Blogging is Hard

I don't know what I did, but I threw myself out of my blogging groove in the past few weeks or so. This is the second time I remembered last-minute that I was supposed to have a post go up today.

So I figured I'd turn my complaining into the post that would go up, because I'm nowhere near done with any of the drafts I have saved.

And so is graphic design, but I think that deserves its own post someday.

I'm not promising this is going to make any sense. I'm tired and it's dreary outside and I'm trying to get this post up asap considering I started writing this post five hours after I was supposed to post something.

2015 Blog Reflection

Now that I've been posting consistently for a year, it's time to look at how it went!

I've had this blog for a while, but before 2015 I updated it pretty sporadically and didn't promote the posts at all. This year I wanted to challenge myself and see if I could get this blog actually on its feet.

Have I made it obvious yet that I don't know what I'm doing

I'd like to think this year went well! I never set any specific goals, so I guess it's pretty easy to declare this year a success ...

I decided on posting every three days, since that was a consistent number I could reach without stressing myself out too much or seeming too inactive. There were a few times that I struggled to get posts up on time, but there were also times where I had over a month's worth of posts scheduled and had to rearrange them to fit a newer post in.

I definitely could have done better promoting my posts. I starting posting links to my twitter account, but it was usually only for non-book reviews. I also started pinning my posts on Pinterest, but I don't think I have enough of an audience there to make a difference.

I also claimed my blog on Bloglovin this year. Bloglovin has been good for tweeting out links automatically, but I've noticed that some of them don't post until hours after the post went live. I don't know why that is.

My stats went up a lot compared to last year. I'm really glad, but my analytics graph is still kind of a mess. There have been at least two or three times that my blog has gotten crawled. I started using Google Analytics on top of what Blogger provides, which has been helpful in getting more info, but it also hasn't been perfect. Bloglovin also sends me weekly stat reports, but I currently don't have anything to show for it :c I consistently get "0 saves, 0 new followers, 0 current followers" emails. It's a little disheartening, but I know that the links I tweet out get clicked at least occasionally, which helps.

I'm going to keep going strong with this blog and I'm excited for what next year will bring. This time I'm even going to make goals!

2016 goals:

1. promote posts better! This year I'm going to look into other websites and programs that will let me schedule tweets and pins so I don't have to worry about them. I also have to do some research into when and where I should be sharing links.

2. grow a small audience! My sidebar on my blog says I only have one follower currently, but I know I have family that checks my blog, so it's not all that accurate. It would be nice to get rid of the fear that I'm just shouting into the void.

3. comment on other people's blogs! I've seen this advice a lot on "newbie blogger advice" posts, but it hasn't been the easiest for me to do. I've managed to comment a few times, but more often than not my social anxiety kicks in and convinces me to not post what I've typed out. It sucks. There are so many bloggers that I wish I could talk to.

4. find a balance of post types! I started writing individual book reviews in 2015 instead of compiling them by month, which has helped me with consistency, but I can't always find a good balance with them. I've done some pre-planning for next year so I'll have a lot of non-review posts, but whether I'll actually use any of them or not is still to be seen.

And a bonus stretch goal: earn money through AdSense. I added it to my blog this year to see what would happen, but I currently don't have enough of an audience to earn anything. I know the chances of me earning anything substantial are slim to none but it doesn't hurt to try, right?

Hopefully 2016 will be good to everyone! 

Blog-related Goals

By the time this goes up, I'll either be working on or finishing at least a couple of these goals. I hope. I have no idea what life could throw at me before this is published.

This is also related to point #4.

#1: blog redesign
I already wrote a post about this, but tl;dr I have found an interest in web design and I'd like to make my page reflect that. It's been the same for a while, something I threw together to make it presentable, but now I want to make it more than that.

#2: talking to people
I'm kind of terrible at this, both online and off. I've gotten much better at talking to people in person, though, and I'm hoping to improve on my online people skills. I'd love to talk to more people and right now the only thing that's really holding me back is my confidence level.

I've improved on that, though. The other day (probably a month back by the time this is live) I commented on someone's blog for the first time! It was a little comment, but it felt like a pretty big step to me. Nothing exploded when I did it. In fact, I saw the author's reply to it, and I was just all-over very content.

I'm hoping that I can become brave enough to talk to completely new people and collab with others one day!

#3: copying reviews to goodreads
Honestly, a lot of my reasoning for posting book reviews here is that I was kind of scared of posting on goodreads. I was afraid of the larger potential audience, and thus my only reviews so far are stars.

I'd like to go back and retroactively add all the reviews I've written, though. I've become more confident in my reviews, and I'd love to add my reviews to the site, even though very few people will end up seeing them, anyway. Being on the site for this long has led me to realize that posting my reviews there will be just as "shouting into the void" as posting here is. Unless my review gets a lot of likes. Then it'll be more visible. But I don't really see that happening.

#4: making more graphics
I made graphics for, like, two posts before I stopped using my editing laptop on a regular basis. I honestly don't think I've touched it since March. The laptop I use now doesn't have Photoshop, which was my go-to -- only Paint and an expired trial of InDesign.

Of course, I've finally come to realize I've been making excuses and that there's nothing stopping me from using online resources to make graphics. I've realized that some of my posts are un-pin-able because there's no image to use on Pinterest. Eventually I'd like to go back and make graphics (even just really simple ones) for all of my blog posts.

This would also be really good practice to improve my (still pretty basic) design skills. There's probably going to be a huge lack of consistency as I try to find my groove, so please bear with me!

Anyway, I hope to start working on these asap!!

Upcoming Blog Redesign

I've been thinking this over for a while, and despite pushing the window of time back at least a month, I've decided that I want to try and overhaul my blog design from the ground-up.

This is what it looks like right  now as I'm writing.

What I have now is just an update I did when I decided to post on a regular schedule (something which has helped me immensely in more ways than one). I changed my color scheme to be reminiscent of the ace flag, though the effect of that is pretty minimal. All I did was change the colors around a little bit. I kept the same theme when I updated it.

I follow at least five different blogs via email, a whole bunch more through Blogger itself, and I can't tell you how many blogs I've looked at via Oh, the Books! weekly recap posts. Those posts are my favorite. They've been so helpful in finding bloggers I otherwise wouldn't find, but they've also been good at showing me a whole variety of blog designs and teaching me what I like (and don't like) from first glance.

Now that I'm out of school for the summer, I'm gonna try and dedicate my time to creating my own unique blog layout.

Hopefully it won't be too hard. I've got some background on HTML and CSS, both from in school and outside of it, and not to mention all I've gotta do is open Google for help. A lot of the weekly recap posts have helpful stuff about the technical stuff of blogging, including a lot of suggestions and freebies for blog design / layout, so I think I've got this.

It's gonna be daunting, but I may as well throw myself into it, right?

My initial inspiration for the redesign was working on my school's lit mag. It was a lot of fun to work with the other design manager and improve so much on last year's design. I didn't know what I was doing when I first started, but I kludged my way into a cool-looking journal, so I think that definitely counts for something. I can only hope that I can make it look as hella as our lit mag.

My blog design is probably going to go through a couple different phases by the time that I decide what I want to stick with, so please bear with me! Hopefully when I'm done I'll remember to make a blog post reflecting back on what I did.