Bloggiesta Finish Line

The Fourth Edition of Bloggiesta has come to a close for me. This was my first time participating and I will definitely be back for more! Bloggiesta was a chance for me to evaluate the different things that I wanted to change or improve about my blog. It was a change for me to see what could be done to make the blog itself better, in terms of SEO, navigability, looks, and of course, content. As PEDRO denotes:

Plan. Edit. Develop. Review. Organize.





Here are the goals that set to to do that I was able to accomplish:

--archive reviews that I have posted between December and the present

-possibly relocate some of content in my sidebars

--display the blog/book tours where I am a member

--figure out how I want to display the information for the challenges that I am attempting

--create a privacy policy

--return review requests emails

--visit the blogs of the book tour that I participate in and leave introductory/salutatory comments

--create a google doc to organize/plan my review, guest post, or author interview post dates for the next 60 days

--create a google doc to organize the ARC tour books that I will be receiving, as well as the ones that I express interest in

--create a google doc to organize the e-books for review that have expiration dates (S&S galley grab and NetGalley books)

--make a schedule of the review books, and personal books that I want to read for the next 60 days


In addition to finishing the above goals that I had set beforehand, I found myself adding a few things to my list, after seeing the tweets, goals, and mini-challenges of the other bloggers that were participating. I thought it was great that I could ask questions, and maybe help out others who had questions of their own. I only did one mini-challenge. Several of them were things that I already utilize, like the google forms, the button, the book organization, and the vanity alerts. But, I learned much just from having the mini-challenges as part of the event.

A few goals that I added and completed during Bloggiesta:

Create an About Me page (not just the profile page that Blogger has)

Get listed on several book blog directories

Have my blog graded



I'm happy that I was able to get so much done, but the one issue that I had with time, was when I got involved in reworking some of my template's HTML. I don't have a self-hosted domain yet, and I found that Blogger's template customization can be limiting when I know the code, and I know what I want the code to do, but it can't be inserted under the particular template that I use. I got way too caught up in trying to change something that I ended up having to remove anyway. It was a little disappointing. The next time that I participate in Bloggiesta, I will have to better parse my time, or decide between improving the content aspect, or the HTML aspect.

There were two projects that I started to work on, which I couldn't finish for Bloggiesta, but will be a priority going forward:

--figure out a way to better organize my review archive

--make a template for my reviews to include publisher, date release, series, author/book links, and if you liked recommendations



I also never got a chance to do any actual writing. I had this outlook that I would be able to catch up on all of the reviews that I needed to write. A few were reviews of books that I had read on my own, a couple were for books that were read for request, but the majority of the reviews would have counted toward my reading challenges. Again, I realize that I spent too much time on the design aspect of my blog, and didn't allow for writing time.

Two goals left unstarted during Bloggiesta:

--write reviews for the backlog of books that I have finished reading (7-8 reviews)

--update my challenges with the books that I have read for the month and link review pages



I loved having the change to dedicate myself to doing more for my blog, and I liked being part of a community of bloggers doing the same. Sincere thanks go out to Natasha at Maw Books, for hosting this event, and bringing together the fabulous bloggers that presented the mini-challenges, and well as having Pedro tweet such good links with helpful hints. And, I'll definitely be back for Bloggiesta the Fifth!

Did you participate in Bloggiesta? How did you do?