Setting Goals
For this edition of Book Blogging 101 I thought we could put together a New Year’s Blogger Resolution. Setting goals are an important part of blogging. You should always have something in mind when you do anything for your blog. The main thing is to identify those goals.
It can be something as simple as:
Read more Adult novels.
Or as complicated as:
Monetize your blog.
Once you’ve identified your goals, you should also have steps to accomplish these goals and then mold your blogging around those steps. It seems like a simple and logical thought, but sometimes we lose track of our goals. The end of the year is a good time to reevaluate our goals and set a road map, just like we would do with our personal life.
I thought I would also share my New Year’s Blogger Resolutions with you. Maybe you can get some ideas.
- Organize Review Schedule
This is always one of my top deficiencies. I read and read and read and then never take the time to review my books and then things get out of control and I’m left with fifteen books to review. I thought I would accomplish this by having a set time to write posts and reviews everyday. Even if I have to bring my iPad and keyboard in the car pool line. - Comment More
I need to take the time to comment on other blogs. I have to use my Reader better, target the great posts and then comment on other blogs to let them know that what I read was a great post. I have been trying to increase this over the last month, but my attempts have been feeble at most. The first attempt led to the rant about two weeks ago… - Increase Pageviews
I endeavor to increase my pageviews by coming up with better more interesting topics to blog about in my features. By creating fun events and hosting more giveaways. I actually didn’t participate in very many events or giveaways in 2012 and my pageviews suffered. I plan to change this for 2013.
What are some of your Blogger Goals? How do you plan on achieving them?
Reader Question of the Week:
This is the quote from copyright.gov
These are my suggestions when posting from a book:
- Never quote from an ARC
- Never post an excerpt longer then two paragraphs unless you have permission from the publisher
- Posting a synopsis is perfectly legit
- Posting quotes of a few sentences is always acceptable
- Always QUOTE your source.
Most authors want you to post excerpts and quotes, this sells the books for them. But, they don’t want you to post chapters from their book, you will be within the copyright infringement gray area then. Non-permission given excerpts should be short and sweet. Post and excerpt that gives your readers and idea of what is going on, not the whole story. I always like to give non-permission excerpts a wide-berth, maxing out at one or two paragraphs, which is towing the Fair Use line. The idea of Fair Use is to make commentary on a subject and posting whole chapters from books is not a commentary.
Book Blogging News:
The Amazon Sock Puppets Reviews & Crack Downs still continue to rage. Amazon who has been under the gun to “clean-up” their reviews have made it a point to dump thousands of suspected “fake” reviews. Amazon customers have voiced their opinion that reviews on the site are not trust-worthy, especially as top reviewers like Harriet Klausner, once suspected to be an Amazon Sock Puppet Reviewer, reviews 7 amazon products a day with 99.9% of them being positive. What does this mean to us reviewers? Not much. We should be ok if we are in the up and up. But, for other writers, chances are you will probably not be allowed to review your peers. {source}
Happy Thursday. Talk Less. Read More. Blog with Integrity.
Have a question? Fill out the form by clicking on the button to the left. This will go into a spreadsheet to be looked over at a later date and hopefully answered on this blog. This is completely anonymous, you do not have to leave your real name. Urls will not be included in your question unless it pertains to the question.
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I set some goals today. Some of them are blog related:
http://collettaskitchensink.blogspot.com/2012/12/tt-resolutions-122712.html
Man I haven’t even thought about my goals for next year!! Right now I am just trying to get through the year, but seeing yours definitely helps me think about some I really need to focus on. Especially pageviews and giveaways! This year my giveaways have not been that successful, I have actually thought about not doing them anymore because it seemed like no one really entered them. Not sure what to do about that one though, I mean I love to do giveaways, but if no one enters it kind of makes me sad!!
I totally love the question this week because I have wondered that myself. That is why I never post anything other than small quotes without permission from the author. It always makes me nervous to do more than that!!
+JMJ+
I personally find this a good reminder, as I’ve been thinking about the direction I want to take my blog in next year but have not thought in terms of goals. So ,thanks, PJ!
I think organization is the key to being successful at just about everything. You can make up for a lot of talent deficiencies with simple tenacity and consistent production.
With that said, I find that I wear a lot of hats and one typically gets left behind if I don’t schedule blocks of time to do certain things. This year I didn’t do too well in that department. My fiction writing took off, but my non-fiction stuff really suffered. I’ve added in some blogging to boot and I really enjoy it, so I’m not giving it up for money. But I’ve decided all my real productive stuff (i.e. the stuff that pays bills) will have to take daytime priority and blogging will be an evening only activity.
I’m also going with scheduling blocks of days instead of time now. Monday is for _____, Tuesday is for ______ and so on.
My blogging goals are mainly to be super organized and write up posts and reviews in advance and schedule as far ahead as I can each time I open my dashboard. I hope it works – I think book blogging is just about the funnest thing I do – (besides writing love scenes…that’s pretty fun too)
And thanks for this post today – I’m printing out my yearly planner as I type! (Don’t you just love the enthusiasm you have when the new year starts! Ask me again how it’s going in June…)
Julie
I’ve been tempted to try out the day by day scheduling routine, but I’m worried that I would then let comments and things get too piled up :/ How do you balance the things that need to happen every day with the blocked day schedule?
Organization…yeah. Oh well. Really, I’d like to follow through on some features I came up with last year. I think carving out time to specifically write reviews is a good idea. I’ve often planned to do it but have yet to actually implement it.
I am dreading creating my goals post this weekend. I think aside from wanting to read more and write more reviews in a less stressful manner I don’t have any real goals. Your “Read more, talk less” slogan is one I aim to follow, though mine is more the “read more BLOG less” is what I should strive for.
I spend way too much time formatting posts, writing posts, etc. and not enough time reading the books I want to read.
Fortunately I have a gorgeous site now that will allow me to write my posts and not worry so much about the colors and looks within. TYVM for that BTW.
I like your goals for the year. Good luck with all! While I don’t really think about pageviews versus visitors, I’d think that linking to related content on your site within your posts might be a way to increase the views of those who land on your site.
You have some amazing articles and entertaining reviews, just because they’ve left the homepage shouldn’t mean that they are cast out into the gulag to never be seen again. Just a suggestion.
But yes participate in more events.
That’s always a way to increase traffic.
Good luck with the organizing! Your goals seem fairly reasonable. Though it’s just so hard to not keep reading.
I’ll try not to keep you too busy with design in 2013.
Okay. I am totally new at this. So here goes. My goal is to increase members on my blog and more page views while learning how to be a better blogger.
My biggest goal next year is to comment more at other blogs.
This is my first year blogging, I have learned a lot, I have also realized I know nothing! I am still learning. Interacting with bloggers and authors more is something I need to work on. I tend to read and not comment, so bad. I am pretty organized but I can do better, so in 2013 I want to enjoy it more and not stress the things I do not know.
Two goals for me this year – interact more and revamp my focus. My blog can get kind of wide-ranging, but the two subjects I love the most are movies and YA books. I think it is difficult to build followers with two different focuses (some want to follow my movie stuff and don’t care about the books, and vice versa), so I think I’m going to spin off my YA stuff to its own site with a title reflecting the subject. It may be a bit more work having two sites, but I think it will help me stay organized, as well. We’ll see!
Great point! I want to focus on my pageviews as well, also by working on hosting events that encourage interaction such as giveaways and discussions. I am bad at hosting giveaways since I just don’t think of it and since I haven’t done a lot of them, it still seems like so much effort! Another of my goals is to get my review books under control and then get all those non-review books that I’ve been wanting to read read, since if I’m not reading the books I want to read, what’s the point?!
I think I’m going to have to make a post outlining my thoughts more to hold myself to this if that’s okay with you
Your goals are the same as mine for the new year!