#ArmchairBEA Day 5- Experts Say

Its the last day of ArmchairBEA, for today, the prompt is:

Today's topic is Ask The Experts. In your post, ask the visitors to your blog for blogging advice. What did you always want to know about blogging but were afraid to ask? Now is the time! Alternatively, if you've been blogging for awhile, you've probably learned a thing or two. Whether you stumbled upon a something that makes blogging easier or made a mistake you'd never want anyone to repeat, share your experience and wisdom with others.

I've been mucking around with websites for my hobbies for eight years now, and livejournal use for nearly as long, so I will provide tips on things I've learned and noticed over the years.

• Learn basic html- The 'What you see is what you get' (WYSIWYG) editors of Blogger, Livejournal, Tumblr, and Wordpress are limited in their usage. So much can be done with html, if you only bother to learn it. It is really easy, and it makes your blog 100% customizable, especially when you learn about Custom Style Sheets (CSS). If you don't know it, or need a refresher, Lissa Explains it All is a fantastic and easy to use resource. Also, finding a book on the subject at your local book store is an excellent offline resource. A bonus is, that once you learn some html, it is a skill set you can list on your resume.
• Do not imbed music into your blog & limit flash and java script usage- Probably one of the most complained about things I've heard from the dolling community on website design is auto-play music. They are large files, and slow down loading speed. Same with using too many javascripts and flash additions. If I can't get a blog to load reasonably on my dsl connection, its not worth revisiting.
• THOU SHALT NOT HOTLINK- Hotlinking is bandwidth theft. Everytime you load a page, bandwidth is used to display the content. Some people pay for their webhosting, or upgraded Photobucket accounts, so they are paying real money for a certain amount of storage and bandwidth. You know how Blogger has the "Insert Image> Or add an image from the web" option? Do not use this unless the image is in an account you control (ie. your Picasa, where all your Blogger pictures are kept). It will just use the link you provide and not reupload it. There are many people, if they find some to be hotlinking (or by default have coded into their site), will upload at best a graphic declaring the using this image to be a bandwidth thief. At worse, some use some extremely Not Safe for Work images. You really don't want those showing up on your blog. If you want to link to book covers, Goodreads has some awesome blogger/website tools. Open a book's page on Goodreads, and look in the sidebar until you find the 'Share this Book' section. Click 'Your Website', and pick any of the top four selections. That way, if someone enjoys your review, they can click on it, and add it to their Goodreads list.
• Don't Spam your Twitter followers- If people follow your twitter, they know when you are hosting giveaways, hops or when you are updating. There is no need to retweet every tweet made to advertise you event. Those are to get the attention of people who don't follow you already. Don't constantly post links to buy stuff at amazon, every pintrest post, or every single Formspring post. Have you every had 5+ people you follow on twitter answering Formsquare questions at the same time? Then you know what I'm talking about.
• Less is more in sidebars- Do you really need ~all~ of those things in your sidebar(s)? If your sidebars are twice as long as the content on your blog, they are way too long. Tags/Labels are essential for readers to find certain older posts, but if the vast majority of the ones you use are only used once, you might want to reorganize them. Blog buttons are super huge in the book blogs, when compared to the pixel art world. Pixel artists use 130px x 55px and 88px x 31px as the most common standard size. And they are plenty big enough. That being said, all other advertising images (for hops, readalongs, etc) should be reduced in size as well. Limit your blog rolls, put them on a seperate page, or better yet, make a twitter list. Make the things for following your blog (twitter, goodreads links, RSS subscriptions, GFC, etc) in a place of priority at the top of a sidebar, and not halfway down the page.

Well, this turned into more of a novel than I intended to be. The TL;DR of it: If people can't load the page, they can't read the blog

#ArmchairBEA Day 4- Beyond the blog

So, you enjoy writing do you? Would you like to be involved elsewhere on the interwebs or possibly start writing for your local paper? Perhaps you'd simply like to start drawing an income from your blog? Today we will be sharing tips that will help you move your blog forward or perhaps your own personal goals of writing and making an income from what you love to do. Today we'd love you to share your top tips for getting beyond your blog! Have you done any freelance writing? Are you monetizing your blog and how so? How do you make connections outside the book blog community on the internet? If none of these apply we'd love for you to share a fun aspect about your blog or life that may be completely separate from books!

This is a tough topic for me. I never liked writing in school; never wrote in a journal or diary. I certainly never wanted to write a novel or other creative writing piece. Monetization of my blog, I don't do that. 1) As I still use the free blogger website, there is no cost to run it. I can't justify monetizing a hobby site where I have no out of pocket cost. 2) Successfully monetizing a blog is really hard. A hosting account averages around $100 a year. Browsers have ad-blocking add ons and people read blogs in RSS readers, so unless an add is in the body of the blog post, they won't see it. So other than becoming an affiliate with some store that has a web presence, How likely is it that I would recoop 25% of my hosting? Not good. Perhaps when I get my blog transferred to my hosting (I do have it for hobby stuff) I will reconsider it. One perk that my webhost offers (others may, but I'm not familiar with them), is the option to donate directly to the cost of hosting the site. I have belonged to a couple of pixel art forums who use the same hosting company, and both have used this discreet button:

This is a handy tool, because if someone really cares for the welfare of your blog/website, and wants to help you cover the cost, they can click the link and donate via paypal. That money goes directly to your account statement with the hosting company (Dreamhost in this case). It can only be used to cover the cost of your web host. If you self host, check the information from your hosting company to see if they offer this.

And now for something unexpected...

Something I do (largely) outside of books and blogs. I'll touch on two of my other hobbies:

- Pixel Art: If you were around and saw my last Top Ten Tuesday post, I mentioned I hang out at DeviantArt sometimes. About eight years ago, I wandered into the pixel art-dolling commuting (headed there from a Harry Potter fan forum of all places). I learned how to make little graphics using programs like Paint or GIMP. There is a whole world of digital art out there. I mostly stuck with non-isometric pixel art and digital dolls (if you are familiar with ball-jointed-dolls and how people paint and make outfits for them, its similar idea, just digital). If you are interested, you can see a few at My DeviantArt.

- Genealogy: The year I graduated high school, my dad and I started working on researching our family tree. We started with getting pictures and stories from my grandparents, and then we visited the LDS Church's family history centers (associated with their church locations around the country) and the few online resources there were at the time. Now, LDS church has many of their resources available online at Family Search, for free. Every so often I will help with indexing, which is what moves this great resource. I do use Ancestry from time to time. From what I've found, my most recent immigrant ancestor came over to the US just before Ellis Island opened. And most of the rest have been here (US and Canada) since the American Revolution, or before. If anyone wants to geek out on genealogy, we can talk in comments.

These may work their way into the blog. I'm trying to think of a layout design. And I'm thinking of reading some history associated with periods that affected my ancestors, like the influenze pandemic of 1918. But not much.

Networking:: Armchair BEA

Day 3's topic is networking off line. I'm afraid I'm not very good at this. I met a couple people at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books who are out in the Inland Empire area, where I live, and I've run into them at a few events out this way, once I learned about this great place called Mrs. Nelson's, one being one of the librarians for a near by city system. But mostly this is to recognize them and say hi. As I mentioned in my introduction, I am terribly introverted, so striking up a conversation is not natural to me (I never know what to say to the authors at the signings, especially when I haven't read their books yet).

My city is not a very literary city. We don't have any independent book stores that sell new books, except for the highly specialized ones (ie. church related book store) which I have no interest in. We have one Barnes and Noble, and they almost never have any author signings, and usually its author of books I have no interest in, or a local author published by a small publisher, that I never hear about their book again after the event has passed. I think the most interesting literary thing was probably when the local museum opened up an exhibit on Rin Tin Tin to tie in with the release of Susan Orlean's book, since he was from the area. And again with the whole introvertedness, I've not tried attending their book clubs.

My local library systems don't do very many events with authors, so I've been heading to the Ontario City Library, who has held a couple YA-MG events in the last month, and Mrs. Nelson's Bookstore. Not the most convenient, but sure beats heading to the Grove where it seems like most author events are held.

ArmchairBEA- Best of 2012

Today's topic for Armchair BEA is Best of 2012- favorites so far or hopeful favorites to come. I'm not sure just how many of these are actually new this year (not many I expect), so its just based on what's been read.





I wouldn't hesitate to recommend any of these books. I already recommended Starcrossed to others, who were equally engrossed in the story.

The following books are expected out by the end of the year, or came out this year and I've not gotten a chance to read it yet, I expect great things from them




Leave me a link if you don't log in with a way that provides it, so I can return the visit. Have fun at the twitter party tonight. I won't be able to attend it most likely, as I will be going to the Fierce Reads tour stop at Mrs. Nelson's tonight.

Armchair BEA: Introduction

I decided to give Armchair BEA a try this year, even though I'm not exactly sure what I'm doing. So we all will be finding out together. Well, I do know it does not involve an insanely expensive trip to NYC for the actual convention.

Please tell us a little bit about yourself: Who are you? How long have you been blogging? Why did you get into blogging?
My name is Sarah, but I will answer to sawcat as well. I live in Southern California. I've been blogging about books for a little over a year now, although I've had a blog over on Livejournal for several years now. I started this book blog after talking about it with some fellow Shelfari members who also have blogs.

What are you currently reading, or what is your favorite book you have read so far in 2012?
I just finished Silent in the Grave by Deanna Raybourn and am listening to The Rose of Sebastopol by Katharine McMahon. But my favorite read so far this year has been Finnikin Of The Rock by Melina Marchetta.

Tell us one non-book-related thing that everyone reading your blog may not know about you.
I work as an archaeologist. I am also very introverted and quiet. If I met you on the street, I would not be trying to chat you up. My movie and music collection rival my book collection, although my music collection is far more eclectic. I'm also more than slightly obsessive over Doctor Who since New Who arrived from across the pond. I have two twitter accounts. The one on the side is more bookish, while @sawcatsims is my primary one, with more fandom and sports related content, and GetGlue.

Where do you see your blog in five years?
Really, I have no idea. Hopefully I will not have completely ignored it by then. My involvement in hobbies goes in waves. Sometimes I'm all about one hobby and neglect the others for a while.

What literary location would you most like to visit? Why? Prince Edward Island. I loved the LM Montgomery novels that I read, and PEI always sounded so idyllic. I grew up in a major metropolitan area, so the grand open spaces aren't quite as easy to find, and many of our rivers have been concrete lined, so any natural body of water always get me.