Organize Your Blogging

 

In the spirit of Bloggiesta, I wanted to share with everyone how I organize my blogging to make my life easier.

I make a lot of checklists and templates for blogging because let’s face it – I’m a flake.  I’ve also noticed if I do the small steps as I go, it makes blogging a lot easier.  Because of my checklists, Goodreads is always up to date and so are my review archives and Amazon reviews.  I’ll share a few of my magical lists and templates to get your brainstorming so you can create your own.

Template for Book Reviews

Every time I write a book review, I copy and past this template from a word document into my post. That way my reviews come out looking the same every time. If I need to link something (like for a meme) I have the html address right in the template so I don’t have to look it up.

book cover center

amazon link center

Series (if applicable) in bold

Spoiler free even if you haven’t read the first book in this series. (italics)

review body

picture star rating center

Content Rating left, colored rating

link content rating with – http://www.booksatruestory.com/index.php/about-2/

I received this book for review from the author/publisher in exchange for an honest review. I was not told what to say, I was not paid to write this review and all the opinions expressed are my own. (italics)(link author or publisher if you can)

Category – book review

tags including star rating, book review, content rating

fill out seo

Checklist for Book Reviews

After I post a book review on my blog, I go through the following checklist.  It doesn’t take very long and it keeps everything up to date.

• change shelf on goodreads to “blog” and remove “to-blog”
• add the following link to goodreads review – This book is also reviewed on my blog a href=”http://www.booksatruestory.com”>Books: A true story /a
• add review link to facebook and make sure it tweets
• add review to amazon.com
• add amazon  shelf on goodreads
• update book review page
• add star rating shelf on goodreads
• email publisher with links if reading an ARC from them or netgalley
• complete netgalley review if I got it from netgalley

I have a checklist and a template for every post I do including In My Mailbox and Waiting on Wednesday.  I use checklists to make sure I get everything done after a post goes up so I don’t forget anything.

Goodreads Organization

Here’s the checklist of what I do on Goodreads while I’m reading a book to keep everything organized.

When I start a book I add it to the following shelves:

• currently reading shelf
• any reading challenge shelves that apply
• formatting shelves (like ebook, ARC, own etc)
• currently reading blog shelf (so it will show up in my widget on my blog sidebar)

While I’m reading a book:

• I take notes on my kindle while I’m reading to make it easier to write a review when I’m done.
• If I have any questions while I’m reading the book, I do a google search and save my findings in a post on tumblr.  This makes it easier to write my Google Diary posts.