New (ish) Year, New (ish) Schedule!

One of my blogging goals for this year is to be more organised (I can only hope). So I’ve laid out a rough weekly schedule which I’m going to try and stick to.

Review days won’t necessarily always have a review – depending on how much reading I’ve got through – but when I do have a review to post it’ll be on one of those days.

Monday: Review Day

Tuesday: Top Ten Tuesday

The hugely popular meme hosted by the Broke and the Bookish in which they pick a different topic each week.

Wednesday: Review Day; This Week in Books

This Week in Books is my weekly round-up which started out as the WWW Wednesdays meme but which I have now tweaked to my own format since the host cancelled it (it has since returned but I like my post). This post includes what I’ve been reading Now, Then & Next; What I’ve added to my shelves and wishlist (linking up with Stacking the Shelves), and the book I particularly can’t wait for (linking up with Waiting on Wednesday).

Thursday: Guest Post/Promo Post/Blog Tour or Bookish & Not so Bookish Thoughts

I will try to post any guest posts including author interviews, book promo posts or blog tour posts on Thursdays. If I don’t have any lined up I’ll take part in the Bookish or Not so Bookish meme, which is a really fun way of having a weekly rant about books and life. I really love that meme but my life isn’t interesting enough to find enough things to talk about every single week.

Friday: Friday Feature

Features can include spotlights of my favourite books & authors, book trends such as this one, cover love… anything goes really. I’m going to try my best to get at least 3 of these out a month.

Saturday: Lazy Saturday Review or Shop Post

I started doing ‘lazy Saturday reviews’ as a way of getting reviews done in just 30 mins, and they proved to be quite popular. They are quick and snappy and concentrate less on the plot and writing and more on my general feelings about said book. They generally end up being a bit of a rant. My fave!

Shop posts will look at any new activity going on in my Etsy Vintage Book Shop; new books I’ve found, any I’ve sold and my favourites on the shelf.

Sunday: Off/Free

Other Regular Posts:

Monthly Round-up – Hopefully posted at the end/beginning of the month. This post also includes the following month’s hot releases.

Coming Up – Where I simply discuss the books I have lined up to read and review.

Discussion Posts/Polls – Getting the blogosphere engaged in a bookish discussion needs to happen now and again.

Di & Lipsy Do…– A collaboration with my YA BFF Di in which we have a rant about a book we’ve both read. You can call them reviews if you want…but most people wouldn’t. 😉

Challenges: 2014 Results & 2015 Goals

Last year was my first full year of blogging, and like most book bloggers, I set myself some challenges. So, how did I do?

Hmm…not that great, but not toooooo bad either.

Here are the goals I set myself and how I did:

The Goodreads Challenge/ Yearly Goal

Goal: 70 books
Outcome: 71 – Success!

You can see the full list here.
 

The TBR Pile Reading Challenge

The idea of this challenge was to read some of the older books on my shelves that I never got round to – so I made a rule that only books I’d had for over five months counted. That was a mistake.
Goal: 11-20 books
Outcome: 7

Rereads Challenge

I wanted to make time to reread some of my favourite books. These are the ones I chose:

1. Northern Lights (His Dark Materials #1) by Phillip Pullman
2. Twilight by Stephenie Meyer
3. Peter Pan by J.M Barrie
4. Sunshine by Robin Mckinley
5. The Final Testament of the Holy Bible by James Frey
6. The Time Traveller’s Wife by Audrey Niffennegger
7. The Gates by John Connolly
8. – 10. The Hunger Games Trilogy by Suzanne CollinsGoal:

Outcome:2 (The Shame!)

Series

I wanted to finish the following series:

The Mortal Instruments by Cassandra Clare
Status 01/2014: Book 3/5
Status 01/2015: Book 3/5

The Akasha Series by Terra Harmony
Status 01/2014: Book 1/4
Status 01/2015: Book 1/4

The Chaos Walking Trilogy by Patrick Ness
Status 01/2014: Book 1/3
Status 01/2015: COMPLETE!

So, a mixed bag! It could have been worse I guess.

2015 Challenge

I’m going for the minimal approach this year.

1. Goodreads Challenge: Upped to 75

2015 Reading Challenge

Lipsy has
read 3 books toward her goal of 75 books.

hide

3 of 75 (4%)

view books

 
2. Reread Challenge: I still want to reread all of those on the list so I’m going to continue plucking away at that one.

3. TBR Challenge: This time, I’m going to make a list of all the books I have sitting on my shelves (which I will publish at some point) and just see how many I can get through. Whatever I don’t pick up, I WILL take to a charity shop at the end of the year.

Good Luck to us all!

2015 Goals/Resolutions

I know it’s a bit late, but I had two weeks off at the start of the year and missed all of the end of year/start of year stuff so expect them in dribs and drabs over the next week or so!

I’m not one to make resolutions really, but I do have some goals this year:

1. Find a good job (sounds simple right?).
2. Be more organised, especially with blogging. I’m want to post less at the beginning of the year to build up some content so I’m not always behind or get bogged down when life gets busy.
3. Request less ARCs and read more of the books on my real-life shelves.
4. Promote my etsy shop!
5. Go to the dentist/doctors more – take care of myself better (I already went to the dentist – woo me)!
6. Save money (after I’ve found a job of course).
7. Change the look of my blog.
8. Work on more original content – less memes!

I think that about covers it!