Last week on FYFA (and in my life):
Not much new to report this week. I’ve been trying to figure out scheduling for next year’s homeschool co-op classes (Yikes! We have to plan things early!) and get some other school things sorted out.
Actually, that reminds me—If you have a chance, could you hop over to some of my Blogging 101 students’ blogs and leave them a quick comment? It would seriously make their day (actually, more like their week!) to get some visitors besides each other. 🙂 I’m finding this class is harder to teach than I was expecting because they all have different types of blogs and I don’t know how to help them find an audience in their niches (besides telling them to get out there and read and comment on other blogs!). Anyway, if you have a moment to visit one or a few of these, I’d love you forever:
TheTrains13’s Professional Opinion – A video gaming blog.
Travels From a Teen’s View – A travel blog that will be documenting my student’s upcoming move to Singapore, along with some of her other family trips.
Food Frenzi – Recipes and other food-related posts.
It’s an Interesting Story – One of my students shares her short stories, writing advice and, most recently, artwork on this one.
Creative Indulgences – An art blog.
Clash Royale 13 – It’s about … Clash Royale. He just switched to this blog, so there’s only one post so far, but there will be more!
One other note: I’m going to be trying out eStories, which is an audiobook service a lot like Audible. My contact asked me to spread the news to my reviewer friends, so if you’re a blogger and you’re interested in trying out their service too and reviewing an audiobook from them, shoot me an email (click the email icon in the right sidebar). They have a huge offering.
Here’s what you may have missed on the blog last week:
- Long Way Home by Katie McGarry – 5 Star Review, Excerpt & Giveaway – Still time to enter to win a $100 Amazon Gift
- January Wrap-Up Round-Up – Link up your January wrap-up posts here!
- Accidentally on Purpose by Jill Shalvis – Review, Excerpt & Giveaway – Still time to enter to win one of three sets of SWEET LITTLE LIES and THE TROUBLE WITH MISTLETOE and a wine tumbler.
- Recap of Veronica Roth’s Carve the Mark Event
Next week on FYFA:
Next week is my blogoversary and I literally forgot until I went to do the birthday and blogoversary calendar!! Oops! I will definitely be doing something for my blogoversary, but I might hold off and do a birthday/blogoversary combo celebration in February.
- New York Nights by C.J. Duggan – Release blitz & giveaway (and possibly review—I just got the book last night, so I’ll see if I can read it in time!)
- By Your Side and The Fill-In Boyfriend by Kasie West – Review
- Probably some bite-sized reviews of a few other books I haven’t gotten to reviewing yet.
- January Wrap-Up
- Caraval by Stephanie Garber – Audiobook Review
- Let’s Discuss: Something bookish! 🙂
Book Blogger Birthdays and Blogoversaries:
Just one blogoversary this week (and one birthday for a blog that doesn’t seem to exist? Does anyone know Maya @ The Fandom Fox? The URL she gave me doesn’t work and I found a blog with a similar name, but there doesn’t seem to be a Maya there). Head on over and wish these bloggers well on their special days! Check out the calendar to see what you might have just missed or what’s coming up. (If you want to be added to the calendar, you can always fill out the birthday/blogoversary form!)
This week’s events:
- January 29th – a GREAT read‘s Blogoversary
- January 31st – Blaise @ The Book Boulevard‘s Birthday
- January 31st – Feed Your Fiction Addiction’s Blogoversary!!! (Yep, that’s me!)
- February 1st – Book Huntress’ World‘s Blogoversary
For Review:
Thanks so much to Disney-Hyperion for Dream Magic and Kill All Happies. I’m excited to read both of these!
From NetGalley/Edelweiss:
C.J. Duggan is a favorite author of mine. I love her NA Summer Series, and I’m excited to read her newest, New York Nights.
Great Discussions/Goings On Around the Blogosphere:
Here are a couple of posts I loved this week:
- Cilla @ Paved with Books asks Where’s the Line Between Insta-Attraction and Insta-Love?
- Michelle @ Faerie Fits talks about her experiment with mapmaking in Worldbuilding 101: Using Maps for Inspiration
Pre-Order Deals:
- Pre-Order THE WISH GRANTER by C.J. Redwine and receive a limited edition signed piece of character art. (ends 2/13)
- Pre-order TRICKED by Jen Calonita and receive a Fairy Tale Reform School digital exclusive featuring Rapunzel! (ends 3/6)
- Pre-order THE BONE WITCH by Rin Chupeco and receive a signed bookmark and The Bone Witch sticker. You will also be entered to win a GRAND PRIZE Bone Witch themed crate. (ends 3/6)
- Pre-order THE PLAYBOOK by Kwame Alexander and you’ll be entered to win custom Converse signed by the author! (ends 2/9)
- Pre-order THE SHIP BEYOND TIME by Heidi Heilig from an indie bookstore and get a gorgeous cloisonne pin of the black ship Temptation while supplies last! (ends 2/28)
- Pre-order RIVETED by Jay Crownover and get a first look at the first two chapters of Avenged and a poster with all the Saints on it (ends 2/14)
- Pre-order ULTIMATUM by K.M. Walton and you have a chance to win one of 12 incredible prize packs filled with cool, custom made swag and other amazing prizes. (ends 1/30)
- Pre-order THE SONG RISING by Samantha Shannon and receive exclusive badges and temporary tattoos to #JoinTheRevolution. (ends 3/6)
- Pre-order A CONJURING OF LIGHT by V.E. Schwab for a chance to receive a book hugger signed by V. E. Schwab. (ends 2/28)
- Pre-order LONG WAY HOME by Katie McGarry & receive 3 bonus stories for FREE! (ends 1/30)
- Pre-order CARAVAL by Stephanie Garber and get a special free gift from the author and a signed, personalized copy. (ends 1/30)
- Preorder THE EDGE OF EVERYTHING by Jeff Giles to receive a keepsake metal bookmark! (ends 1/30)
Other Current Giveaways on FYFA:
(Besides the ones listed with this week’s posts)
- January Discussion Challenge Link-Up & Giveaway – Link up your January discussions and enter to win!
- Wrap-Up Round-Up Giveaway!! – Anyone can enter, so head over to win a book from my giveaway/trade list!
Even More Awesome Giveaways on Other Sites:
- Enter to win one of five signed copies of Scythe by Neal Shusterman!
- Head over to WhoRU Blog to enter to win one of three Finished Copies of THE YOU I’VE NEVER KNOWN (US Only)
- Lots of blogs participating in the January 2017 New Release Giveaway Hop!
- Head over to Lisa Loves Literature for a chance to win the iRead Book Tours anniversary giveaway—$50 cash or a Basic Virtual Book Tour Package
- Head over to Crossroad Reviews for a chance to win In 27 Days by Ally Gervais
- Clean Teen Publishing is giving away a mystery prize worth over $100
- It’s Ohana Reads’ third Blogoversary and Stephanie is celebrating with a giveaway of one of her favorite books of 2016!
- Milky Way of Books is also three! She’s giving away a 2017 preorder!
- The Bookkeeper’s Secrets is doing a year-long giveaway!
- Charnell @ Reviews from a Bookworm is returning to blogging and celebrating with a giveaway of up to £40 of books from Book Depository (INT)
Lots of good stuff! Have any giveaways or great discussions happening on your site right now? Feel free to share them in the comments!
Wow, you put so much effort into these posts! You’re such a wonderful promoter of other blogs! 🙂 I’ve only heard of Kill All Happies, but Dream Magic looks intriguing. I’m going to look up the first in the series.
Happy reading, and hope you have a great week! 🙂
Thanks so much, Jo! I do put a lot of effort into these, so it’s nice that people appreciate it! 🙂
Good luck with your school planning! I’ll check out some of your students’ blogs. Are your students on Bloglovin’? That might be a way for them to find similar blogs and start building an audience.
Yes, they’re on Bloglovin’ and I’ve encouraged them to visit other similar blogs. It’s harder to motivate them to do a lot of “extra work” than I thought it would be (especially since they’re teenagers and they tend to have trouble sticking to it if they don’t see instant results), but I thought it would be fun for them to see the fruits of really building a blog audience—if they get comments from my readers they might see that it’s worth putting in some extra time and effort to find their own! 🙂
Thanks for the link! 😀
I commented on most of your student’s blogs, but I want to apologize to the video gamer and the Clash Royale fan. I’m not a big video gamer and didn’t actually understand most of the top couple of posts (which is fine, because I am SO not in the target audience), and I’ve never played Clash Royale. :/ This is a cool project!
I’m not big on gaming either. I try to comment on all of my students’ posts, but sometimes I read the video game ones and I think, “I have no idea what to say.” LOL!
I popped over and left a comment on the travel blog. 🙂 Singapore is cool and I hope the blogging of it goes well for him/her. I think I was contacted by eStories recently, but I declined to write them back because my Audible is FILLED with audiobooks I still have to listen to.
We used to have an Audible subscription but we put it on hold because I found that I could get a lot of audiobooks through our library. Still, sometimes there are books I can’t get that way and eStories is a bit cheaper than Audible, so I thought I’d try it out. Right now I’m listening to a sequel that I wasn’t able to get from the library, so it works out perfectly!
How fun that you are promoting the bloggers in your new class. I will definitely check them out when I get chance. Thanks for posting all the giveaways and interesting links, so much going on in the blogging world. Enjoy your new reads and have a great week!
Thanks, Karen! My students will love getting some new visitors this week!!
Dream Magic sounds interesting… definitely checking that one out!!
Have a great week!
I’m excited to read it!
I got Kill All Happies this week as well! I will try to get over to some of your students’ pages this week if I can. That’s so cool that you’re sharing them with us! Hope you have a great week coming up. You can check out my Sunday Post in the link below.
Kill All Happies sounds like a fun, happy-go-lucky sort of book. I’m looking forward to reading it! Thanks for visiting my students’ blogs! They’ll be so excited to see some extra comments this week!
I think it would be hard to teach how to find a niche to your students with such varying investments on their blogs. I will say social media promotion is important – and that might be where they draw attention from. I suck at social media, so don’t take my word as gold or anything. 😉
Yes, I agree that social media is key—but a lot of my students aren’t really on social media, so that’s made it hard too. That’s one of the hard things about teaching blogging at a homeschool co-op. Our kids tend to be a lot less connected than the rest of the world! (My own kids included!)
OOoh nice new reads!! Totally new to me ones!! And oh wow! Happy almost Blogoversary!!! Hope you have a great week!
Here’s my STS
Have a GREAT day!
Old Follower 🙂
Happy blogoversary to you too!!! I’ll be sure to spread the word about your giveaway!
Good luck with the scheduling of next year’s classes. That is so cool with the blogging class. I need to go check them out. Enjoy your new books and have a great week!
Thanks! The blogging class has been much more of a challenge than I expected because all of the books have different themes and not all of my knowledge transfers. But they’re all just looking to have fun with their blogs, not necessarily be serious bloggers, so it’s been fine. I know they’d love to have more people checking them out, though! 🙂
I do love that you’re teaching a blogging class. I think it can be difficult to help other types of blogs – but besides commenting, they can do link ups? I know there are some for food, and when it comes to artwork, they could probably share on DIY type of link ups.
-Lauren
Yes, I’ve encouraged them to find link-ups. It’s a little harder because they’re just not as savvy at finding the things that will work well for them, and it’s been harder than I thought it would be for me to find things like link-ups for all their different types of blogs. But it’s still lots of fun, and the kids are enjoying it!
How interesting that you’re teaching the blogging class. I’ll try to visit some of the bogs. Kill All Happies sounds good for me.
Thanks so much! The kids will love getting some extra visitors this week!
Happy blogoversary on the 31st!! Can’t wait to see the Caraval post. How fun that you’re teaching young bloggers- I’ll definitely go and leave some comments. 🙂 Good luck to them with their blogs!
Have a great week.
The kids are going to be so excited to get random visitors this week. It really makes their day!
Happy Blogiversary Nicole! Good luck with that co-op scheduling! now off to visit your Blogging 101 students’ blogs. I post recipes and creative writing posts so I can visit Food Frenzi – Recipes an Interesting Story often 🙂 I ask my son to visit Clash Royales since he loves it 🙂
Ha! Thanks for sending your son off on a mission too! I appreciate it!
Ok I’m back to report…
Creative Indulgences is BEAUTIFUL! I think that art should go in Society 6
good character development advice at It’s an Interesting Story!
Clash Royales.. couldn’t find where to leave a comment! 🙁
I agree about Creative Indulgences—she has so much talent, and I’ve been excited to see all of her artwork on her blog. I’ve gotten her connected a bit via Instagram as well because it seems like lots of artists “gather” there. Oh, and the Clash Royale blog is a bit confusing because there’s only one post so when you go to the homepage, you FEEL like you’re on that post. You can’t comment without actually opening the post up by clicking on the title. I’ll have to tell him to change the layout so that it only shows s snippet of the posts on the homepage so it’s less confusing.
Ok Got it! I’l go back and visit again. Thanks Nicole!
You’re so sweet. Thanks, Daniela!