October may have been the quickest month this year. It wasn’t a great month for reading, mostly because I’m getting married in AN ACTUAL WEEK. I honestly cannot believe that’s almost here! I’ve been trying to read when I can, but really most of my time has been dedicated to wedding stuff and whereas before I was a bit stressed out about trying to keep up with reading, I am totally okay with the time that I need to dedicate to wedding things to get stuff done and keep my sanity! 🙂
- Number of Books Read In August: 5. Haha omg, I literally only read five books this month. That’s insane. But like I said… wedding takes up most of my time lately! I’m really hoping to start catching up on SO many things after the honeymoon!
- Popular Search Terms: “books like if I stay” & “books similar to if i stay” // “book addicts guide” // “lunar chronicles personality quizzes”
- More Amusing Search Terms: “why is the 5th wave so confusing” // “childermass tim riggins jacket” (EXCELLENT) // “books with sex scenes like sweet evil” (uhh. Yikes?) // “finish the book i started the book addict’s guide” (I’m confused?) // “how much money made by john green with an abundance of Katherines”
- Most Referrals (non-social media): Rather Be Reading, The Perpetual Page Turner, The Broke and the Bookish
- Where My Blog Most Often Leads You (non-internal/social media): Books Take You Places, Tripping Over Books, Book Jems
- My Guide to Crossover Books is still a pretty popular hit! (Pinterest and search engines. Word.)
- The Best-Friend-Turned-Boyfriend Romance is back in the top again thanks to search engines bringing new readers!
- I also had a bunch of hits that led readers to If You Liked… If I Stay to help them choose another book like Gayle Forman’s masterpiece!
Other Reviews Posted
- I absolutely LOVED Dissonance by Erica O’Rourke! It was such a “me” book!
- Historical fiction + a touch of non-fiction was definitely out of my comfort zone but I WANTED to like it. See what I thought of Burial Rites by Hannah Kent!
- I’m not one for scary books, but I really enjoyed The Fall by Bethany Griffin!
- My opinions on the Harry Potter books change each time I re-read them! See how things changed with my re-read of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix!
- The Infinite Sea had me just as hooked as The 5th Wave!
Goodreads Reading Progress
Bloggers featured on Book and a Beverage
- 10/2/14: Bernadette from The Bumbling Bookworm
- 10/9/14: Emily and Jen from Book Jems
- 10/16/14: Michelle from Book Briefs
- 10/23/14: Hawwa from It Was Lovely Reading You
- 10/30/14: Becky from Blogs of a Bookaholic
Other Features & Discussions
- I did the TBR tag and it was so much fun!
- I did Top Ten Tuesday on October 7th and shared my favorite character driven books with another graphic!
- This month’s Pub Date post was all about Halloween! I drank some pumpkin beers and curled up with a scary book.
- I got to be the designated blogger for the Fierce Reads tour in Chicago and it was a BLAST. I got to interview the wonderful Fierce Reads authors (their interview was amazing!) AND I got to moderate the event! It was a dream come true.
- We talked about The Goose Girl with On the Same Page this month and I FINALLY figured out some things that make me the black sheep with certain books.
- Kat from Perusing Bookshelves showed us how to make adorable Halloween bookmarks!*
- Morgan from Gone With the Words shared her love of the movie Hocus Pocus!*
- On October 21st, I talked about what series I want to start soon with Top Ten Tuesday
- Stephanie from Her Reviews of Books, Movies, and Everything shared her favorite Halloween TV episodes*
- Caroline from The Attic Reviews made a great graphic for readers to take a quiz & see which Halloween read is right for them*
- Sajda from Across the Words guest posted with a review for The Evolution of Mara Dyer*
- Ellen from Quest Reviews shared her thoughts on Anna Dressed In Blood as her Halloween book rec!*
- Author Bethany Griffin stopped by for a guest post about her settings as characters, especially in her latest book, THE FALL*
- I would LOVE to dress up as literary characters for Halloween. See which ones I’d pick (Top Ten Tuesday 10/28)
- Michelle from Unraveling Books wrote a short story for her Fortnight of Fright guest post!
BONUS SECTION: BOOKISH COMMUNITY GROUP PINTEREST BOARDS
I really, really want to do a full blog post about this (and other social media… hacks? Is hacks a good word? Different ways to use social media to help promote as well as organize, so I think so!) but unfortunately, I thought of this idea when I’m super pressed for time! For now, I wanted to include the idea of the group Pinterest boards in my wrap-up for this month!
I’ve been totally surprised at much Pinterest has helped my blog reach a different audience. There are so many more bookworms who are on Pinterest that may not be Twitter people (and I still think it’s terribly difficult to reach people on Facebook) and this was proven to me a few months ago when one of my pins started to go crazy. It was the graphic of my Book Addict’s GUIDE to crossover books — it ended up getting TONS of repins and therefore brought TONS of new people to my blog. They didn’t all become followers, of course, but it brought a wide variety of people to my blog and those pins just really brought in so much traffic! The only issue with promoting on Pinterest is that once I pin my own link, it’s REALLY hard to re-post it. Sure, I can keep re-pinning my own link but that feels a bit obnoxious and I can’t really ASK people to re-pin my stuff either. I was searching how to market yourself better with Pinterest and I found the idea about group boards.
Group Pinterest boards allow anyone to pin anything to that board — all they have to do is be invited. So I decided to try my hand at creating a set of group boards for the book community — readers, bloggers, authors, publishers — really ANYONE who loves reading and wants a central place to go hunt for new posts or graphics or book covers or recommendations. The great thing about group boards is that anyone can request to join (and I’m currently the admin of the group boards that I set up so it’s not like I’m really denying any requests!) and then they can pin whatever they want, so long as it’s related to that specific board. THEN you’re essentially cross-posting your link in a different spot so you can re-pin both old and new links. Everyone who follows the group boards will see ALL of the pins that ANYONE pins. So instead of following a ton of people, you’re following the group Pinterest account and you just get all bookish things, all the time. It just seemed really helpful to have a place to cross-post bookish pins and the more people that join and pin, the wider the audience gets and the more people everyone reaches.
If you’re interesting in joining the group boards, all you have to do is comment on the “Request Board”, give the email address that your Pinterest account is linked to (not just any old email), and let me know which boards you want to pin to! Then you can pin anything, anytime (so long as it’s appropriate for that board). I’ll keep pinning links from around the book-world too to always keep the content fresh!
Anyway… this really turned into a blog post of its own, but it’s something I’m really excited for and I hope others are excited for it too! I think it could be a great way to not only help promote your blog but another place to connect with other bloggers, new readers, and a fun place to keep on sharing! If you’re interested, head on over to the Book Community Group Boards here!
WHAT’S IN STORE FOR NOVEMBER?
- I AM GETTING MARRIED. NOVEMBER 8TH. IT’S SO SOON. So needless to say, you’ll be seeing a BIT less of me in November. I’m turning my blog over to some lovely guest post-ers to share some great posts in my absence so the blog isn’t just crickets! They’ll be posting while I’m on my honeymoon for a week 🙂
- After that, well, life back to normal, I hope! I’m going to try to catch up on a bunch of books — all of those ARCs that I’ve been promising to read since August (and earlier. Oops)!
- I honestly have nothing else haha! Wedding has consumed my life, so we’re playing November by ear! But I WILL have some reviews coming for Brandon Sanderson books (you know, if I ever write them)
6 thoughts on “October 2014: Recap & Wrap-Up!”
Wow, I never realized that Pinterest had a bookish community! I’ll have to check this out. I’ve never been quite sure how to approach Pinterest from a book blog standpoint. Just pinning a book cover linking to a review doesn’t seem like enough, and yet, maybe it would reach a new audience. Do you pin all your reviews/discussions and how do you personally approach it?
I actually just created it so come on over! Haha. I actually pin ALL of my posts to Pinterest. Some of them don’t really get hits but I pin the book covers for my reviews and it’s a great place to pin your own graphics and things like that if you ever make them! I also love pinning bookish things that aren’t really blog related, like Harry Potter and other fandoms 😀
Love the idea of your book community boards! I just asked to be added. 🙂
Happy Almost Wedding! The Pinterest board thing sounds interesting; I’m going to look into that!
I think I need to get me a Pinterest account – that’s such a great idea! Love the organization of it too. 🙂
And, wow, married in seven days!!!! I can’t wait to see pictures! I hope you have a stress-free week and a WONDERFUL honeymoon. <333
Ahh your wedding is so soon! Totally understandable that you read 5 books. I find that quite an accomplishment, really!
The Book Community Group Boards are such a great idea. Love it!