When asking for reviews for their books from bloggers and other influencers, authors can make a whole host of mistakes. While there’s plenty of ways to go about asking for reviews, authors often don’t realise that it’s not just their chances of a review that’s at stake. The whole way an author acts from asking for the review to receiving it affects how future bloggers/influencers will react to them. So if you’re an author, you’d better beware, and don’t make the mistakes that this author has…Read More »
Hi everyone and Happy Easter! I hope you are all doing well. Most of you know the rough road I’ve been on for the last couple of months regarding my health but hopefully the worst is behind me and I’m definitely doing much better than I was last month. Not a lot has happened to me this last month so I’ll keep this round-up short.
I’ve struggled to get online the past few days, right after blogging about free ARCs my internet’s been sketchy at letting me back online to post more, so apologies for this being late!
Before I begin this post though I’d like to clarify something about my previous post Free Books/ARCs Help the Publishing Industry so Stop Complaining! I explained the value of free books and ARCs to the publishing industry but part of the post was taken up with comments (some great comments by the way) which focused on the negative aspect of free books. This sparked a lot of interesting discussion and thoughts turned not only to the benefits of free books but the negative aspects of piracy among other things. This is something I’d love to write more about soon and I’ll be doing so as soon as I can. Thank you all for your thoughts on this subject, it’s great when a blog post you write gets so much interest and discussion back, and a special thank you to everyone who shared the post and followed my blog too thank you 🙂 ❤
November…
November was a fun/not fun month for me. It was my birthday in the middle of the month (thank you for all the well wishes everyone!) and although this was a happy time, it was spoilt by the fact I developed a horrible virus which left me feeling wiped out physically and very tired, a virus I’m still in the recovery stages of (although don’t worry, it is nothing serious thankfully 🙂 ) So onto November’s highlights:
The second most popular post on this blog was surprisingly a photography on the subject of ‘temporary’featuring berries! If you enjoy looking at photographs or just want to see what all the fuss is about then please do check out this post by clicking to see it 🙂 PhotoChallenge: Fragile Berries
The third most popular post was a book review of a simple yet interestingly surreal picturebook called Piggybook by Anthony Browne and just edged ahead of my only poetry post of the month Distant Sun (pictured) which is a very short poem and not my usual style.
Plans for December…
So onto next month and what is in store for this blog in December? Well I finally feel I’ve gained back my ability to write and with my last post being so well received I plan to write a lot more, it also helps that I’ve cleared a heavy backlog of book reviews by posting them almost every day in November. I still have some reviews to share but there will definitely be a lot more other content too.
I fear my own Goodreads reading challenge to read 60 books in 2017 will be left unfinished I read over 50 books last year but this year I’ve taken a lot more time off reading and read some longer books too which meant I didn’t read as many, plus I’ve had far more freedom to add different content to this blog so I’ve been focusing more on other projects and not just books to read and review. I think I’ll set a new target next year, a little lower, but has anyone else ever failed their reading challenge? Anyone going to accomplish it this year?
Tomorrow’s blog post will be a book review, the book review, of Norse Myths: Tales of Odin, Thor and Loki which got the unpleasant comment and unhelpful vote on amazon (which by the way threw my amazon ranking down about 40 places 😮 😦 ) I would never solicit positive votes from anyone as I value my own integrity as a reviewer but if you ever enjoyed any of my reviews (or that of any other reviewers) and happened to find them on amazon UK or Goodreads you can always let us know by way of clicking ‘helpful’ or ‘like’ 😉
Also, expect lots of Christmassy stuff happening this month and more articles/discussion posts on various subjects, as well as me sorting out my social media which on some channels (Pinterest, StumbleUpon, etc.) has been a little slow and stagnant 🙂
Hope you all had a great November! What are your plans for the coming month? Anyone looking forward to this month?
By the way, anyone notice the snow on my blog? Like it or does it slow down the loading of the blog? Please let me know 🙂 You can also follow me in these places:
After a pretty rough week health wise I decided to log into my Amazon UK account where I’ve been leaving reviews for books and other items for several years now. Unlike most days which are uneventful on the site though, yesterday I was met with a harsh ‘unhelpful’ vote on one of my most recent reviews along with a comment which stated:
“Your review would have carried more weight if you had put your hand in your pocket and actually bought a copy yourself!”Read More »
For most of yesterday I’ve been feeling like the cat in the picture. I’ve had a splitting headache, found it hard to function and am struggling hard to shut out thoughts of guilt and sadness which have plagued me since I started coming down with something a few days ago.
I don’t like to admit I’m not feeling good, but the truth is that although the last few days of last week I’d been feeling positive, I started to come down with something and it seems relentless in wanting to put me on bed rest. I feel like I’ve got a sleeping sickness, I’m just so tired all the time and when I sleep, which has been for most of the last two days, I don’t feel refreshed at all 😦Read More »
November’s most popular post: 
I fear my own Goodreads reading challenge to read 60 books in 2017 will be left unfinished 
I read over 50 books last year but this year I’ve taken a lot more time off reading and read some longer books too which meant I didn’t read as many, plus I’ve had far more freedom to add different content to this blog so I’ve been focusing more on other projects and not just books to read and review. I think I’ll set a new target next year, a little lower, but has anyone else ever failed their reading challenge? Anyone going to accomplish it this year?
My Peacock Books 