wow, we’re at day 4 already! This week has FLOWN by!

So, today’s topic is “Beyond the Blog” – silly, as if there is such a thing! Just kidding, but anyways, here’s more info about today’s topic…

So, you enjoy writing do you? Would you like to be involved elsewhere on the interwebs or possibly start writing for your local paper? Perhaps you’d simply like to start drawing an income from your blog? Today we will be sharing tips that will help you move your blog forward or perhaps your own personal goals of writing and making an income from what you love to do. Today we’d love you to share your top tips for getting beyond your blog! Have you done any freelance writing? Are you monetizing your blog and how so? How do you make connections outside the book blog community on the internet? If none of these apply we’d love for you to share a fun aspect about your blog or life that may be completely separate from books!

So, I don’t do ANYTHING to try to monetize my blog, or to take my writing elsewhere. Sure, sometimes I daydream about writing book reviews for the local papers… but frankly, I’m just not that ambitious. At least until I don’t work full-time anymore and I have more time. SOOOOO looks like instead, I’ll be talking about a fun non-bookish aspect of me life. (Although I’d like to point out that this topic is just crazy - there’s no such this as “completely separate from books”.)

Umm. Well, there are no parts of my blog that doesn’t have to do with books – even my Sarah Sunday posts have a bookish update in them. However, the funnest aspect of my life is my home and the man I share it with –  I’ll talk about one of my favorite people in the whole world, even though he’s not much of a reader - Treland, AKA The Honeyman.

Since we live together, the honeyman is a big part of my life. And our 5-year anniversary is coming up in July – Yay us! Living with Treland is the best. I feel bad for all of those girls out there whose boyfriends complain about their books and stuff. He never complains about my book-buying habits, and he always listens to me go on and on about whatever book I’m reading. Actually, he doesn’t just listen – he responds, he actually converses with me about my books instead of just listening and being like “Oh, that’s nice.” And he’s even promised me a whole room to use as a library when we eventually buy a house :-)

But besides his awesomeness when it comes to my book-addiction, he’s just the best. He’s handsome, smart, funny, honest, and sweet. He’s supportive and interesting and kind of a jerk, which is perfect for me. And no matter what we’re doing, we’re always having fun together. My favorite part of every day is getting to see him.

So yeah. Sorry for the super-sappy post, but my home life is a major part of my life, and it’s because of the honeyman. We’ve been living together for over 2.5 years now and it’s just wonderful, even more so since we got a little grey kitty named Gabby about a month ago. We’re a happy little family and I just love it.

At Niagara Falls.

So, tell me about the fun parts of your life that aren’t book-related!

~Sarah

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June 6, 2012 · 7:00 am

Armchair BEA! Day 3: Real Life Bookish Experiences

Good morning guys! It’s Wednesday, day 3 – how ya holdin up?

Here’s the topic for today…

Today’s suggested writing topic…we’d love for you to share a positive “real life” experience with books! Either by way of your own partnerships in your community, a book signing you went to or possibly even a get together with fellow book bloggers. Tell us all about it!

Ummm… to say that I haven’t really had any bookish “experiences” is kind of an understatement. I haven’t really worked with any local authors or gone to any major bookish events. And the only author signing I went to was like 7 years ago. So let’s talk about that.

Well, around that time Hotel Rwanda and Sometimes in April had come out and were big movies - everyone was suddenly rediscovering the Rwandan genocide, including me. (In all fairness, I was 7 when the genocide occured.) Anyways, it was an interesting topic and I did read a couple books about it. One of which was…

This book by Romeo Dallaire. So when I heard that he was comming to my local college as the keynote speaker for an event about the Rwandan genocide, I grabbed a friend and went. And here’s what I remember…

  • There was a really annoying pig-faced girl standing in line ahead of us to get in, who was really loud and I just really wanted to kick her. When I started working at Waldenbooks about a year or so later, I learned that she had also worked there and that my instincts were right – she annoyed everybody.
  • The event was kind of long and other random students talked more than the author got to.
  • I got in line to get my book signed, but started to get nervous about meeting a REAL author and almost just left.
  • I did get my book signed and Romeo Dallaire was nice, but the rest is all a blur.
Seee?

And this is why even though I WANT to go to major bookish events and meet ALL THE AUTHORS, I know I would be nervous and giddy and probably hardly remember any of it anyways.

For serious though, I need to go to more things. But there are hardly EVER book signings in my area (laaaame) and you know, it costs money to travel so I don’t get to do it a lot. Someday dammit, someday.

SO, what are some of your real life bookish happenings, hmm? I bet they’re better than mine!

~Sarah

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June 5, 2012 · 9:10 am

Armchair BEA! Day 2: Best of 2012

Good morning ladies and gents!

So, it’s day 2 of Armchair BEA – how’s everyone feeling? I know that I spent HOURS online yesterday, mostly visiting and commenting. It’s SO much fun, but I admit I needed a break from the computer last night.

Here’s today’s topic:

Today’s suggested posting topic is “Best of 2012”: 
Share some of your favorite books so far this year, and/or the the books being promoted at BEA that you hope will end up among your favorites for the year!
 

I’ll start with some of my favorite books that I’ve read so far this year (which sadly is only about 30 books total)… I narrowed it down to my top 6.

In Search of the Multiverse

In Search of the Multiverse by John Gribbin (best non-fiction)

The first book I’ve read about the possibility of multiple universes, and the first book that really introduced me to physics and quantum physics, which I’m obsessed with now.

Bitterblue by Kristin Cashore (best YA)

The long wait for Bitterblue was well worth it. I loved being back in the Seven Kingdoms.

Hominds by Robert J. Sawyer (best sci-fi)

This is the first book of The Neanderthal Parallax trilogy, which I fell in love with. It’s actually the book that made me really interested in the idea of multiple universes and hence I set out to read more non-fiction about it, leading me to In Search of the Multiverse.

Sandman Slim by Richard Kadrey (best paranormal)

The first book of the Sandman Slim series. It’s awesome – Stark is such a bad-ass.

Maus by Art Spiegelman (best graphic novel)

In all fairness this is the only graphic novel / comic I’ve read so far this year, but it was so great I had to put it on here.

The Kitchen Boy by Robert Alexander (best historical fiction)

This book was SO GOOD and the ending was such a shock. And it makes me want to learn more about the Romonovs.

So, those are my Best of 2012 books! Have you read any of them? If not, you really should.

 

As for books that are going to be at BEA that I’m looking forward to… I only had a little bit of time to browse through the website. These are 3 that caught my eye.

The Theoretical Minimum: What You Need to Know to Start Doing Physics by Leonard Susskind – I need this. So you know, if you’re one of the lucky folks at BEA and you see this or you already grabbed it, I would looooooove a copy.

Seducing Mr. Knightly by Maya Rodale – I read and really loved The Tattooed Duke by this author, and this is part of the same series.

The Lands of Ice and Fire by George R.R. Martin - Apparently this is a companion book to the A Song of Ice and Fire series, with maps and pictures in it. Sounds very cool.

 

Well, and now I’m desperately wishing I was at BEA collecting a million books to bring home with me. *Sigh* maybe next year…

~Sarah

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June 4, 2012 · 4:00 am

Armchair BEA! Day 1: Introduction Questions

It’s herrrree! Armchair BEA time!

So hi everybody! Excuse the lame picture, but I’m currently in my pj’s so a nice, waving-at-the-webcam photo was not an option. This is my first time participating in Armchair BEA, and I’m very, very excited! I even signed up to be a part of the commenting committee, so you may see me around the blogosphere a lot during this week. So, let’s jump right into the Introduction Questions, kay? Here are the five questions I chose to answer…

1. Please tell us a little bit about yourself: Who are you? How long have you been blogging? Why did you get into blogging?

Well, I’m Sarah here at Sarah Says Read. I started my blog in June 2009, over at Blogger. Sadly, I didn’t start blogging regularly until September 2010, so I’ll say that I’ve been blogging for almost 2 years now. I originally got into blogging because I was bored at work, and my older sister Heather wanted me to start one. At first I had a personal-only blog, and then I realized that what I really wanted to talk about was books and stuff, so I started a separate blog for that. I never celebrate blogoversaries because I don’t feel right starting it from my first review post because I blogged so inconsistently for the first year. I switched over to WordPress.com in June of 2011, and I’m enjoying it.

4. What is your favorite feature on your blog (i.e. author interviews, memes, something specific to your blog)?

I don’t really have a favorite “feature”. I do a couple of memes, but there’s no weekly thing that’s really central and unique to my blog. So I suppose my favorite features are my reviews, which is what the book blog is all about, and my weekly Sarah Sunday post because let’s face it – I like to ramble about real life too.

5. Where do you see your blog in five years?

Hopefully by then I’ll have made the switch over to WordPress.org, so that my blog is more customized and I have use more widgets and plug-ins. Ideally I’ll have at least the same amount of regular readers that I do now, if not more. And I’d like to think I’ll be able to post more reviews and host more events or features, but that depends on whether or not I’m still working full-time in 5 years.

8. What literary location would you most like to visit? Why?

World’s Biggest Book Store in Toronto, Canada is definitely high on my list. (It’s not the biggest per floor space, but apparently carries the most titles.) Though it’s not really a “location”, I’d love to go to BEA in New York City someday. And I’d also really love to visit the homes of Jane Austen and the Brontes sisters, cause come on – that would be freaking amazing. Oh, also this isn’t strictly literary or bookish, but I’d love to go to Comic-Con, and I know that a lot of sci-fi and fantasy authors go there, so it counts.

9. What is your favorite part about the book blogging community? Is there anything that you would like to see change in the coming years?

What isn’t there to love about the book blogging community??? There’s camaraderie and hundreds of other people to talk to books about, fun online events like readathons and readalongs (and Armchair BEA!), there are friendships to form with other bloggers who have similar tastes… it’s all so awesome. Sure, there’s the occasional drama, but drama is bound to surface in any large community so who cares? You can just ignore it, or you can jump into the controversial discussions. The only thing I would like to see change is fewer bloggers who are just in it to get free ARC’s. There’s not many, but they give all of us book bloggers a bad name.

 So, there ya have it! I can’t wait to come visit a whole ton of blogs and get to know more of you better!

I do want to point out that as part of the commenting committee, I’ll be commenting  A LOT. I’ll try to sign in with my WordPress log-in as often as possible, but usually for Blogger-hosted blogs it’s easier if I comment using my Blogger profile (example below), which links back to my WordPress site. So look for “Sarah” or “Sarah Says Read” and hopefully that’ll be me! Also, I’ll be on Twitter a lot – @SarahSaysRead if you’re around!

Example of what a Blogger comment from me looks like. Click to make bigger.

Happy Armchair BEA!

~Sarah

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