Category: Let’s Discuss

Here’s a sad fact: I didn’t make my goal for the Discussion Challenge in 2018. This wouldn’t be so bad, except it’s my challenge (along with Shannon, of course). How do I fail my own challenge? There’s a teensy part of me that worried about this. A nagging little compartment of my brain that said, “You shouldn’t be hosting a discussion challenge if you’re not going to be the ultimate book discusser. Maybe you just don’t have much to say anymore.” But don’t worry, I told my brain to just shut up already. And it listened (mostly). Because I LOVE the Discussion Challenge! (Even when I personally fail.) And here’s why: The Discussion Challenge is a community. Honestly, I can’t even begin to tell you the number of bloggers I’ve connected to because of this challenge. And I feel like I’m truly getting to know bloggers through their discussions. These types of… Read more »

I know I’m not alone when I say I’m behind on books I have for review. Sometimes it’s because my eyes were bigger than my … eyes? (Yeah, that metaphor doesn’t work for books the way it works for food.) Or sometimes it’s because a book that I really wanted to read somehow lost its luster along the way and I wasn’t excited about it anymore. For whatever reason, not every book I have for review has gotten read. But recently I’ve been making a concerted effort to read some of those older review titles that have been waiting for me. Some strategies I’ve used lately to catch up on those review books: Sign up for blog tours. Nowadays, when I sign up for a blog tour, it’s almost always for a book I already have for review. So, why bother signing up for a tour, you ask? Because then… Read more »

My husband just changed some administrative stuff on our email accounts to make things work more smoothly, and he noticed that I had over 10GB of email saved. He gently suggested that I might want to delete one or two (thousand) things. I wasn’t surprised. Especially when I considered the fact that I really don’t ever delete anything. I went and checked out my Feed Your Fiction Addiction email, which I assumed—correctly—was one of the main culprits. And here’s what I found: Hundreds of giveaway notifications—both from me and to me. I mean, these are really important to save for years, right? What if I one day I need to know which blog I won that one random book from in 2013? Or what if I want to count the number of times Danielle Hammelef has won a giveaway on my blog? (It’s a lot—she’s an awesome giveaway participator.) What… Read more »

I’ve only tried a few book box subscriptions, but determined that they’re not for me. There are a few reasons for this: I’m disappointed when I get books I already have. The first book box that I ever got was a Page Habit box, and I LOVE the idea behind this box! It includes an annotated book. What could be better right. When I got my first box, I was so excited. I opened the box … and it was a book I’d already read. Not even just a book I’d already read, but one I was only meh about (it wasn’t bad, but not fantastic either, and not a book I was interested in reading again.). My excitement deflated. I’m not all that excited about swag. I know this might make me like a bookish heretic, but I’m generally not crazy about swag. I do love pins and buttons, and I don’t mind bookmarks,… Read more »

The other day, I posted a random tweet about how I wished there was a synopsis at the beginning of new books in a series. Based on the response I got, I’d say quite a few people agreed with me. Why is it that TV producers don’t expect us to remember what happened last week without “Previously on” reminders, and yet book publishers expect us to remember the details of a story for a whole year or more? Can’t we have a “Previously in” in our books? Pretty please? — Nicole Hewitt (@NicoleMHewitt) August 25, 2018 First off, I was excited for the fact that my tweet went mini-viral (well, at least, it’s by far the most attention one of my tweets has ever gotten). But I was also both amused and educated by the responses. But what did I mean by these 280 little characters? Some people misunderstood my intent. There were… Read more »