Lisa Loves Literature is going to be moving!

So, I have decided I am going to take the plunge and move to a Wordpress site in order to take advantage of the awesome hosting service provided by Ashley at Nose Graze.  This is going to be a really big step for me, since I have always used Blogger, but there are just some things about having all that she does taken care of for me that appeals to me.  I hope that you will all follow me there.  I plan to get started on it later this week!  I'll keep you all updated.

I'm still wanting to update my header and button a little bit.  I don't want a huge change, just maybe some reworking on things like the dogs, word/font etc.  If you have any recommendations for someone who does art similar to what I already have, because I like what I have for the most part, I'd love to hear some suggestions!

But I'm getting a little nervous.  Whether all my followers will come with me, whether I can figure out how it works, etc.  So wish me luck!

Discussion Post: Book Blogger Woes

Okay, so I'm in my 9th year of blogging, and there are still a few things that I wish I had.  Or things that have changed since I've become a blogger.

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1.  So, this past year has been great for me, I finally have some contacts with certain publishers, and over the past few years, I've been getting more and more advanced reader copies even just mailed to me without my requesting them.  So you're probably wondering, why is this a woe for me now? Well, in the past not having those things was sad, and now, well let's say there are still a few publishers that I wish I had a connection with for some specific ARC opportunities.  But I'm working on it, and getting connections and will keep working!  Now, this actually kind of leads into my second blogger woe.
 

 

2.  Getting the first in a series advanced reader, but not for the rest of the series.  Really in the past I've gotten the first in a series from either the bookstore I work at, or maybe at a convention like BEA.  And so I never got the sequels because they hadn't been sent to me directly.  But even now, when I get the first in a series, I often don't get the 2nd or others in physical copies.  Especially when it is a publisher that doesn't even print copies of the last books in the series.  Right now I'm DISO a physical copy of Bright We Burn by Kiersten White.  And I finally have a contact with HarperCollins.  She was nice enough to give me the name of the person working on the publicity for the book I want since it isn't her title.  Now I've emailed and fingers are crossed I might get a copy, if I even hear back.  And this even leads into my final book blogger woe for today.

  

3.  Because of the advanced reader copies, and all the other books I'm reviewing, I don't always get a series finished when the last book comes out.  Often if I don't get a book for review, that final book, I don't always fit it into my reading schedule, and so it might get purchased, but then sits on my TBR shelf.  Believe me, I have a lot of series that I need to finish that final book, but because I didn't read when it first came out, or before it came out, it tends to get shoved below other advanced reader copies, and then I just don't get to it.  And then it sits there, and I'm either not in the mood when I have time to read it, or I'm afraid I don't remember enough from how long ago I finished the last book to just pick the final book up and start reading.

 

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So that's me sending my wishes to the people who might be able to help me solve them.  :-)


Are any of my woes ones that you feel as a book blogger?  What are some woes you have that maybe I didn't share here?  Would love to have you join into my discussion!

Dicussion Post: So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish - Or When Should I Give Up on Blog Tours?

So, recently I've been feeling more and more overwhelmed by all the tours I keep signing up for. Not only that, there have been several that I have signed up to review, and then not enjoyed the book enough to keep reading/listening to it.

The title of this post comes from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

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A few weeks ago, I got an email from the person in charge of one of the tour companies letting me know that I had said I would review a book way back in March I think, and I never did it. So they were going to have to send a link to my review or I wouldn't be able to participate in any more until I did.  At first I could have sworn that I'd sent them an email saying I didn't enjoy the book and wouldn't be reviewing it.  But I went back and looked through all my own emails and couldn't find anything saying I'd sent that to them.  I do remember the book, and I remember when I gave up on it.  It was also right at the end of the school year, so I must have thought I'd emailed, but then forgot with all the crazy end of the school year stuff.  So I ended up just emailing back and saying it was fine if they just took me off of their list for promos.  I mean, the few books I'd gotten from them I hadn't liked enough to even finish, so it probably wasn't worth either of our times for me to stay working with them.

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However, after the tour manager reached out to me about another tour I'd signed up for, I emailed back saying I'd thought I wasn't able to participate.  She let me know that she had been sending out a lot of those emails, and doesn't know for sure why I got it, that she still had me listed to keep being a part of the tours.  So that issue is solved.   Who knows what end it was on, probably mine, but it is good to work with someone who is willing to work with someone who is usually dependable.

The other thing, is that there are some tours that have the posts already almost perfectly ready for you to post in an html that they send out, and I love those!  I will mention one that does such an awesome job of it, Xpresso Book Tours.  I love participating because her html documents are almost perfect.  I only usually have to change a few things that are personal preference for my own posts, or maybe insert a review or whatever the extra promo I've got from the author might be.

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But I have had to make myself stop signing up for more than one tour a day, for a while this year I got kinda crazy.  Even still, these are all the groups I still get emails from and occasionally post for:

1.  Xpresso Book Tours
2.  Rock Star Book Tours
3.  Jean Book Nerd Blog Tours
4.  YA Bound Book Tours
5.  Social Butterfly PR
6.  InkSlinger Pr
7.  Enticing Journey Book Promotion
8.  Fantastic Flying Book Club Tours
9.  Pump Up Your Book
10.  Silver Dagger Book Tours
11.  Book Unleashed Tours
12.  Reading Addiction Blog Tours
13.  Audiobookworm Promotions

Now those are all I can think of at the moment, so you can see why I feel like Castiel in the gif above.  And I'm not even listing when publishers contact me to participate in tours, or authors themselves ask me to promote their book. Then there are blog tour groups that have gone out of business, one of which was a favorite of mine. And I've not  listed the one that I mentioned above, since I will no longer be working with them anyway.

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So, I hate to give up several of them, because I never know when they might have a book I really want to read or be a part of their promotion.

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What blog tour groups do you work with?  Have you had any really good or really bad experiences you want to share?  Any thoughts on this post at all, I'd love to hear from you!

Now, excuse me while I go do some more writing to reach my goal during NaNoWriMo!!

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Let's Get 2016 Over With a Giveaway - Part 4 (US Only)

Week 4 starting now, and will end earlier since Sunday is the first of 2017!

Okay, 2016 has really started to end the year with a bang! And not a good one!  Since my last giveaway, we've lost both George Michael and Carrie Fisher!  People are going about trying to save Betty Green now.   We've lost so many other big names this year, Gene Wilder, David Bowie, and Prince just to name a few.  I'm so glad that I got the chance to see Prince in concert once in my lifetime.  Not to mention that today they mentioned that Stan Lee just turned 94, and I hope that doesn't jinx him!!!  There has been such craziness with politics, I won't go into specifics, as that is part of the problem, but it's been so crazy that family members have been split because of this.

I've had some good things happen, I got to go to the NOLA Storycon and meet some of my favorite authors, Jennifer L. Armentrout, Samantha Young, and Jay Crownover were my very very favorites.  I won NaNoWriMo for the 2nd time by writing my full 50,000 words.  I've had a few publishers start sending me things without me having to reach out to them first.  So I feel like my blog might finally be getting where I want it to be.  I've been reading a ton of books this year.  I bumped my goal on Goodreads up over 50 books for the year compared to last year.  I got a new tattoo. I got picked to be a volunteer at Apollycon 2017!  So hopefully next year I can add that to a good thing, especially since I cannot wait to meet Anna Todd, the books that I am in love with and got a tattoo for.  Not to mention Kylie Scott is going to be there, and I am so in love with her books!

One thing that I totally need to work on is all the books I have that I don't know when I'm going to get to.  I've been taking a lot of them to my school library.  I figure that way they'll get the chance for other people, my students, to read them, and when I have time or am in the mood for one of them, I'll still know where they are to check out and read.  Unfortunately, there are a lot of books I have that are ARCs or else my library already has, or maybe they're not in good enough condition that I can put them in my library.  And this is where I'm setting up a giveaway.  Below are the books that I'm looking to get rid of through a giveaway, or there a few newer ARCs I might be willing to trade for other ARCs if you want them.

 I have one last item you can pick as one of your two books.  A year ago my sister asked me if I wanted to buy a coloring book that a friend of hers had created.  It's very neat, but it's not really my style of coloring book, but it is so darn cool!  If you're interested, you can pick this as one of your two choices!  Here is a picture of the coloring book:

So, if you see any ARCs you'd like to trade for, you can always let me know in the comments.  Otherwise, what I plan to do is pick two winners every week for the rest of December, and I am going to fill a box with 4 or 5 books from the pictures above.  Newer, older, ARCs, finished, etc.  They will most likely be surprise boxes. But we'll see how I feel when I draw the winners, I may let them come pick what four books they want!  Or at least pick one or two to go with two that I pick.

And in each box, I will include some swag and book samplers I have.  Here are pictures of the swag I have.  I would be willing to trade any of it for ARCs I'm looking for as well!

You can see some temporary tattoos in the picture on the left.  Along with some post cards, and an Epic Reads book of new titles.

So, I think I know what new goals and challenges I will participate in for my blog next year, although I do still need to reflect on how 2016 went.  One thing I haven't had time for is as many posts with GIFs as I enjoy.  So enjoy this one, and then go enter the contest in the Rafflecopter below it!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Discussion Post: This Review Should Come With a Warning - Or is it Okay to Review New Adult, Adult, and Young Adult on the Same Blog?

Today I'm doing my 3rd discussion post as part of the 2016 Discussion Challenge hosted by Feed Your Fiction Addiction and It Starts at Midnight. My first one was all about if teens are really as dumb as we think, and will expect what happens in books to be real life.  My second one was about giving ratings in your reviews.  You can go read my thoughts and then share what you think on those two HERE and HERE. Today I want to talk about the different age levels of books and how to review them on blogs.

So, recently I've started reading books that I would definitely not recommend to my high school students because of their sexual content.  It's not that in any way I want to censor what they read, I just know what is appropriate for me to suggest, and what isn't any of my business.  The reason I am thinking about this is because up until these past few months, the majority of what I read and blogged about was YA.  Once in awhile I'd throw in a nonfiction, memoir, or a Stephen King type of book.  None of which I would have an issue with a student of mine reading about.  But as I started this paragraph out saying, I seem to have gotten a bit of a trend with the types of books that I'm reading, and it all kind of started with the After series by Anna Todd.

I'm a 43 year old woman, so there's nothing wrong with what I read.  And I don't intend to be very explicit with my reviews.  I plan to talk about the story just like I would with any other book.  But since I usually only review books that I liked and finished, I will be saying good things about them.  So I guess my question to anyone who decides to join into my discussion post here is, should I be worried about who reads my posts?  I've started doing an "NA" in front of the new adult books I read, and then "YA" in front of the teen/young adult books.  Although some of my romances I'm reading aren't necessarily NA, but I feel silly putting the word "Adult" by itself in front of a review title.  I mean, I would have to do that with Stephen King and Dean Koontz, etc.

 

So tell me, what do you think about all this?  Do you think for me to review both types on the same blog is a horrible idea?  Do you think the way I'm differentiating in the titles is a good thing?  Or do you think I need to be worried about any of this if I don't intend to actually put the explicit stuff within my review?

I'm feeling a bit conflicted on this, because as a high school librarian, it is very possible that I might have students who want to follow my blog.  And then I don't know if it is bad for me to post things that I wouldn't tell them outright they should read.  Of course it could just be my silly brain that won't stop dwelling on the thought.

I'd love to hear your thoughts if you'd like to join into the discussion.  And this last gif is because I can't resist a Supernatural one any time I do a post like this.

Six years down! Blogoversary and Giveaway!

 

Wow, six years of blogging.  It's been a great six years.  Some years better than others.  I feel like I learn more every year, and find new ways I want to do things, etc.  I am supposed to have a new image and button, and had hoped to have it in time to reveal today, but the person doing it got a bit behind when I asked about one more thing to do to it. Then, the person who set up my current layout, well I can't seem to get in touch with her. So I'll have to figure out how to add those images in, and maybe I will just end up doing an almost complete overhaul now, because I may have to find someone else to fix it all up for me once I'm done.  

 

For past blogoversaries, I've done some really big month long things, including having authors donate gifts, etc.  This year I'm doing things a little low key I guess.  Didn't have time to really try to do all that.  So, I am going to have a giveaway at the end of this post.  I've got a great number of GFC followers, but I'd really love to get some more Bloglovin and email followers, so there will be a lot of points to enter the contest if you follow one of those ways.  But first, since I have discovered how much I love gifs, you will have to scroll thorough a few fun ones that I've decided to share, because it's my blogoversary, and I'll gif if I want to!  :-)

Normally I want cake, but if this would get Jensen Ackles here to celebrate, I'd have pie.

 

I do enjoy playing games at parties, and while I've never been into Twister, I would for Misha! 

 

And my other favorite show, who doesn't want to go play in a ball pit?

 

However, this is how I feel about sports, so we won't be watching or playing them at any celebration I have.

 

If you were to call me on the phone, this would is my ringtone:

 

Now sometimes when I see all the really cool ARCs that some bloggers get, and I can't seem to get them, or maybe no one will trade because I don't have what they really want, then I start to feel like this.

 

Alright, alright, enough gifs I guess.  Thanks again for following me and being a part of my blogging experience the past 6 years.  I've got two prizes.  One for anyone, including International as long as The Book Depository will deliver to you, and one for US only.  Here's the giveaway!

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