Except for today.

I couldn’t help myself.  A lot of people have asked me how in the world do I blog with two small children (my oldest turns four today and my other is two).  I use a small notebook to keep track of all of my notes.  I’ve pasted in a yearly calender to keep track of important dates.  Let me show you what September and October currently look like:

That folks is what blogging is like in this house.

P.S.  Maybe not the post you were expecting, but highly amusing to this mama.

Here’s a recap of what happened in April and May (although it looks like a normal one month and not two) here at the Maw Books Blog.  As always, I don’t intend that you read this whole post but skim through and see what you missed.

Books Reviewed in April & May

Fiction

• Losing Kei by Suzanne Kamata
• The Secret Keeper by Paul Harris
• The Little Giant of Aberdeen County by Tiffany Baker
• Down to a Sunless Sea by Mathias B. Freese
• The Mechanics of Falling and Other Stories by Catherine Brady

Young Adult Fiction

• The Chosen One by Carol Lynch Williams

Middle Readers

• On the Wings of Heroes by Richard Peck
• The Tales of Beedle the Bard by J.K. Rowling
• The Sisters Grimm, The Fairy Tale Detectives by Michael Buckley
• Locomotion by Jacqueline Woodson
• Lunch with Lenin and Other Stories by Deborah Ellis

Picture Books

• Crocodaddy by Kim Norman, Illustrated by David Walker
• Chicken Butt! by Erica S. Perl, Illustrated by Henry Cole
• All in a Day by Cynthia Rylant, Illustrated by Nikki McClure
• Always by Ann Stott, Illustrated by Matt Phelan
• There’s a Wolf at the Door: Five Classic Tales Retold by Zoe B. Alley, Illustrated by R.W. Alley

Non-Fiction

• Desert Flower: The Extraordinary Journey of a Desert Nomad by Waris Dirie and Cathleen Miller
• Kabul Beauty School: An American Woman Goes Behind the Veil by Deborah Rodriguez

Author Interviews

• Interview with Suzanne Kamata, Author of Losing Kei
• Interview with Paul Harris, Author of The Secret Keeper
  
• Interview with Kim Norman, Author of Crocodaddy
• Interview with Katherine Center by Nicki Richesin, Editor of Because I Love Her: 34 Women Writers Reflect on the Mother-Daughter Bond
• Interview with Erica S. Perl, Author of Chicken Butt!
• Interview with Ingrid Law, Newbery Honor Author of Savvy

Reader Spotlights

(Forgive me for taking a completely unintentional break from these feature.  Will be coming back strong!)

• Reader Spotlight: Come Meet Amy from Amy’s Haiku Haven!

Vlogs

• The LA Times Festival of Books, Part 3:  In Which I Meet Some Awesome Authors (and Vlog About Them Too!)
• The LA Times Festival of Books, Part 1:  In Which We Vlog
• Dewey’s 24 Hour Read-a-thon: And It’s Over, The Final Update!
• Video Chat: The READ-A-THON!!! (no, I’m not excited)

Book Lists

• New York Times Bestsellers – May 24th
• New York Times Bestsellers – May 17th
• New York Times Bestsellers – May 3rd
• New York Times Bestsellers – April 12th
• New York Times Bestsellers – April 5th
• Why Did We Start Our Book Blogs? Three Reasons Why from Trish, Amy and Me.

More Posts During April/May

• Book Expo America!
• The *iwishiwasinnewyorkatbeawithnatasha* Giveaway!
• Guest Post from Cindy of Cindy Loves Books: Author Recipe, Michael Lee West’s Grand Marnier Chocolate Covered Strawberries
• What Everybody Wants to Know About Stephenie Meyer
• Your Most Embarrassing Moment – Author Style!
• Book Expo America & the 48 Hour Book Challenge – What You Need to Know
• Close to Perfect Chocolate Pie from Ingrid Law, Newbery Author of Savvy (The Special Birthday Edition)
• The LA Times Festival of Books, Part 2:  In Which I Meet Awesome Book Bloggers
• The LA Times Festival of Books, Part 1: In Which We Vlog
• GIVEAWAY: Newbery Honor Book, Savvy by Ingrid Law
• Winners! Laurie Halse Anderson & Jodi Picoult Giveaways
• Dewey’s 24 Hour Read-a-thon: And It’s Over, The Final Update!
• Dewey’s 24 Hour Read-a-thon: Update #4
• 24 Hour Read-a-thon Edition: Tomato-Mozzarella Pesto Sandwich from Susan McBride, Author of The Debs
• Dewey’s 24 Hour Read-a-thon: Update #3
• 24 Hour Read-a-thon Edition: Yummy Breakfast Smoothie from Sara Zarr, National Book Award Author
• Dewey’s 24 Hour Read-a-thon: Update #2
• Dewey’s 24 Hour Read-a-thon: Update #1 (And it Begins!)
• Why Did We Start Our Book Blogs? Three Reasons Why from Trish, Amy and Me.
• Lemon Linguine from Newbery Honor Author, Kirby Larson
• March Search Terms – What Brought People to My Blog
• Thank You to My March Visitors – Let’s Spotlight a Few!
  
• Blogging & Reading Review for March

Flashback:  The Maw Books Blog a Year Ago

Books I reviewed a year ago April and May: Sirens and Spies by Janet Taylor Lisle, Zel by Donna Jo Napoli, The Translator: A Tribesman’s Memoir of Darfur by Daoud Hari, The Tale of Desperaux by Shannon Hale, Number the Stars by Lois Lowry, I Am the Messenger by Marcus Zusak, Walk On: A Guide for Babies of All Ages by Marla Frazee, Criss Cross by Lynne Rae Perkins, Good Masters! Sweet Ladies by Laura Amy Schiltz, Farworld by J. Scott Savage, The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane by Kate DiCamillo, Change of Heart by Jodi Picoult,  Tasting the Sky: A Palestinian Childhood by Ibtisam Barakat, Mud City by Deborah Ellis, The Fiction Class by Susan Breen, Fablehaven by Brandon Mull,  I Have Lived a Thousand Years by Livia Bitton-Jackson, Slave, My True Story by Mende Nazer, The Wednesday Wars by Gary Schmidt, The Giver by Lois Lowry,  Princess Academy by Shannon Hale, The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom, Sky Burial by Xinran,  The True Story of Hansel and Gretel by Louise Murphy,  Horns and Wrinkles by Joseph Helgerson,  The Boy Who Dared by Susan Campbell Bartoletti, Torn Thread by Anne Isaacs.

Looking Ahead to April

• Upcoming Reviews.  Still have Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher waiting for me to review.  Hmm . . . yes,  I will get to it this month.  Lots and lots more in the review pile.

• Upcoming Author Interviews.  I’d love to tell you if I had anything scheduled, but I put my calender in my BEA box, which is somewhere in the  middle of the country right now.  Let’s hope I don’t have anything until after it gets here!  That said, I have at least half a dozen authors that are expecting questions from me.

• Features. I’ve got the nastiest author recipe to date and will be coming back in full swing with the reader spotlights.  I will be giving away a Neil Gaiman book.  Not just any book, but a signed one.  If that isn’t exciting for Neil Gaiman fans I don’t know what it is!  Seriously, can’t wait.  And I must be the last one to write anything about BEA.  So look for that too.

Challenge Updates

The Jewish Literature Challenge hosted by Callista ended in April.  This was one of my FAVORITE challenges last year and I was SO excited to participate again.  So how many books did I read?  A big fat zero!  And these are the type of books that I love to read!  I am really embarrassed about this challenge and very sad.

I’m finding it hard to remember to update and post my links on the challenge blogs but I’ll keep plugging away.  The challenges which I’m currently doing (click to be taken to my list and then to be taken to challenge blog):

• A-Z Author & Title Challenge
• Dewey’s Books Reading Challenge
• New Author Challenge
• Read Your Own Books Challenge
• Support Your Local Library Challenge
• Themed Reading Challenge
• War Through the Generations Challenge
• Diversity Rocks! Challenge (still haven’t written up my official list yet but the challenge blog has details).
• Non-Fiction Five Challenge (again, haven’t officially joined this challenge – I need to get in gear!)

Awards

Can I just say that I’m almost embarrased to post these?  But I really want to acknowledge the bloggers who gave these awards.  Because really, isn’t that what its really about.  And just because I think it’s funny (and it’s almost midnight here and anything is funny), I pass the Sisterhood Award on to Chris and Bart.   Maybe we aren’t as diversified as we thought?

Molly from My Cozy Book Nook and Shelly from Write for a Reader passed on the Your Blog is Enchanted Award which describes itself as awarding to blogs which are caring. Thanks Molly and Shelly!  Can I tell you how sad I was to miss Molly at BEA?

Kristina from Kristina’s Favorites gave me the Friendly Blogger Award even though she knew I was unlikely to pass it on (I mean come on, how unfriendly of me is that!)  Kristina is awesome, highly recommend you go check out her blog. 

Serena from Savvy Verse & Wit passed on the Friendly Blogger Award as well.  I met Serena at BEA and I loved putting a face to the name.  Again, awesome blogger who I feel like enjoys a lot of the same things I do.

Lisa from Books on the Brain gave me the Proximidade Award which is described as going out of their way to build community.  Considering that I don’t host a single book blogging community event, I’m thrilled anyways.  I met Lisa at the LA Times Festival of Books and I can tell you that she’s simply wonderful and if you aren’t reading her blog, well, you should be.

Mel from Mel’s Reading Corner also passed on the Proximidade Award.  I love Mel’s template and must admit that I even previewed it when I was thinking of starting a different blog.  We’ve reviewed a lot of the same books, go check her out.

Bobbie from Bobbie’s Book Reviews and Texas Red from Texas Red Books both gave my blog the Proximidade Award.  Thanks gals!  Do check out their blogs.

Trish from Trish’s Reading Nook awarded the Sisterhood Award.  Seriously, Trish is full of awesome.  One of my life goals is to meet her.  How’s that for stalk-ish?

Cathy from Kittling Books gave me the Grasshopper Award.  First of all, I must say that this might be on the cutest awards, for some odd reason.  Cathy’s favorite feature of mine is where she spotlights bloggers physical blogging space.  I love seeing where everybody blogs.  Which reminds me . . .  I haven’t turned mine in yet.

Britt from Confessions of a Book Habitue passed on the Let’s Be Friends Award which is funny because we live near each other, so I’d like to become a real IRL friend.  Just gotta make it happen.

Melissa from One Librarian’s Book Reviews also gave me the Let’s Be Friends Award.  She’s another great Utah blogger who I hope to be able to catch up with in real life at some point.  Like the title suggests Melissa is a librarian and she reads a lot of YA.

Kathrin from Secret Dreamworld of a Bookaholic awarded the Lovely Blog Award.  Kathrin is hosting the Mystery Read-a-thon which will be on June 7th.  If you like mysteries, it might go well with MotherReaders 48 Hour Book Challenge at the same time.  Two birds with one stone?

Mrs. V from Mrs. V’s Reviews, Julie from Jule’s Book Reviews, Wendy from Wendy’s Minding Spot also all  gave me the One Lovely Blog Award.  Looking forward to getting to know these three bloggers better..

Desert Rose awarded the beautiful Literary Blogger Award which describes itself as acknowledging bloggers who energize and inspire reading by going the extra mile.  So sweet.

Carnivals

Lots of carnivals and I didn’t submit a single review! But check out the ones who did.

• Christ’s Bridge, Love Romance Passion, Literary Menagerie and Mysteries in Paradise all hosted the Book Review Blog Carnival.  Get your review in before the 7th for the next carnival at The Symposium by submitting at the Book Review Blog Carnival site.

• The 30th Edition of the Bookworms Carnival is being hosted by Michelle at Biblio.me which is books about books! Kristen at the Book Club Classics had the 28th Edition of the Bookworms Carnival which celebrated Pulitzters.  Julia over at Book News and Reviews gave us a little taste of Murder Mysteries with the 27th edition.  Michelle at 1MoreChapter hosted he 26th Edition of the Bookworms Carnival, which was book awards.  The next edition will be hosted on the Bookworms Carnival blog and is paranormal fiction. Check out the Bookworms Carnival website for info.

Other Items of Note

Book Giveaways. Carey at The Tome Traveller won my Savvy by Ingrid Law giveaway.  I should have brought the book to NYC because I met Carey there!  Will send book as soon as I ask for an address (I swear I’m behind on everything!).  Louise won a copy of The Secret Keeper by Paul Harris.  Alyce from At Home With Books won a signed Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson and Mari from Mari Reads won seven signed Jodi Picoult books.  I have yet to announce my The Chosen One and the BEAtwittyparty giveaway which I’ll do in the comments there in the next couple of days.

• Blogging Tips Group on the Book Blogs Ning. I have lots of posting to do over at the blogging tips group but if you haven’t been go check out how to get a favicon, blog design mistakes you should avoid, how to market your blog offline (timely with BEA), and how to link with anchor text.

• MotherReader’s 48 Hour Book Challenge. The 48 Hour Book Challenge is coming up THIS weekend, June 5-7th.  You can find all the details on the sign up post.  I’m participating.  I haven’t told my husband though yet.  So somebody please pray for me.  He probably won’t be happy! I’ll be posting some updates, so make sure you stop by.

• Book Expo America and the LA Times Festival of Books. I mention the LA Times Festival of Books because I still have one post in draft mode.  Will it ever see the light of day?  And of course, it was very exciting to attend Book Expo America (BEA) this past weekend.  I feel still like I’m recovering.  The highlight was sitting in on the Book Bloggers Panel!  Details to come!

• Not subscribed at all? As you can see from this recap, there is always something going on.  Don’t miss any of it by receiving updates via email or through your favorite reader. Think you want to know even more about me?  Follow me on Twitter.

And somebody shoot me for doing two months in a wrap up post.  Never again!  Why do I submit myself to this torture.

Kim at Bold Blue Adventure has created a meme about blogging tips. I’m normally not a meme-ish person but I thought this was a great idea. Now, I’m not going to reinvent the wheel here. There are literally hundreds of websites out there that are solely dedicated to blogging tips. I’m simply going to point you in the right direction, relay my experiences of what I’ve learned in my seven months of blogging, and talk specifically about what I do in regards to this book blog.

And I KNOW that this is WAY more than she asked for but I just can’t help myself.

Seven months ago, I knew NOTHING about blogging! I had never even heard words like plugin’s, themes, widgets, etc. I was 100% completely lost. I had two things in my favor. One, an incredible sister who didn’t mind that I called her five times a day. And two, I’m a pretty fast learner.

During my first three months, I was lucky to get 15 visitors a day. And I was so excited when somebody from Argentina visited my blog that I ran down the stairs to tell my husband. I love seeing who has visited from the far corners of the globe and have now reached all 52 states and 102 different countries. I’ve been fortunate enough to see my statistics steadily increase, particularly the last month and have exceeded any expectations that I had. Every month is always better than the last.

So why do I say all this? Simply, I think I must be doing something right to see my numbers steadily rising rather than plateauing. But I am NO expert! I hope to figure out this blogging thing even better and look forward to all the other tips that everybody has.

This will just be a modge podge of things I’ve been doing and resources that may help you. Everybody is different, so what may work for me, may not for you.

On to actual blogging tips . . .

• Why am I blogging? Who is my audience? I think a question that we all need to ask ourself is: Why am I blogging? Who am I blogging for? Am I writing just for myself? Or am I writing for a particular audience? Is that audience just other book bloggers, or just my friends and family, or is it for a larger internet audience?I first started blogging to bring some exposure to a home-based business (more about that another time) but I’ve found that has changed.

  For me, I’m now blogging for several reasons. One, I love to read. I’m a stay at home mom who needs a creative outlet, some interaction, and this blog has done just that. When I first started blogging, I didn’t know that this wonderful book blogging community existed. I’ve been very fortunate to be welcomed with open arms. So while I am blogging for myself, I’m also blogging as a part of this community. But I am very aware that 75% of my visitors that are not book bloggers. They are simply seeking information that I hope I can provide for them. When I write, I very much try to not address just the book blogging community. Why? I want everybody to feel welcome. As a result, I feel as though my writing reflects this. Make sense?And because I’m blogging about books, I try to keep everything on topic. Sure, I share stuff about my personal life, but I like to throw in some relevant books at the same time.

• How Much Time Do I Have? So this is one that I need to get under control. I spend way to much time blogging. I hope to nail down some type of schedule because my husband says he misses me. And frankly, I miss him too.
• Choosing a Blogging Platform. For me, I chose to purchase my own domain name and host my own WordPress blog. I couldn’t have done this without my sister. I only hope that we are all so lucky to either know how to do this stuff on our own or know somebody who doesn’t mind helping you out. With Wordpress I have the flexibility to do whatever I want, have a ton of plugin’s at my disposal, and have full control of my content. Not to self: back up my stuff!!If you don’t have a blog yet, but are thinking of starting one, shop around and see what features you like and don’t like about the various platforms.

• Branding Branding is important to me. I want everybody to know who Maw Books is. I use the same avatar and the same name everywhere I go. Social networks, commenting on other people’s blogs, forums, etc. I want to be easily recognizable and easily found.

• Google Alerts I love Google Alerts. If you’re not using them you should. Basically, Google Alerts does all the searching for you. Say I write a post on a particular book. I’m curious as to what else is being written about that book. Not just now, but in the future as well. Set up a Google Alert for a particular keyword, choose what to search (entire internet, blogs, images, etc.) choose how often you would like Google to notify you (as it happens, daily, weekly, monthly). Google will then send you an email with it’s search results. It’s a great way to find new bloggers talking about something that you have interest in and you’ll have something to contribute.

  Plus, every time anybody uses the words Maw Books, I am immediately notified (even if they don’t link to me). It’s a great way to keep tabs on what others are saying. But I can also have a Google alert for links if I have my keyword like this: link:http://blog.mawbooks.com. If you do a Google or Yahoo search it will tell you all the pages linked up to you. Yahoo seems to have more pages indexed than Google.

• Have a Feed! Have a feed for your blog. If I can’t subscribe to it I will NEVER come back. I just don’t have the time. Most people subscribe to blogs through Google Reader or Bloglines. I prefer Google Reader. But make sure that you also have the option to subscribe to your blog by email. Not all of your readers read enough blogs or have the know how to use a feedreader. For example, I subscribed my own mother-in-law and my parents by email. I’ve also noticed several of my neighbors signed up as well.

• Google Reader Trish at Hey Lady, Whatcha Readin? has already written a great article about Google Reader so I’m not going to even try to repeat anything she already said. I just wanted to mention how I use Google Reader. Because I maintain the Book Bloggers Book Review database (yes, I managed to slip that in there!) I put every book blog that I come across into Google Reader. I just checked and I’m now up to 515 subscriptions (yikes!).Thank goodness that you can manage those subscriptions through folders otherwise I’d be going crazy. What’s nice is that you can have a blog in more than one folder. I have a folder where I put anybody who has left me a comment. This helps me pay particular attention because these are extra special people. I have a folder for author’s blogs, a friends/family folder, blogging tips folder, and my newest folder addition is the Weekly Geeks reciprocal link exchange list so I could keep track of who said they were willing to exchange links (I have 45 blogs in that one, let me know if you want that list). All the rest just hang out folder-less, I scan through them quickly, see if there is anything interesting, reviews to add to the database, etc.Starring. Because I have so many blogs in my reader, I will always star something that I want to go back to and read in depth more, comment on, a book I want to add to the TBR, etc. I also star book reviews that need to go into the database, once added I unstar them.

  I also do a lot of searching within Google Reader. Say I just finished a book and want to see what my fellow book bloggers are saying, I can search from just within Google Reader. That’s how I’ve been creating the database.

  I also share what I’m reading as well. You’ll notice in my left hand sidebar, the widget that corresponds to Google Reader. Anything that I mark share will show up there, and you can click read more to see all my shared items. I honestly don’t know if anybody actually does click through to anything but I like it.

  And another thing about Google Reader. As soon as I add anybody to the reader I immediately change the name and add in the first name of the blogger into the title. This helps me remember bloggers on a first name basis and who belongs to what blog. Which brings me back to branding. It’s sometimes hard for me to track of everybody on a first name basis alone. Branding yourself can only help.

• Share a bit about yourself! I really try to focus on just books and reading on this blog. But I want my readers to get to know me as well. Make sure you bring some of yourself to the table while keeping it relevant to your context. This goes back to the question: why and what do you blog?

• No excuses! I hope to never be apologizing to my readers for a lack of a post. I honestly don’t think everybody is standing by their computers and wondering why Natasha hasn’t written a post in two days. But that’s just me.

• Titles Does your reader know what the topic of your post is from the title alone? Well, they should! Please don’t tell me, “This Post Has No Title” or “A Couple of Reviews.” When I log into my Google Reader I am looking at 200-300 new blog posts. If the title doesn’t tell me what the post is about I’m not likely going to click through to find out. Plus, my blog is syndicated through several networks (CafeMom, Facebook, BlogCatalog, BlogRush, etc.). Titles are the only thing that will tell somebody what your post is about.

• Keywords I have actually been shocked on the number of book reviews that I have read that do not mention even once the name of the book or the author (even in the title). I guess I’m suppose to figure it out from the book cover. When search engines crawl your blog they are looking for relevant keywords. Make sure the keywords that you use in your title are the keywords that you use again in your blog posting. Every time you say, “this book, this author, this story, etc.” replace those words with the title and author. What do you type into the Google search engine when you’re looking for something? Are those the keywords that you are also using?

• Navigation How easy is your blog to navigate? Are your book reviews easily found? How many clicks do I have to go through to find something? The less the better. Sometimes I find navigating a particular blog so frustrating that I’ll switch over to Google Reader and browse through there instead. Have a search box as well. Also, how cluttered is your blog? Does your blog need some dejunking? Keep it easy on the eyes, nice, clean and simple. And I hate music that automatically plays. And if you’re at work, well then you just gave away that you’re actually not working.

• Social Networks If you are looking for more ways to drive traffic to your blog consider the use of social networks, blog directories, and forums. Have a presence in the major social networks. I currently have profiles with YouTube, Facebook, MySpace and CafeMom. I’m not working them as much as I could (exception being CafeMom), but at some point in the future I hope too, particularly YouTube. You just have to ask yourself is your time worth it? Plus I haven’t even mentioned a million others.

• Blog Directories List your blog in free blog directory listings. Some examples are BlogCatalog, Fuel My Blog, and a myriad of others including directories for mommy bloggers, book bloggers, etc.

• Forums I consistently contribute to at least four forums on a regular basis (all book related) that allow me to have my blog listed in my signature line (all forums have different rules, so you’ll have to check). It’s a great way to contribute in book related discussions and give your blog some exposure. Again, you have to ask yourself is your time worth it? Is this something that you want to get involved in?

• Book Catalogs I’m having a brain freeze. I can’t think of the proper name for these. But let’s not forget the myriad of different book cataloging services you can use as well. Library Thing, Shelfari, Goodreads, etc. These all have a large deal of socialization as well. Pick one that works for you and go with it.

• Download the Web developer tool bar for Firefox. I use the web developer toolbar to check block sizes, CSS styles, and color. I honestly don’t know what I would do without it.

• Alexa Ranking Do you know what your Alexa ranking is? It’s a rough estimation of how much traffic your website receives compared to other websites. For example, Yahoo is #1, Google is #2, YouTube is #3, and I’m #394,887 which roughly means that I have the 394,887th most popular website. They update the ranking every month and I’ve been happy to see my ranking increase. When you download the Alexa Ranking toolbar you can see the ranking of each website that you visit. If you have a blogspot.com blog it will show as #9 as it cannot tell the difference between your blogger domain and another bloggers domain, rather it’s everybody’s combined ranking. This may be true of Typepad and Livejournal as well.I use the tool bar to to judge how popular a website or blog is. If it’s really popular I’ll be sure to drop some comments or cite an article. If they are getting great traffic, it won’t hurt to try to get some exposure there. A lot of people don’t put a lot of stock into the Alexa ranking, but I think it gives a rough estimation on how you are doing compared to other bloggers. I like it.

• Stat counters Why use a stat counter to advertise that you have only had 20-200 visitors on your blog? If your traffic is low, why are you telling me? This really irritates me.

• Technorati Use Technorati to keep track of who is linking to your blog. A must have in my opinion.

• Blogging Faster I keep several text files with the hyperlinks of my book reviews, hyperlinks of my posts and hyperlinks of my images. That way I don’t have to go find them every time I need them.

• Encouraging Comments
  • First, write great posts! If it’s not interesting, nobody will care to leave a comment.
  • Ask questions in your posts that lead naturally to a response.
  • Develop great blogging relationships. Not a problem in the book blogging community, everyone is amazing.
  • Leave meaningful comments on other blogs that contribute to the conversation. There is nothing worse than spamming a discussion with just leaving your link. Or only saying, I read this too, check out my review. Comment on my post and I’m more likely to then check out your review as well.
  • Make leaving comments on your blog easy. I have to admit that I am not a huge fan of the captcha. I sometimes have to try 5-6 times to figure out what the letters are before I finally get it to go through. Very frustrating although I understand why some bloggers use it. And are you restricting comments only to those on your blogging platform? Why? Why would you exclude those who don’t blog on the same platform as you? I have to admit that I had to create a blogger profile just so I could make comments on these blogs, although I don’t have a blogger blog. And you’re lucky that I took the time to do that. Most will just bypass commenting on your blog. Don’t discriminate.
  • Reward your commentators. I have the Top Ten commentator widget in my sidebar. Nothing like a little friendly competition and satisfaction of seeing your name there to encourage comments. I used to have snapshots on this blog, which when hovered over a commentators name will give the RSS feed of their last three posts (which takes me back to why titles are so important, since that’s the only thing it shows). I just took it off after some discussion on a forum made me realize how much everybody hated this plugin. I am currently searching for a new plugin that does something similar.
  • Have contests and giveaways. Everybody loves something for nothing and it doesn’t take much for us book bloggers to get excited!
  • Respond to comments. I personally am disappointed when I see a blogger hasn’t responded to my comments. Sure, some may not lead to a response but it’s nice to know that the blogger has acknowledged what I have to say. I try to respond to all the comments here, but have found it increasingly time consuming, but feel that it’s worth it.
  • Have a way for commentators to subscribe to comments. Ha, like I should be talking about this one because everybody tells me that mine doesn’t work. Even after I fixed it and tested it with my sister who receives all the follow up emails. I may have to find a new plugin as well.
  • Follow a commentator back to their blog. Add them to your feedreader, make a contribution to their blog. I have to admit that I used to always leave comments with everybody who left me a comment on a very consistent basis. But I now have had more than 120+ bloggers leave me comments and I just can’t keep up. I now comment on those which I feel like I have something to contribute. In the perfect world, I would spend all day leaving comments but I do have two small children who would mysteriously get into major trouble.

• HTML Code/Technical Issues Whenever changing anything on your blog, make sure you have everything backed up! Save files into a text file so you can easily revert back to something. This is a HTML Quick list that I use often. A lot of people recommend changing your template often, as for me, I’m really scared to do that. I’m comfortable with what I’ve got, so why change it.

• Readability Keep your posts easy to read by breaking up your post into shorter paragraphs. I almost never read a post if it’s one continuous paragraph. I get lost and my attention spans. Use proper writing skills and skip all of that texting lingo. I seriously don’t even know what half of them mean. Capitalize and punctuate properly. Nothing annoys me more than no capitals or punctuation. Did they even make it out of high school? I’m the first to admit that my grammar is probably on the bad side, but I’m talking about the obvious here.

• Use Images Nothing like photos to make your blog more appealing. Use them! I also love videos, even if I’m the only one to watch them. I’m a very visual person and enjoy blogs that reflect that.

• Blogging Tips Blogs (that you should be subscribing to):
  • The Blog Herald
  • Lorelle on WordPress
  • Blogging Basics 101
  • Blogging Tips
  • Blogsessive
  • SEO Megacorp

• More resources to help you blog. Lorelle on WordPress has written the best in-depth article that I have ever seen about blogging helps. Everybody should check this one out.

• Have a Universal Gravatar. Visit http://en.gravatar.com and register your email address with a gravatar. Blogs that have this enabled will automatically show your avatar. It’s a great way for your comments to stand out. I only wish that there was a way for Blogger blogs to show people’s avatars that are not a part of Blogger.

• Make it easy to have people contact you. Often times people will say “visit my profile page to find my email address.” Couldn’t you have just given it to me? If I was reading it in a reader, that will make it two, no wait, three clicks to get to your email address meaning you just lost me because I won’t click that far. I have a contact page and surprisingly people use it all the time!

• Organize Your Email I have different types of email go into different folders. If it’s a Google Alert, it goes into the Google Alerts folder. If it’s a comment from my blog, it goes into the comment folder. If it’s a contact through my contact page, it goes into a contact folder. I also have different folders for various forums, social directories, etc. This just makes my blogging easier and faster. I only have to look at what I want to look at, when I want to look at it.

• Link to Your Older Posts Nothing like getting me to browse your blog more. Link up to your older blog posts if it’s relevant to the one that you are writing.

• Saving Posts for a Rainy Day Have a few posts ready to go for those days that you don’t have much energy or time to devote to blogging. If you are going to be out of town take advantage of pre-publishing your posts so that you will have something going up although you are not at home. I also worry when people say that they will not be home for the next two weeks. Are they just inviting intruders to their home? Especially when I found a website (can’t find it now) that pulled up my name, address, and phone number all based on my domain name purchase. Scary.

If anybody is self-hosting a WordPress blog and would like me to post on what WordPress plugins I think everybody should have, just let me know and I can add them into the comments. This post just got super long so just let me know if interested.

Okay, so how’s that!? This really got out of hand. Did you learn anything that you think you can use? Anything to build on what I mentioned? Tips of your own? I’d love to hear them.

And after about two weeks of this being in draft, I’m finally hitting publish! Better late than never.

P.S. Visit www.mylivesignature.com to create your own signature.