Olivia (Bookcomet)’s Comments (group member since Aug 30, 2013)

Olivia (Bookcomet)’s comments from the Blogging 101 group.

HIGHLY recommend Silent Echo and All Our Yesterdays

If anyone has any questions, I'd be happy to answer!

Good luck :) !

The banner always goes inside the post, but you can put it in the sidebar too!
Have fun with your blog tour! Which one?

Here are some of the books publishing in September. I know I missed loads so feel free to mention them:

1. All Our Yesterday by Cristin Terrill
2. Silent Echo by Elisa Freilich
3. When the World was Flat (and we were in love) by Ingrid Jonach
4. Gold by Talia Vance
5. Sideshow of Merit by Nicole Pietsch
6. Behind Barres by Miriam Wengis-Lander, Amanda Brice, Leslie DuBois (no picture)
7. Antigoddess by Kendare Blake
8. The Coldest Girl in Coldtown by Holly Black
9. United We Spy by Ally Carter
10. The Dream Thieves by Maggie Stiefvater
11. Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell
12. Inhuman by Kat Falls
13. The Chaos of Stars by Kiersten White
14. Not a Drop to Drink by Mindy McGinnis
15. The Truth About You and Me by Amanda Grace
16. Thin Space by Jody Casella
17. Rose Under Fire by Elizabeth Wein

I remember when I first started reviewing, my reviews had exactly the same lines and adjectives. They were BORING. And the same length as a paragraph of a lot of my more recent reviews,

So try pretending you are talking to someone. Would you talk in a monotone? No, probably not...

You can tell people through actions. Like this *waves hands around in the air trying to get point across* or even *pulling hair out*. These are fun to use but don't use them too often.

If you are shouting or trying to say how absolutely fantastic something is, you can use all capitals. Remember not to use this too often because it can come across as rude.

The first sentence is always important. Do NOT say something like "such and such was an enjoyable book and I really liked it". It's boring. You want to grab the readers attention like you are having a deep and interesting conversation. Once again, my early reviews are guilty of this.

Don't use the same structure every time. For example: synopsis, characters, writing, recommendation. Mix it up. Do something different. Sometimes reviewers can get away with this though.

Be honest, people will always take your opinion into consideration unless they are scanning for specific reviews. Don't talk up a book if you loathed it.

Use interesting adjectives. Good, great and enjoyable get boring. Try something else like adorkable, mediocre, phenomenal, superb or even just fantastic. Get your point across.

Here are some upcoming book to movie adaptations to keep you on track with your reading. That is, if you're like me and are determined to read every book before it becomes a movie...Some of these are just rumours though.

1. The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness
2. Blood Sisters (Vampire Academy) by Richelle Mead
3. The Maze Runner by James Dashner
4. Divergent by Veronica Roth
5. The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
6. The Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan
7. If I Stay by Gayle Forman
8. Miss Peregrine's Home For Perculiar Children by Ransom Riggs
9. The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater
10. Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor
11. Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo
12. Black City by Elizabeth Richards
13. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
14. Incarceron by Catherine Fisher
15. Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver
16. Reboot by Amy Tintera

Blog tours. Something you will no doubt at least try.

Here are the most common sorts of posts as part of a blog tour:
- review (definitely the most common)
- spotlight (excerpts, synopsis, etc.)
- interview
- guest post
- giveaway

Make sure you read the rules carefully before signing up. Are you sure you can post on the date you put down?

Sometimes you may get a book for review that you REALLY don't like. You will find that a lot of blog tour organisers will mention that you are not permitted to post reviews with a rating below three stars because it kind of defeats the aspect of promoting the book. If this happens, you can usually just email the tour organiser to arrange for a different post or to cancel.

Include the tour banner, a picture of the book, a photo of the author, synopsis and your actual post at your tour stop.

It is usually a good idea to link back to the tour company and the tour schedule so others can sign up/ follow the rest of the tour.

Reviews. The biggest part of book blogging. Sure, there will be blog tours and giveaway hops but reviewing is one of the reasons you have this blog, right? So, here are my tips:

1. This may as well be the most important tip I can give you: be yourself.
Write with your own blogging "voice" as if you are actually talking to the people reading your reviews. Trust me, it helps. If you need help doing this, pretend you're talking to a friend.

2. Explain yourself.
Do not just write a statement along the lines of: the characters annoyed me. Tell us WHY. You will see this in some of my earlier reviews.

3. Use pictures.

I don't mean going all out, just a picture of the book cover will do. And preferably the author too.

4. Synopsis and author bio.

You can write your own synopsis as part of the review or use an already written one. Just mention where you got it from if you did not write it yourself. People will appreciate a synopsis and author bio. Sometimes authors have similar names, so it is handy to be sure you a certain wrote the book in your review.

5. Mention your source of the book.

Whether you borrowed, bought, gifted, won, received for review - tell us. This works as a bit of a disclaimer.

6. Be honest.

Your readers will want an honest opinion. Don't write a glowing review of a book you absolutely hated. Don't be influenced by other reviews you have seen. Make it your review. Just don't be nasty if you didn't like the book or judge a book by it's cover.

7. Be sure to give a rating!

Let's face it. A lot of times people will scan for a rating, particularly in a hurry.

Make sure to credit places or leave disclaimers about where you got images for your blog from.

Here are the photo credits for Blogging 101's image:

"Rose and Book" - Image courtesy of dan at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

"Background" - Image courtesy of arztsamui at FreeDigitalPhotos.net


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Here is where I get most of the images I use from: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/

Know any other places that I should add?