It’s Bloggiesta again! I don’t know what I’d do without this event. It’s a weekend to fix up things on your blog with other bloggers and I love it.
Here is my Bloggiesta to-do list:
Regenerate thumbnails to be proportionalDone. I couldn’t wait until Bloggiesta to do it :)Add featured images to posts in all my categories(most of these are done, but I want to go back and double check)Author Interview (5),Blog Tour (2),Book Review (138),Book Signing (15),Events (77),Flashback Friday (18),Giveaways (1),Google Diaries (22),In My Mailbox (48),My Fictional Stories (1),My Reading Diary (62),New Releases (50),News (53),Reading Challenge (42),Reading Queue (5),Series Theories (5),Top Ten Tuesday (13),Waiting on Wednesday (38)Done. I know why I’ve avoided this. It’s the biggest pain ever to find featured images the right size :/- Customize my search page. I’m going to use this tutorial on how to customize what the results look like. UPDATE: I looked into that tutorial and it’s how to make an entire page with a search widget on it :/ Not what I wanted. So I contacted Studiopress (where I bought my theme) to see if they can help me fix it because really what did I pay them all that money for. Waiting to hear back.
Get a slider? Genesis has a responsive one that I want to try.I did like the Genesis one, but since I don’t used featured images in all my posts it would take more upkeep than it’s worth. I think my blog looks just fine without i :)Add google webmaster. I saw this post on Parajunkee and I want to set it up for my blog, too. INSTALLED already (I’m getting ahead of myself!) But I want to go back and check the data – it takes a day or so to generate.Set up a google plus page?I might do this just for my youtube channel that I occasionally make videos for. I don’t like Google Plus, but I read this post on it and at least want a nice looking page. I also want to make my youtube page look nice.Done! Here’s my Google Plus page and my YouTube page. They look better at least. I’m not totally happy with the cover image for either. But if you follow me let me know – I’ll follow you back on both. :) Does anyone use Google Plus? It confuses me. And why is the URL so long and ugly? Or do I have the wrong one?? I can’t tell if I’m looking at my page, my dashboard, or the public view :/ The whole thing is just not intuitive to me at all.Use index category slug for writing archive.Done! The new UBB plug-in comes with custom archives that update automagically and I want to make one for my writing archive. It should be pretty easy :)New blog background??I don’t like the black but I don’t know what to change it to. It’s dark but it also makes it so the focus is on the content. But I’m so tired of the black! I don’t know what to do :/ UPDATE: I found some lovely subtle patterns from Subtle Patterns thanks to a rec from Stormy. Thanks so much! It’s just what I was looking for. It’s still dark and has lots of contrast to my site but it’s not boring now. Love it!- Write reviews. I have about 6 books that need reviews and some of them are going back to the library so I need to hurry :) The books to-be-reviewed are: Harry Potter 3, The Invisible Man, Transparent,
The Chaos of the Stars, A Thousand Splendid Suns, andThe One and Only Ivan. Catch up with emailsDone! It is at zero and it will probably stay that way for 1.3 seconds :DGet my feedly to zero. DONE! It has 233 unread blog posts right now. I will tweet posts I like and then use the tag feature for posts I want to comment on. Then I just go to the tag when I’m read to comment and remove the tag when I’m done :) Nice and organized. I’m still getting used to the tag feature in feedly but I really like it. I also unsubscribed to the blogs I skim but never comment on (and I mean I haven’t commented on them in at least 6 months). I realized while I was doing this that my feedly kind of stresses me out when the number gets too high, so I reduced the blogs I follow. I might reduce it more as I keep reading it daily. I follow all the bloggers I unfollowed on twitter so I can still chat with them about books and see what they’ve been writing on their blog. And it feels like a weight has been lifted :)Twitter chat!Missed both. :( Maybe next year. (I know there’s one on Sunday but my computer stays off all day on Sundays.)Comment on other blogsDone! I don’t know how many comments I left, but it felt like a lot. I’m pooped.
LOL I love that half of these have questions marks because I don’t really know if I even want to bother doing them.
Plus there are mini-challenges that I want to do! I really want to participate in all of them – including the one that I’m hosting called Digital Decluttering. :)
Mini-Challenges
How to Back Up Your Blog hosted by Brianna from The Book VixenDone. The instructions are for blogger, but I just exported my content into an xml file using the one click wordpress tool. I think that’s all you need to do to backup a wordpress blog.Digital Decluttering hosted by Jessica from Books: A True Story– I started out with 1056 files in my downloads. I still have 190 files left but I’m going to call this one finished!Favorite WordPress Plugins hosted by April from My Shelf Confessions– Done! I installed the post tweeter plugin that she mentioned.What is IFTTT and How Do I Use It? hosted by Brianna from The Book Vixen– Done! This is the coolest app that I’ve never heard of. It will automate almost anything between two accounts. I set it up to post a photo and post url every time a new post goes up on my blog. Photos are such a pain to upload to Facebook, but they do so much better than links do.
My name is Jessica. I love to read Young Adult and classic literature. I’ve been a book blogger for six years and I haven’t gotten tired of it yet. I’m a very curious reader. Writing about all the questions and thoughts I had while reading a book is the best hobby ever.
Good luck on your goals! It looks like you’ve made quite a bit of progress already.
Oh, and as far as blog backgrounds go, have you tried subtle patterns? They have really subtle patterns(hence the name), so you can still have a one-colored, simple background but it has a little texture. It’s what I’ve been using(they have light & dark options).
After reading your amazing to do list, I think I need to add a few of these to my list. I need to Customize my search page, work on a G+ page, and my Feedly is a mess!!! I think Bloggiesta needs to be bi-monthly. LOL!
Ha ha it should be every month! If you do G+ leave a link and I’ll follow you :)
Looks like you are on top of it! Great job!
Okay, first off- you are tearing Bloggiesta up and I’m super jealous/impressed. I don’t have a second thing, but just wow.
Maybe go with a white background? It’ll make you blog look huge. Which is something I need to do, but I need to fix my header because it doesn’t fill the top of the screen like it did in Blogger. Well, actually, I’ll have to beg someone else to do that because I’m afraid I’ll just mess it up. Good luck on the rest of your goals!
Kate @ Midnight Book Girl
You have certainly made a lot of progress today! Wow! Good luck with the rest of your goals!
I think since I am on blogger I am already on google webmaster. I went in and set it up anyways just in case… Thanks!! I was wanting to use some of your tips but they are for wordpress so I am going to google some for blogger.
I can’t get your google + page to load? Your youtube page loads perfectly though and I like it.
Well good luck on your goals!
Angie
Angela’s Anxious Life
Oh for crying out loud I cannot figure out Google + . I’d give you the real link but I don’t know what it is :/
I’m glad you like the youtube page. At least that works :)
Thanks for stopping by!
Just visiting some blogs to see what everyone’s doing for Bloggiesta. You’ve gotten so much done! I’m “on” Google+ but never use it. Congrats on getting Feedly under control! I should have put that on my list but it would have swallowed up my whole weekend. I had WAY too many blogs on Google Reader and I’ve added many more since switching over. I like how Feedly lets you organize blogs into categories, but there must be a faster way of doing it that I haven’t figured out yet. I’m ready to delete a huge number just to save having to put them into categories!
Congrats on your progress!!! I hope you love the post tweeter plugin as much as I have come to love it! I’ve had it on my mind to check out IFTTT and what it all was since the last Bloggiesta where it was mentioned. I’ve been looking on a replacement for Networkedblogs automated posts to my Facebook because they don’t get the same response as a pic and a link to (even though it comes with a small pic from the post and a link to the post.. it’s just not the same as manually putting it in yourself – Facebook gives you a wider viewer audience when you do this vs using Networkedblogs.. so I’m wondering if IFTTT and setting it up to do the same thing that Networkedblogs does would generate better viewing stats .. it’s worth a try! :D That application seems like it could have endless uses, I’m really excited to dig into it, although I’m so far behind on my to-do list that I might not get around to it this time! Esp if I want to try and participate in some of the other challenges to – and comment around! :D
I love your new background too! It makes me think of the background on the iPad browser, when you move the page around you see the same sort of background :D It’s not overpowering and yet so classy, and definitely still keeps the focus on your content, so great pick!
Thanks for your challenge. I am loving this post tweeter so far! It’s been my goal to increase my twitter referrals to my blog and this is such an easy way to do that.
I love auto-posting for Facebook, but I agree – photos get much better traffic but I don’t have time to upload a photo for every post! Hopefully this IFTTT will do a great job for me.
Thanks! I really love the background too. :) Ooh classy is nice I’ll take that :) Thanks for stopping by!
You are doing great! Keep it up!
WOW! You are knocking it out! Whoot! Whoot! Wait where is my glass? Here it is!!!!! CHEEERS!! *cling*
Wow! Impressive goals…and I feel the same way about Google +…I try not to hang around there, as I have a feeling of disorientation. Not user-friendly?
Thanks for visiting my blog…and enjoy the rest of the party here.
I love Subtle Patterns! I use GIMP to add an overlay to make it the color and shade I want.
You just about got everything done on your list – congrats!!
Oh that’s cool that you can change the color! What’s GIMP? Is that like Photoshop? I should do that if I get tired of the black again :)
GIMP is a free alternative to Photoshop. It was intimidating at first but I was able to find tutorials online on how to use it.
Awesome job with accomplishing your goals!!!!
If you haven’t already, stop by and enter my Bloggiesta Challenge Giveaway, which you can totally enter even if you don’t complete the challenge!
-Rebecca @ Love at First Book
That’s quite a goal list! Looks like you’re pretty close to done. Good luck with the rest :)