The End At Long Last…

I have reached the end of my very first book blogging challenge. Horray! Two weeks ago, I had no idea what I was doing and I think it’s safe to say, I have at least a small idea, now. I did not get as much writing done aa I had hoped but I think that the general housecleaning was the more important task. I have dedicated the coming week to getting my indielink project completed and I still need to write a review policy.

Of course, while checklist items are the basis for the blogging game, I think, for me, the underlying communal aspect was far more important. I have added an incredible amount to my feed reader, none frivolous or things I won’t read. I have discovered amazing book bloggers and yippee, I seem to have gained a few followers myself!

All in all, I spent about ten hours each day, Bloggiestaing. For a newbie blogger, this “challenge” certainly lived up to the concept. Perhaps, next time (oh, there will be a next time) I will hunker down for the full 48.

Here is my fairly short list of tasks I was able to knock out:

– Updated my About Me page. I feel good about this.
– Added and linked my current/past/future reads in icons in my sidebar. They are all linked to my indiebound affiliate.
– Set up my subscription chicklet via feedreader.
–  Cleaned up, added to and moved my blogroll to a separate page.
– Created (and USED!) categories and tags.

And here are the mini challenges I participated in:

* Rebecca at The Book Lady’s Blog: Getting out from underneath the feed reader.
Unfortunately, I did this as one of my first tasks and by the end of the day, after collecting more blogs, I was well under the feedreader again. Hopefully this week I can get caught up.

* Beth from Beth Fish Reads:  On lists and opinions.
This was the easiest, for me. I will be unveiling my new post on Monday. Preview: Librarians will thank me for it.

* Jill at Fizzy Thoughts: Just when you thought the feed reader was halfway managed.
This little task is the one that got me in trouble with Rebecca’s! There is just so much to comment on, out there that I think I spent half of my Bloggiesta telling other people how cool their blogs were. Woops!

* Emily from Emily’s Reading Room:  Are you talking about me?
I have initially set up alerts for my URL and blog name but I think this will be an ongoing task as well.

* Lynn from Chronicle of an Infant Bibliophile: Get listed
I am set up with Blog Catalog but I want to go through one last time to make sure I am shopping a finished product before I dive into directories!

* Trish from Hey Lady! Watcha Readin’? On favicons and gravatars. Huh?
I’ve added a gravatar of Kai reading. For those who can’t tell, the header is a very close version of the same picture.

* Michelle from GalleySmith:  Anchor text. You mean there’s a way this *should* be done?
Oh I am so proud that I didn’t have to do this one! Yippie, I have been doing it correctly! Thank you to Michelle for explaining WHY it is so important. For my nonbook bloggers, please check out this link. It’s important.

* Andrea from Book Blather:  Authorities? What authorities?
This was an incredible resource. I have it bookmarked and I am going to create a page for it on the blog this week.

* Ruth from Bookish Ruth: You’re going to analyze what?
Ok I did this but I’m not sharing my score! Maybe after I have all of this week’s task list items, I’ll run it through and disclose…

Phew, that was a lot of work! Thank you so much to Natasha at Maw Books Blog for setting this up and thank you to all of the other bloggers (hosts of mini challenges and the community in general) for making this a very fun and productive first challenge for me.

And now, it is siesta time….