Rebecca @ Love at First Book

Guest Post: Rebecca from Love At First Book talks about her New Year Resolutions

2014 Resolutions via Love at First Book

Hey guys, I’m Rebecca from Love at First Book, and today I am going to share with you some of my 2014 Resolutions. I divided them up into bookish and bloggy, since it just seems to work well that way!

Bookish Resolutions:

Bloggy Resolutions:

  • Redo my About page in January and reread it monthly
  • Start keeping better track of my stats on a monthly basis
  • Become a G+ pro and use the communities more actively
  • Video blog monthly
  • Create bookish craft DIYs 2x per month
  • Grab some more co-hosts for my Spread the Love Linky Party

Hopefully I’ll be just as good with my resolutions as I was last year. In 2013, I accomplished all of my resolutions, which I was kind of surprised about!

Your turn! Share one of your resolutions with me!

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Thursday Mashup

Lots of giveaways and bloggy-blog talk today! Plus some crafty stuff!

 

Giveaways

Always with a Book is giving away Sweet Expectations by Mary Ellen Taylor. This giveaway ends TOMORROW (11-22-13). I saw this book on Netgalley and REALLY wanted to request it- but my review pile is a bit… hmm, shall we say nuts?! So go win this book and tell me how it is 🙂 Psst… there is a couple of yummy recipes in this post- and I swear I gained 5 lbs just LOOKING at them!

 

Always With a Book is giving away Mrs.Lincoln’s Dressmaker by Jennifer Chivaerini.

 

Always With a Book is giving away The Supreme  Macaroni Company by Adriana Trigiani!

 

Escape With Dollycas Into a Good Book is giving away Murder She Barked by Krista Davis.

 

One of the Jungle Red Writers, Lucy Burdette, is giving away a galley of her newest Key West Food Critic mystery series- Murder With Ganache (out in stores Feb 2014- but available for pre-order!)

 

Traveling With T (thanks to Harlequin Books– shout out to them!) is giving away What The Bride Didn’t Know by Kelly Hunter.

 

Nina Badzin is giving away a book (your choice!) to honor 3 years of blogging and the lessons she learned. While the giveaway is pretty fab (a free book up to a 20 dollar value- sign me up!) the LESSONS are the best. Read them. Bookmark. Print. Share. You’ll be thankful!

 

It’s KILLING me to tell you about this- because in all honesty- my selfish heart wants this. No, it’s not a book. It’s my other love. CRAFTING. I like to play with my scrapbook stuff- make things. It calms me. Makes me happy. Relaxed. The Thinking Closet is giving away……. wait for it………… a Silhouette Cameo (basically a crafty person’s dream.)

 

Bloggy Talk

 

Love at First Book is talking all about a PARTY! A G+ party to be exact. I’ve been seeing mommy is coocoo on G+ from various people that were already in my circle. But I hadn’t investigated further- because it’s CRAZY here. Baby shower for my SIL last week, drinks and dinner with author Susan Gregg Gilmore (someone pinch me!) and various Twitter chats & other bloggy commitments. Plus- did I mention this is my crazy time at work? This is when work get nutsy- and I have to power through. So… I have not done due diligence as I normally do- BUT I will be checking this out- and I think you should too!

 

The Book Wheel has been talking about 8 POPULAR books she didn’t like or finish! Interesting- and a couple of the ones she listed surprised me- because judging from the covers, I def thought these were A’s types of books. But I LOVED reading her article and have been lurking in the comments section seeing what others are saying!

 

Still Unfinished is a blog that I recently became aware of- in a previous Bloggiesta chat, Bryan was quite helpful with some questions of mine- some tips and advice he provided quickly was “favorite” by me so I could refer as need be! His post on “Why He’s Not Making His Blog A Facebook Page” is interesting and provides another school of thought for blogs and social media. Def read!

 

And because the holidays forthcoming have me crafty feeling- I’ve been, ahem…. stalking The Thinking Closet’s blog- and I LOVE her post on DIY Painted Cork Coasters.

 

Traveling With T has announced the December choice for #bookloversunite- and it’s The Lake House by Marci Nault. Come join in!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tuesday Mashup

#giveaway

I adore Giveaways! Ya’ll know that! What I adore almost as much as winning giveaways is letting you, my faithful readers of Traveling With T,  know about the amazing giveaways that other sites are having. I know that while I scour the websites, looking high, low and everywhere in between- that there are probably still hundreds upon hundreds I miss mentioning. But I’m trying!

Love at First Book is giving away 6 books! 3 winners will pick 2 each- and she has 9 to choose from: He’s Gone, The Last Camellia, The Explanation for Everything, The Girl You Left Behind, American Dervish, Girlchild and Shorecliff.

Books Speak Volumes is giving away 1 book- but letting you choose among her 3 favorites for 2013:  Burial Rites, A Constellation of Vital Phenomena,  Life After Life (the Kate Atkinson version!)

Books Speak Volumes is also giving We Are Water by Wally Lamb!

Book-Alicious Mama is giving away Is This Tomorrow, Killer Image, Code Name Verity, Man in the Blue Moon, The Unknowns and The Husband’s Secret.

The Relentless Reader is giving away The Husband’s Secret as well.

River City Reading is giving away Rivers by Michael Farris Smith.

Just Another New Blog is giving away Harlequin Romance Holiday Pack– a collection of holiday romance books!

Chick List Is Not Dead is giving away The Theory of Opposites by Allison Winn Scotch.

Traveling With T is giving away The Perfect Match by Kristan Higgins (last day to enter!)

Traveling With T is also giving away Wyoming Bold by Diana Palmer.

Books in the Burbs is giving away The Preservationist by Justin Kramon- giveaway ends Nov 30th!

Other Bloggy Talk

Love At First Book and The Book Wheel are still talking about Orange is the New Black! Join in the fun!

Love at First Book has her Spread the Love Linky Party happening! Go. Visit. Spread the linky love!

Mom’s Small Victories is talking about Netgalley November Reading Goals!

Literary Friday ya’ll……

It’s Friday- the weekend is almost here- we can almost touch it!

 

1. Deep South Magazine and their #literaryfriday: Louisiana Book Festival wrap-up (plus a picture of me, Erin and Rita Leganski!), a video of Erin interviewing Shirley Ann Grau, a #giveaway of Mrs. Lincoln’s Dressmaker, and much more!

Next week (when I finally get all my pics uploaded and organized), I’ll be posting about my first time experience at the Louisiana Book Festival- but Deep South Mag’s is EXCELLENT!

 

2. Blog Talk: Today, Rebecca at Love First Book gives us access to this cute printable blog planners! Maybe you are more of a digital person- and that’s great! But wouldn’t it be nice to have 1 binder where all your bloggy stuff is? Use the printables! Get organized. Your blog will thank you! Want more Blog Talk? Check out my Thursday Mashup– there’s talk of how to increase traffic, blog tips and much more (all thanks to other bloggers who are kicking butt and taking names in the bloggy world!)

 

3. Giveaway news: Closed the Cover and Book2Buzz teamed up to create a fantastic giveaway- and I, Traveling With T, is part of it! Visit here for the details! Want more giveaway? See my Thursday Mashup for other giveaway news!

 

4. Last night I was reading a few blogs and looking over some others that I’d been meaning to check out- The Book Musings was one of those I’d meaning to look at. I noticed a blog post in her Top Posts and Pages titled Please Don’t Reblog Our Content- so I clicked on it to read. M talks about how she does not care for the WordPress feature of re-blogging a post for a variety of reasons- but mainly because she works hard on having unique content at her blog. I had never actually even thought about this- but after reading her views, I’m curious as to what other people think. Re-blog or not? Should you ASK the blog before you re-blog?

I have re-blogged a few things in my time- bloggy friends post and the likes. I’ve always considered it a shout-out (since if you click to read, it directs you to the original website post). For Book Lovers Unite, before my co-host had to take a break- re-blogging worked great for us to make sure fans of our blogs were aware that new discussion questions had been posted. However, I’ve also had a negative experience- I wrote a post about Chick Lit and Body Image- and a bloggy friend re-blogged it. Months later a person commented on the post being negative and thinking that the people who re-blogged the post actually wrote it (their blog was about getting Men to read books).

Re-blogging is a feature I don’t mind- but use responsibly. Think about target audiences and if someone asks you to remove the re-blogged content, respect their wishes.

 

5. Week 1 Discussion Questions about Hush Little Baby by Suzanne Redfearn. Join in the discussion! This book is fast-paced and exciting!

 

6. What are your #fridayreads? I’m reading Sleigh Belles by Beth Albright. I’m in the mood for a mystery- any suggestions?

 

Happy Reading!

 

 

 

Thursday Mashup

Giveaways and Blog Talk!

#Giveaways

Traveling With T is giving away RELATIVE DANGER by June Shaw. *Note: It’s an e-book!

Traveling With T is giving away THE PERFECT MATCH by Kristan Higgins.

Jennifer Lyn King is giving away a set of greeting cards (and talking about her 5 years of blogging!)

Crystal in Bookland has 3 Giveaways happening: THE PROPHECY, ENTANGLED, and EFFORTLESS WITH YOU + 10 buck Itunes GC.

Great New Books is giving away 3 of Anita Hughes books!

Home Cooked Books is giving away RUMOR HAS IT (audio CD) by Jill Shalvis.

Always With a Book is giving away BEFORE I MET YOU by Lisa Jewell.

Escape With Dollycas Into A Good Book is giving away FREEZER I’LL SHOOT by Victoria Hamiliton.

She Reads is giving away 5 Books- CARTWHEEL by Jennifer DuBois, THE RUNAWAY WIFE by Rowan Coleman, THE WISHING THREAD by Lisa Van Allen, LEAVING HAVEN by Kathleen McCleary and THE WHOLE GOLDEN WORLD by Kristina Riggle.

 

 

Blog Talk

Book Bloggers International talk about using GIFS- the how and why (and the cons of using them).

Love at First Book and The Book Wheel have kicked off their November Book Club: ORANGE IS THE NEW BLACK! Join in!

Thanks to Love at First Book and her Fabulous Blogs (where she gives love and shout-outs to great blogs)- I saw the blog The Thinking Closet. Then when checking out Rebecca’s relatively new Policies page, I saw that she credited The Thinking Closet. So I checked out The Thinking Closet– and saw Lauren’s latest post is about 10 MORE Tips for Bloggers (and also that she had posted a previous 1o Tips for New Bloggers). Reading these tips, I found myself nodding along, already either thinking or doing some of this stuff (but still plenty of other tips that I want to do!) Thanks Rebecca for helping me find The Thinking Closet!

The Book Wheel writes a great post about traffic (and not the bad kind of traffic where you are stuck in your car for hours!) No, Allison writes about the traffic blogs want- Visitors! 8 Simple Ways To Boost Your Traffic is fab (and good for bloggers from 1 day of experience to many years!)

Literary Friday ya’ll…

It’s Friday. I have a head-cold. Ugh.

 

1. Deep South Mag and their #literaryfriday: Giveaway of Rita Leganski’s The Silence of Bonaventure Arrow, Lee Smith news, Jesmyn Ward interview and Ann Hite news- plus much more!

 

2. Traveling With T now has a GIVEAWAY page- just visit it and see what I’m giving away on my blog! Please note: this is only for my own blog giveaways- to keep up with other giveaways- please continue to read my Mashup posts and Literary Friday!

 

3. In case you missed yesterday’s Mashup, here it is! Lots of giveaways listed!

 

4. What is your #fridayreads? I’ve been reading some good books lately and some that have bummed me out- suggestions for my #fridayreads?

 

5. Love at First Book has a giveaway that I missed mentioning yesterday-  Mind Without a Home by Kristina Morgan.

 

6. I’m going to see Lisa Patton and Susan Gregg Gilmore next week! Beyond excited 🙂

 

Happy Reading!

 

 

Linky Love Party hosted by Love at First Book!

SpreadTheLove150

The genius behind Love at First Book (you might know her as Rebecca!) is spreading linky love this week. Linky Love- it’s a good thing!

Here is the post and the guidelines for joining in the fun!

I couldn’t decide which 1 to post- so I posted 2. One is a personal thought, making you think about blogging post- A Million and 1 Ways to be a Blogger.

The other- my book-ish friend, Keetha, gave me the nudge to add my link- she commented on my review of The Husband’s Secret– telling me I did a “masterful job with the review”!

Be sure and check in this week at Love at First Book- see what links are getting some love!

Literary Friday ya’ll…..

Friday, Bloggiesta, and lots of reading! What’s your Friday plans?

1. Deep South Magazine and their #literaryfriday: News of James Franco as Faulkner, SoFest of Books in Nashville, 11 scariest mothers in books, upcoming book signings, what Erin is reading now (some good looking books that *may* be on the upcoming Fall Reading list!) and much more!

2. Bloggiesta is happening this weekend! Basically, it’s a 3 day weekend to work on your blog, make connections and visit the other blogs hosting the mini-challenges. It’s blog love, baby! I don’t always participate in Bloggiesta- but I try to do some work when I can during these 3 day blog-love weekends! This time, I’m REALLY trying because 2 of my fav blog buddies- Rebecca @ Love At First Book and Allison @ The Book Wheel are both hosting mini-challenges (Whoo, Rebecca and Allison! Proud of you girls!)

Here are some interesting Bloggiesta-related things I’ve found today:

Love At First Book: How To Host (and participate) in a Digital Book Club & Giveaway!

The Book Wheel: 50 Bookish Things

Always With a Book: Bloggiesta.. My To Do List and Updates

Books Speak Volumes: Ten Things Every Book Blog Needs

 

3. Did you know that I’ll be co-hosting the Hank Phillippi Ryan chat with Literary New England on September 25th at 8pmEST? You didn’t?! Well, I am! Be there as we talk about THE WRONG GIRL and giveaway some books! Use hashtag #LNEChat to join I the fun! This will be the first of 2 scheduled Literary New England/She Reads chats- and everyone is very excited!

My blogger friend, Always With a Book, got to meet Hank Phillippi Ryan this week (and was kind enough to pick me up a signed book!) Read about K meeting HPR- Author Meet and Greet: Hank Phillippi Ryan

 

4. This isn’t Bloggiesta related, but Ivory Owl Reviews blogged this week about what she learned in her first year of blogging- and it’s worth a read!

 

5. #giveaway: Have you heard of The Returned by Jason Mott? The blog-osphere is all a-twitter about this book! And you are in luck! Luxury Reading is giving away a copy! Need more of The Returned? The Book Wheel was lucky enough to get an interview with Jason Mott (that girl is a mover and shaker- folks!)

 

6. 2 reviews posted this week on Traveling With T: Beautiful Day by Elin Hilderbrand and What A Mother Knows by Leslie Lehr.

 

7. Holly Goddard Jones, author of The Next Time You See Me, stopped by Traveling With T this week for an Interview and Author Spotlight.

 

8. Book Lovers Unite September read Astor Place Vintage is still going on at Book-alicious Mama and October’s book has been announced for when it returns to Traveling With T: The Life List by Lori Nelson Spielman I’m very excited for this discussion- and I hope you will join in the fun! Reading schedule to be posted next week!

 

9. Catching up on posting about 2 fab authors I met over the summer: Meeting Anton DiSclafani and Meeting Susan Crandall

 

10. Another Blogger Made of AWESOME: Drey @ Drey’s Library!

 

11. My #fridayreads: Astor Place Vintage, Wedding Belles by Beth Albright, and maybe 212 by Alafair Burke! What are you reading for #fridayreads?

 

Happy Reading and good luck with Bloggiesta if you are participating!

 

 

 

 

 

Thursday Mashup

I’m in the process of adjusting some things on my blog- tabs for interviews, author spotlights, finally posting my review policy and more. It’s slow going because of just TIME (and also the whole work thing) but sometime, in the future, (hopefully not in a galaxy far, far away tho) Traveling With T will be a bit more updated!

 

#reviews

The Sensory Child Gets Organized by Carolyn Dalgliesh

The Sunflower by Simon Wiesenthal (the real-life version of The Storyteller by Jodi Piccoult) reviewed by Love At First Book

Just What Kind of Mother Are You?  by Aimee Bender reviewed by Ivory Owl Reviews

 

#bookclub news

Love at First Book and The Book Wheel are still discussing LEAN IN by Sheryl Sandberg! Still plenty of time to join in!

#bookloversunite September pick is ASTOR PLACE VINTAGE- hosted by Book-alicious Mama this month. Next month is right back here at Traveling With T!

 

#authorspotlight and #interviews

B.A. Shapiro stopped by Traveling With T for Author Spotlight: B.A. Shapirio. She’s the author of The Art Forger– which you must check out!

Hank Phillippi Ryan, author of THE WRONG GIRL  interviews Susan Boyer, author of  LOW COUNTRY BOIL on Jungle Red Writers!

Read it Forward interviews Susan Gregg Gilmore, author of THE FUNERAL DRESS

 

#giveaways

Chick Lit Central is giving away Emily Liebert’s debut novel, YOU KNEW ME WHEN and the Zoya Nail Polish set created foe the book!

 

 

 

Tuesday Mashup

 

Tuesday is looking good for giveaways and book-ish news:

 

#giveaways

1. Lisa K’s Book Reviews is giving away a Denise Swanson autographed book (plus has a pretty awesome interview as well!) Get there fast- it ends soon *Aug 15th!* ! #swansonssleuths

 

2. A Novel Review is giving away a copy of the book The Fort by Aric Davis!

 

3. Book-alicious Mama is giving away The Secret Rescue by Cate Lineberry!

 

4. Peg Cochran is giving away her second book, Steamed to Death, on Goodreads. If you are a fan of cozy books, this is a good one!

 

5. Traveling With T is giving away a copy of The Roots of the Olive Tree by Courtney Miller Santo!

 

6. Brenda Janowitz stopped by Traveling With T for a guest post on being a hybrid author- and to talk of her healthy obsession with The Vampire Diaries 😉 Enter to win her 2 previous books, Scot on the Rocks and Jack With a Twist (Kindle Books!)

 

#Book-ish Things

 

7. Rebecca @ Love At First Book and Allison @ The Book Wheel teamed up months ago to make a book-ish bucket list. Check out the 50 Bookish Things list! Are you on Facebook? Then go “Like” 50 Bookish Things You Must Do Before You Die!

 

Happy Reading!