Category: Everything Else

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Blogging Other

A Beginner’s Guide to Joining the Book Blogging Community

Blogging is much more fun when other people are involved, but it can be hard to find others to share your passion for books when you have a new blog. Here are a few great ways to connect with other bloggers.

  • The first thing to do is to head over to Fyrefly’s Book Blog Search Engine Index Page. Check to see if your blog is on the list. If it isn’t, add a link to your url in the comments section and Fyrefly will add it for you. This will mean that any blogger searching for reviews for a specific book on the Book Blogs Search Engine will find you.
  • The next thing you need to do is find some bloggers with a similar taste in books to connect with. Try searching for your favourite books on the Book Blogs Search Engine, or by typing the title of the book and the words “blog review” on google.
  • Once you’ve found a blog you enjoy reading, comment on it. Try to leave thoughtful, useful comments as then the blogger is more likely to connect with you. Hopefully you’ll be able to build up a relationship with the blogger over a period of time and they will begin to reciprocate the comments.

More Ways to Find Other Book Bloggers

  • Every Saturday Semicolon hosts the Saturday Review of Books. All you need to do is to head over to her blog each Saturday and leave a link to all the reviews you have written that week. This is a great place to find more recent reviews and connect with people who have read similar books to you. You can discover some great, new blogs there and hopefully a few people will find you too!
  • Taking part in reading challenges is another good way of connecting with other bloggers. Try to find a challenge which suits your reading taste. All new challenges are posted on the Novel Challenge Blog and you can also join the Novel Challenge Yahoo Group to discuss all your reading challenges. Be warned – challenges are addictive. It won’t be long until you’ve signed up for far too many!!
  • LibraryThing is a great place to discuss books, whether you have a blog or not. There are some great discussion boards on there and you’ll also find lots of book recommendations. GoodReads is a similar site for you to investigate.
  • The Book Blogs Ning is also a good place to connect with other bloggers. You’ll find some great blogging tips there and lots of great people!
  • There are lots of memes you can participate in too, but be careful not to do too many, as a site packed with memes is quite off-putting. A complete list of memes/events is on the Book Blogger Appreciation site, and there is a good introducion to memes at Heart of Wisdom.
  • Twitter is a fantastic place to find bloggers. Many of the best book related discussions take place on Twitter – make sure you have a lot of spare time before signing up!
  • Book Carnivals are also great sites to investigate.  The Bookworms Carnival is my favourite, but the Book Review Blog Carnival is also a good place to find new blogs. Try to submit a review if you have any relevant posts. 
  • Dewey’s 24 Hour Readathon is a great bonding experience – if you fancy staying awake for and entire 24 hours!

Taking it to the Next Level

Once you’ve found your feet and a few blogging friends, then it is time to get a bit more adventurous.

  • Try joining/hosting a read along. Reading a book together is a great bonding experience and you will always get more from a book read with a group than on your own. If you spot someone starting a read along – jump in! Or just write a post saying you are going to read a certain book soon – you might be surprised at who else is keen to read that book too!
  • Host your own challenge/event. If you are feeling very adventurous then you could host your own challenge. Check that you’re not overlapping with any existing challenge at the Novel Challenge Blog. Good luck! 

The book blogging community is a very friendly place. Don’t hesitate to ask any questions – most bloggers are more than happy to answer them.

I hope you enjoy the blogging world!

Can you think of any other ways to become a better member of the blogging community?

Categories
Blogging Other

Farm Lane Books is 1 today!

birthday-cupcake A year ago today I posted my first introductory post on this blog, quickly followed by several reviews I’d previously written for The Complete Booker Blog.

So much has happened in my first year of blogging. I never imagined the wonderful experiences that I’d find in this amazing community.

I have always loved reading, but 18 months ago I was completely unaware that the wonderful book blogging community existed. One day I decided to search for reviews of Booker Prize winners, as I’d decided that I wanted to try to read them all. I discovered The Complete Booker Blog and was really excited to discover a group of people who had already decided to take on this challenge. I started to add reviews to this site and then became aware of Musings, the blog belonging to Laura,  the founder of The Complete Booker. I became fascinated by her blog. I loved the idea of writing reviews for each book I read, and as I had similar taste to Laura I became a little bit obsessed with her. I used to log in every day and became really excited whenever she wrote a new post.

After a few weeks I decided to look in to starting my own blog. I became very excited about the idea and did a lot of research into the best platform and templates to use. Finally, with the techincal support of my husband, I launched Farm Lane Books Blog on 28th September 2008.

It wasn’t an easy start for me, although I wrote my first post in September, it wasn’t until November 8th that I received my first comment, from Rose City Reader. Michelle from 1MoreChapter and Teddy Rose from So Many Precious Books, So Little Time were next to find me on 9th and 16th November respectively. Thank you! I still follow all three blogs to this day and each will always hold a special place in my heart for being the ones to start it all off.

I then discovered Weekly Geeks, but for several weeks I was too scared to join in, as everyone seemed to know what they were doing and had such wonderful blogs. I felt so intimidated by them, but then on 24th November I finally plucked up the courage to write my first weekly geek post. I was so excited to have finally taken the plunge and was anxiously waiting for Dewey to welcome me into the blogging community, as I knew she was amazingly good at encouraging new bloggers. Tragically that never happened, as Dewey died on 25th November. I was devastated when I heard the news. She was one of the only bloggers I had discovered at that point. Weekly Geeks was the only community event I had heard of and the whole blogging community seemed to freeze with grief. I didn’t know what to do and my blog continued with me continuing to feel like an outsider in the community I so desperately wanted to join.

Slowly, I began to find my feet. I started to develop relationships with other bloggers.  The first person I connected with was Beth, and she then led me to Sandy. Since then my blog has grown exponentially. I have discovered an amazing range of blogs, found lots of people who understand my passion for books and increased my TBR pile by about 500 books!

Thank you so much for following my blog!

I couldn’t do it without you!

To celebrate I am going to write a series of posts about what I have learned during my first year of blogging. I am also going to reveal my favourite books of all time. I hope you’ll continue to follow my blog and share your passion for reading with me.

Categories
Book Prizes Other Other Prizes

Giller Prize Longlist 2009

The longlist for the Giller Prize 2009 was announced yesterday. The Giller prize is awarded annually to the best Canadian fiction. The titles to make it through were:

  • The Year of the Flood – Margaret Atwood
  • The Incident Report – Martha Bailie
  • The Disappeared – Kim Echlin
  • The Heart Specialist  – Claire Holden Rothman
  • The Color of Lighting – Paulette Jiles
  • The Factory Voice – Jeanette Lynes
  • The Golden Mean – Annabel Lyon
  • The Bishop’s Man – Linden MacIntyre
  • Fall – Colin McAdam
  • The Winter Vault – Anne Michaels
  • Valmiki’s Daughter – Shani Mootoo
  • The Mistress of Nothing – Kate Pullinger

The only authors I had heard of were Anne Michaels and Margaret Atwood, but a quick browse through the list of previous books to make the shortlist revealed a lot of ones that I not only recognised, but also loved. Although I am not planning to read the entire longlist, or even the shortlist when it is announced on 6th October, I am going to pay much more attention to this prize in the future.

I am planning to read a few books shortlisted for the Giller prize soon.

Next week I am going to read De Niro’s Game by Rawi Hage. This was originally recommended to me by Claire from Kiss a Cloud. It won the 2008 International IMPAC Literary Award, but I didn’t realise it had been shortlisted for the Giller as well.

I am also planning to read Alligator by Lisa Moore soon. I discovered it at a car boot sale and loved the cover and blurb. I have never heard anyone mention it before though – have you read Alligator?

On twitter yesterday we were discussing the Giller prize; Nymeth recommended Monkey Beach by Eden Robinson and Claire recommended The Garneau Block by Todd Babiak. I ordered both, so I’ll get round to reading them at some point too.

I’d like to remind you that my favourite book won the Giller Prize in 2001. If you haven’t read A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry yet – you are missing out!

Do you follow the Giller Prize?

Which is your favourite book from the Giller Prize shortlists?

Categories
Blogging Other

Does using Twitter make you a better blogger?

Twitter has taken off this year and has been utilised by many bloggers, both as a way of getting to know others and as a marketing tool for their blog. I have often seen posts encouraging people to sign up to Twitter, implying that it will make you a better blogger, but I’m not sure I agree with that.

Twitter has helped me to build a better relationship with some people and made me more aware of the bigger issues affecting bloggers, but I don’t feel it has made me a better blogger. I know many wonderful bloggers who have not signed up to Twitter and I do not feel that the quality of their posts is any different to regular tweeters.

Arguably Twitter leads to becoming a better commenter, as you are led straight to the source of the latest debate, but without Twitter I’d probably find 90% of the posts eventually, even if it is only via some-one’s weekly link round up.

What do you think?

Does using Twitter make you a better blogger?

Categories
Blogging Other

How to get Links to Appear in Google Reader

Recently a few people have been impressed by the speed I discover posts in which I am mentioned. My secret is that I have subscribed to my blog links in google reader, so the moment someone links to me it pops up as an unread message.

It is quite a simple thing to do, but it isn’t very obvious, so I thought I’d give you a step-by-step guide.

blogsearch3

  1. Go to: http://blogsearch.google.com/
  2. Add your blog address after the word link: in the ‘blog search’ box. So if I was doing it I’d put:  link:http://www.farmlanebooks.co.uk 
  3. Click ‘Search Blogs’
  4. Click on ‘RSS’ in the left hand column.
  5. Then click ‘subscribe to this feed’ then ‘subscribe’ when the pop up box appears.

Your links should now be listed as a feed in your google reader.

Now you’ll always know whenever someone is nice enough to link to you!

Categories
Other

I’ve answered 20 questions….

Yesterday I answered 20 questions over at Lost in Books. Please head over there if you’d like to know how I responded!

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I apologise for the lack of blogging activity in the last 48 hours (yesterday’s post was scheduled, but I haven’t been commenting or responding to you for a few days). This is because I have been too busy having fun!

Yesterday I had an amazing day out in London with my husband. He had a style make over (which he won at work) – it was great to see him in some very nice clothes. We then had a really nice Korean meal and went to see the very funny play 39 Steps in the West End.

I’ll try to write my review for a book recommended to me by Beth, and post it later today.

I hope you are all having a week as good as mine!