Will You Still See My Posts?

Google Reader, if you haven't heard, is dying. According to the little thingy on the side of my blog, this is the way that most of you "follow" me. And I would love to keep you all as readers. So, what can you do to keep up with my blog?

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

Follow me on Twitter

Follow my blog on Facebook

Follow the blog through Feedly

And there are links on my sidebar to subscribe via email, feedburner, Linky Followers, and NetworkedBlogs!

I'm playing around with Bloglovin right now, and so far I really like it! But of course feel free to follow whatever way. Or, you know, not. It's your life. Though I would appreciate it.

What are you planning to use now that Google Reader is extinct?

Jessica

Meet My New Co-Blogger: Virginia!

Hi guys! So over the years it's been just me running this blog, and while I've loved every second of it, it's a lot to handle. And now that I got my first job, I decided I needed some help, and I'm so so excited Virginia is the person to help me! She's not only fun to be with, but I love her passion for books, and I know she's going to be a great addition to Shut Up! I'm Reading.

                Hello blog readers! I’m so excited to meet all of you. My name is Virginia, and I’ll be writing here part time.

                 I’m a friend of Jessica’s from the fabulous writing retreat we both went on late last year. I was totally wowed by her writing prowess, and her successful blog. This girl wrote a 40,000 word book in two weeks! She’s got mad dedication.

                Anyway, a few days ago, she put out a call for a co-blogger. As I understand it, she’s starting to get busier, and the books are starting to pile up. She just doesn’t have time to read and review all of them. I have school and homework and writing and stuff of my own, but I couldn’t pass up an opportunity like this, so I jumped in and said I would write with her. So, I will be posting here anywhere from twice a week to twice a month. Depends on my schedule, but I’m really excited to be here and I want to be a good blogger, so I’ll try to post around once a week.

                A little about me. I’ve been homeschooled all my life. I’m sixteen years old. I like driving, dogs, knitting, cooking, the woods, science, making zines, long walks, caffeine, skype, indie/grunge/rock music, texting, existential crises, journaling, Shakespeare, hair dye, and staying up late. I also like writing and books, of course. I learned to read when I was four. The very first book I read was the Magic Treehouse Series #1, the one with the pterodactyl. Over the last twelve years, I’ve remained faithfully nerdy. I love the classics: Harry Potter, Narnia, etcetera. Never been able to read Tolkein, though he is on my list. I was pretty hardcore about Shakespeare in 8^th grade. I was even in A Midsummer Night’s dream as Titania.
                I had a long epic fantasy stage, including Stuart Hill’s Icemark Chronicles, Cinda Williams Chima’s Heir Trilogy, and all the things by Tamora Pierce. And the Inheritance Cycle. I still haven’t finished the last one, though, because it’s almost 900 freaking pages. Don’t tell Christopher Paolini. I’ve met him, and he’s a really nice guy.

                I love the recent trend in dystopian fiction. I’ve read the Hunger Games, Divergent, The Eleventh Plague, Myra Grant’s Newsflesh Trilogy, and many more. This is my current obsession, so you’ll probably see me talking about the decline of society and human nature and robots and stuff a lot. I feel like I don’t read as many classics as I should, but with so many new books coming out, I feel like I have to keep up with them too! I’m a pretty tough reviewer, but I try to be fair too. I can find a redeeming quality in almost any book, but I can’t stand a two dimensional character or a poorly paced plot. Or love triangles. I’m getting really, really tired of love triangles.
                My favorite author is a tossup between Barry Lyga and John Green. Lyga’s books can hit really hard. I Hunt Killers and Boy Toy were both brutal. I loved the characters. I love how tough and honest and real they are, but how caught up and twisted in their own minds they are. I am currently on a quest to get my hands on the ARC of Game, the sequel to I Hunt Killers.

                Green, though. He’s… just… amazing. How do I even say? His writing is beautiful, and profound, and, just, go read his books right now. John Green fandom is one of the first things Jessica and I bonded over. We were talking about his books, and she said she’d never read Will Grayson. I immediately started yabbering about how much I love that book and how she needed to read it, but she stopped me and said not to spoil it, because she was saving it for a rainy day when she really needed a new John Green book. I admire her willpower.
                Only four books have made me cry. Looking for Alaska, by John Green; The Fault In Our Stars, by John Green; Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, by our lord and savior J.K. Rowling; and The Perks Of Being a Wallflower, by Stephen Chbosky. I may have also choked up at the end of the Perks movie. It was beautiful, and it really did justice to the book.
                Anyway, I just finished reading The Hunt, by Andrew Fukuda, when I was on the bus yesterday. I liked it quite a lot. I’m going to write up a review and post it soon. Until then, cheers, and DFTBA.

To celebrate this new chapter for my blog, I've decided to host a giveaway! I've got an ARC of Between Here and Forever, and a hardcover of Pushing The Limits to give to one lucky winner. US only, please. Ends on April 20.
a Rafflecopter giveaway

Changes Are Ahead

I've kinda gotten to that place in my blogging career--career? Life? Term? Hmmm...--in which rating books gets tedious. But I still wanted a fast way to express my overall thoughts on a book. SO I've invented something new.

I'm sure a good majority of you are familiar with Forever Young Adult. (And if you're not, get familiar with them, because that site is one of my absolute favorites.) You know how they do the Relationship Status thingy at the end of each of their reviews? Well, my new ratings are kind of a play on that, in that I will no longer have set ratings, but make up one for each book. But they're not Relationship Statuses. They're how often I yell/whine/glare at a person if they interrupt me while reading, and if I'll yell "Shut up, I'm reading!" at them.

For instance, one may be "I yelled "Shut up!" at anyone who dared come near me while reading this book," and one may be, "I was begging people to talk to me to keep me from reading this book."

Fits, right? I thought so.

(Also, notice that poll on the sidebar? Yeah, vote on it please? Thanks.)

To Rate or Not To Rate?

Lately everyone's been taking their ratings systems (1--5 stars, grading scale, etc) out of their reviews. At first, this kind of horrified me. I liked ratings. Reading them and giving them. It helped me get my thoughts together, if that makes any sense.

Now though, I'm not so sure. I mean, there are pros and cons to both sides, both for the author and the reader.

For the author:

Pros:

(If you're me) Helps you collect your thoughts about a book.

Makes it a bit easier to express your opinion on a book in a short, easy way.

Cons:

Sometimes, it's hard. 

Different genres are difficult to compare.

For the reader:

Pros:

An easy way to tell if someone liked a book if you don't have much time to read the review in its entirety.

Sums their thoughts up nicely.

Cons:

It can get confusing sometimes. Like when you see someone who had a few issues with a book but rated it five stars, when just the other day they raved about a book and gave it four.

So, what do you think? What are your favorite and least favorite things about ratings? Is there a certain rating scale you prefer? Sound off in the comments!

Blogging Tip: Getting Followers

I never thought I'd really be qualified to post this, but I've actually gotten quite a few emails about it, so I figured I'd post about it for everyone else who's looking for some tips on the subject.

So, how do you get new followers?

Well, firstly: don't expect to get hundreds of followers in one night. Getting a solid reader base is a long process, which is why it can be so rewarding. With that established, my main tip would be to network. Make sure people know your blog exists. If you want to be known, you can't be shy. The best ways to network with fellow bloggers, authors, and publishers are:

--Commenting. This really only works with bloggers, but leaving nice comments are definitely effective. I'd recommend leaving a link to your blog at the bottom, without saying something like "comment for comment!" or anything.
--Twitter and Facebook. Twitter especially is the best way to communicate with bloggers, authors, and publishers. Not only will people discover your blog, but you'll make some fantastic friends! Facebook also has a lot of authors and blog pages to connect with.
--Follow Friday. Book Crazy Jenn hosts a wonderful weekly meme that helps you discover great new blogs, as well as help a few people find yours. Note: this is only to be used for blogs that are centered around books.
--Friend people on Goodreads, Shelfari, or LibraryThing.

I'd also recommend having a giveaway when you can, but you have to be sure to have a good amount of good content with your giveaways. Nothing's more annoying then a blogger who does nothing but give away books and never reviews anything.

And if you have a blog on Blogger, be sure to add their Google Friends Followers widget. Also install email subscribing and Feedburner subscribing. You want people to have easy access to staying updated to your site.

So that's all I got. Hopefully I helped someone out--I know I was looking for advice when I was a new blogger. If you've got advice to share, please comment.

In Which I Explain. And Ramble A Little, Too.

So I posted this. And I promised to explain why I did. This is that explanation.

Let me first thank everyone that commented. It was awesome to here that a lot of bloggers feel like they want to quit sometimes, and how you guys tackle it. And the comments saying that they didn't ever feel this way were helpful in their own way, too.

Also, let me assure everyone that Shut Up! I'm Reading. isn't going anywhere. Not now. But I have thought about it more and more often lately. Why? Well, I think I've figured it out.

I tend to throw myself into things I love completely. When I decide to become a Superman-obsessed ten year old, you best believe I'm gonna buy everything Superman related I can and learn how to write my full name in Kryptonian. When I decide that I want to become an actress, I read about acting whenever I can and take acting classes nonstop for years until any Wizard of Oz song makes me involuntarily gag. When I get into Webkinz, like just about every other 8-12 year old in the 21st century, I buy CRAPLOADS of those fuzzy little beasts until they practically suffocate me in my sleep.

So, when I discovered I had an intense love of reading, it makes sense that only a few months after that I'd take it a step further and dedicate a whole blog to it, right?

Thinking back on it, maybe I started the blog a wee bit too early. Don't get me wrong at all, I love this blog and all I've learned because of it. But I see all these teenagers who walk into the library and half an hour later walk out with a stack of books taller that they are, and I think: I only did that like, twice. And me being at least well over 5"6 at the age of 11 is only part of the reason for that. The other part of the reason is that my review pile had gotten truly huge, and I felt like I couldn't take any more books, especially stacks of books.

It is thoughts like this that make me occasionally loathe blogging. It's when I think, "I can't read this book that I bought when a publisher sent me a book," or, "My review pile is getting HUGE, I really need to read faster," or "I have to read this book."*

Notice the underlined words? Yeah, those words can kill your blog faster than you can say "Sam Roth is Jessica's boyfriend, not mine, and I'd never dream of stealing him from her." This is because it will turn you from a reader, into a blogger. And, yes, there's a difference. Being a reader is when you just love reading, and maybe there's some blogging, but it's more of a side-gig. Being a blogger is where you feel like you have to read, because if you don't then your blog will die.

See? Difference. Huge one.

Earlier in the month, I will fully admit that I was leaning towards being a blogger. Then I realized that I was one and stopped. It was shockingly easy for me to return to being a reader, thank God.

But this past week or so, it's mostly just been the tours** that have been killing me. It was having to review them by a certain date, and the book after that having to be reviewed by a certain date, and the one after that too, and possibly the one after that. This stresses me out. And unfortunately, I get stressed out way too much and way too easily sometimes.

It's when I get stressed out that I'm reminded of those teenagers who get those giant stacks of library books on a whim, and that I can't do that, and I miss those times when I could, and wow is this blogging thing really worth it? (Hey, I never said that I wasn't a complete spazz.)

But I've calmed myself down. And, after I finish up these last 3 tour books, I will probably try something new. I think I'll worry about what I want to read instead of what I need to read. Because this blog isn't a job. It's a hobby. I think I forget that sometimes. It's a hobby that I really love. Well, when I don't over-think it, that is.

So I don't think I'll over-think it anymore. I'll just...enjoy it. :)

(Phew, sorry, for the length and rambliness of this post. I kinda got carried away and dumped everything on you guys...well, those of you that actually read this, anyways.)

*I don't mean to sound ungrateful for the review books I get. I'm very grateful. I'm just very behind, which is completely my fault.

**Also, I don't blame the tour site runners in the slightest. I just got carried away with signing up for them. See? I'm just a nutcase who takes on way too much.

Question:

Do you guys ever think about just quitting blogging?

I'll explain later.

What I've Learned About Blogging This Year and 2011 Goals

So, 2010 year was a huge year for this blog. I gained so many readers, friends, and contacts, each of which I'm incredibly grateful for. And with another year comes some new knowledge, which I figured I'd pass along to others, and as a constant reminder to myself:

1. Don't take on too much. This is one lesson that I learned the hard way. I was signing up for book tours left and right, and they all ended up coming in really close to each other. With all of the other books I had to review, it quickly became too much very fast. When life is hectic, I can usually get a book a week read, so when you have three books one week, you can see how this would be a problem. Now, I only rarely sign up for ARC tours. (I do not blame the tour site runners in ANY way, just to be clear. This was completely my fault.)

2. Read a book that isn't for review once in a while. At one point this year, blogging had me SO STRESSED. I was ready to take an indefinite hiatus, it was getting so bad.

Instead, I went to my bookshelves and picked out a book that I'd won from a contest a while ago. Meaning: I did not read a review book. For the first time in a long time I read a book for me and no one else, and it helped so much more than I would've thought. It just goes to show that you have to read for yourself too, otherwise this thing becomes very un-fun very fast.

3. Don't spend three hours a day going through blog posts. Yeah, there was a point that I would wake up, eat, then go to the computer for a couple of hours to catch up on blog. I wasn't even commenting on blogs, just looking at what had been posted, and it was slowly taking over my life.

Now, I use Google Reader, and I have a folder with a couple of my favorite blogs. I still don't get the chance to comment as often as I'd like, but this way I actually get to READ blog posts and it only takes a half hour a day, usually.

4. Stay organized! Dude. This is probably the most important lesson on the list. I cannot tell you how much staying organized is important. I'm homeschooled, and with me driving around for me AND my sibling's activities, I'm always on the go. So I usually pre-schedule posts. It's not always super reliable, but lately I haven't had too many issues with it.

I also find help in keeping a calender for the month in a folder. This includes books to read, when to read them, when to put up the review, etc. It actually helps a lot. It just keeps me focused, I guess.

With review books, I keep a spreadsheet. When I posted about review books taking over my life, a commenter recommended this, and I love it! Though I don't update it as much as I should, it lets me know who sent what first and stuff like that.

And I've got a few blogging and reading goals for next year. They are:

Read more!!! (I'd LOVE to average two books a week instead of 1)

Read more blog posts and leave more comments

Host more interviews

Read one Harry Potter book a month (I've never read this series and I'm dying to!)

Read more books I own (as you've seen, there's a lot)

Get my review pile under control

What are some things about blogging you've learned this year? And what are your goals for 2011?

Changin' Up My Reviews....

For a little while now, I've been feeling like my reviews were becoming way too repetitive. My reviews have always consisted of: an opening sentence or two, a paragraph about the plot, then the characters, then the writing, the the ending and overall. It's how I've done it since I started the blog, and it was just beginning to get old. I first thought that it was just a phase and tried to push past it, but soon realized that it was here to stay when I simply couldn't.

So, I fixed it. Now I'm just kind of...winging it. I've already done one review like this (not published yet, so don't bother looking) and it was so much more satisfying, and I felt like I could be myself more than with my other format. But, I'll be ending the review with a sentence about the plot, characters, writing, ending, what parents need to know before handing the novel to their kid, if I suggest you read it, and then my regular 1-5 star rating. I'm pretty psyched about it. :) I'm not really sure why I'm posting about it....oh well.

OH, and while I'm talking about blog stuff that no one cares about, I will take this moment to freak out about Shut Up! I'm Reading. passing over 700 FOLLOWERS. That's freaking INSANE. You guys best believe that I've got an awesome contest coming your way!!

How Do YOU Keep Up With Your Review Books?

Review books are probably the best perk to running a blog. But, when you get a lot of them, or even a few that come out around the same time...how to keep up? This is my current dilemma. I feel like my review pile is taller than me and that there's just no way I could ever catch up.

Well, I have come up with a Blog Folder as a solution. It keeps track of my upcoming posts for Teen Book Scene, reviews to post, and when to start and finish books. Hopefully this will keep me much more organized than I've felt with review books lately. If not then I'll just lock myself in my room for three weeks and do nothing but read.

What do you do to keep up with review books? Do you have any special techniques that you swear by that you want to pass along?

The Completely Necessary "Thank You" Post

Now, just to warn you, it is late and I am very tired, so please excuse me if my babbling gets too incoherent. Moving on.

I'm actually on vacation right now. So, I was sitting on the bed, drinking Mr. Pibb Xtra (because I am hopelessly addicted to any drink with Mr.or Dr. in front of a different word), watching the waves, listening to music, and thinking, "Man, does it get any better than this?"

That's when I saw the tweet congratulating me for making the long list for Best New Book Blog for BBAW. Sure, enough, there my name was, on a list surrounded by other great bloggers. So, yes, apparently it DOES get better.

I know I registered and all, but honestly, I am shocked that anyone at all voted for me in any category. I'm still shocked that anyone actually reads this thing, although I'm VERY glad that you do. I'm definitely not getting my hopes up for making the short list, but I don't care. This has made me happier than it probably should. So, to whichever of you guys voted for me, thank you times...pick a number. A big one. That one.

If you'd like to see me on the list, go right over here. And check out some other ones while you're there, cause there are some great ones.

Stay cool,

Just Something I Thought I'd Share:

I love blogging. I love blogging about books. I love the whole book blog community. But lately I've noticed it's flaw, the one and only as far as I can tell. And that is the unspoken of competition of people comparing their amount of Advanced Reading Copies, or followers to another blog. And, now, I'm not pointing any fingers when I say this-

Wait, that's not true. I am pointing a finger to someone: me.

I don't know about the rest of you, but I am terrible about this. I will compare my amount of books with others' and feel almost inadequate when I find that a publisher has sent them more books then they have me. Same with followers. This is something that I've recently realized shouldn't be done; blogging is a fun hobby. We each try our hardest to make our blog the best it can be, and we don't need to be worrying about the success of other blogs, just our own.

Besides, some people have been blogging for a lot longer than I have (my first blogoversary will be in June) and they totally deserve the amount of followers and/or books they receive. We all do. I've recently realized this and am going to be working very hard to remember this any time I begin to feel competitive with other bloggers.

Your blogs are all amazing, no matter how many followers or ARCs you do or don't have. :)

So I Think...

That after hours of staring at a computer screen, extreme frustration to the point of near tears, and french fries that it has been done: I finished the new layout. As those of you who follow me on Twitter may know, it really did prove to be difficult, but I'm very pleased with the way it turned out. I even added a review policy! Yes, my "football day" as we call it here at my house, has been rather productive. Thanks for suffering through it with me!

No, I do not know why a cowboy is holding a pineapple to his face.

My Review Policy

Last updated 10/14/2011

Reviewing books:

I am NOT accepting books to review.

Guest Posts and Interviews:

I would be happy to promote authors by interviewing them, having them post a guest post, or participating in a blog tour. I would prefer to have a copy of the author's work to go along with the post, though it's not a requirement. I don't host freelance writers.

Giveaways:

I would be happy to host a giveaway for your book. It must be YA, and something I feel my readers will be interested in reading.

Please Ignore The Mess....

While Shut Up! I'm Reading. gets a new look. I got a new template, and I'll need to re-add all of my widgets and make some adjustments, but this should only take a little while. (Hopefully....)