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 3

Here's week 3, please join in!!!!  

Okay, 2016 has been an interesting year.  We've lost so many 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.  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.


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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. 

I have one last item.  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, I'm starting to think about new goals and challenges for my blog next year, as well as reflecting 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

Happy Thanksgiving!

Today's post is just to wish everyone a happy thanksgiving.  I hope that you get to spend time with your family for at least part of the day, or else do something that you enjoy.  I always have a big lunch at my mom's house, and then go to my dad's house for a big dinner.  At  my mom's house, all my aunts and uncles on her side will be there, and we will all draw names to see who we will buy a gift for when we have our family Christmas party and gift exchange.  At my dad's it will be nice because my sister who lives in NYC will be coming home and we will all get to spend time together.

I picked the Snoopy graphic above in honor of the movie coming out.  And before I go on with anything else, I must put a gif of Dean Winchester eating pie.  It just fits so perfectly, and, it amuses me.

 

Now, here is a wish of bookish things that I am thankful for this year:

1. Still glad to have my library job and be out of the classroom
2. Grateful for my friend that I did NaNoWriMo with last year working with me throughout the year on reading through last year's novel, and helping me get prepared to try again this year.  
3. I'm glad that I've been getting a few more publishers sending me books.
4. It's been another great year for winning books in giveaways as well.
5. I'm still extremely grateful for all the authors that I get to talk to because they are on Facebook or Twitter.
6. I'm grateful for all my followers, both old and new, and hope that you will continue with me on this blog for a long time to come.

And because I love gifs, here are some more fun ones to enjoy!

This one shows how I feel about all the food!

At my dad's house, a lot of times the food isn't ready right away, and this is how I feel sometimes.

Let's slow down and look at one of my favorite floats in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade:

And I'll leave you with one of the best Thanksgiving gifs ever:

 

Happy Thanksgiving!

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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