I Wrote How Many Book Reviews?

I thought I should do a final post for 2014 of how many books I actually read, how many of those resulted in book reviews I posted, and anything else I may have thrown in.

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I could really tell from my blog activity what months were the most busy for me. Or should I say, what months I was working on the toughest MBA college classes.

I did a whole lot of nothing in the summer months when it came to posting book reviews. I was really busy from September to December, and although I have every good intention of reading at least 3 more books when I finish the one I am currently on, I thought this would be a good time to do this post.

As a side note, I am off work until January 5th, and am kid free until January 4th. Which means I have a whole lot of reading-in-bed-writing-reviews-playing-with-the-cat-nap-time planned 🙂

For the year as a whole, I posted to date, 67 book reviews.

Of those 67 reviews, 18 were of books I had previously read, so for 2014 I read 49 new books. Not too shabby for being a single Mom of a whole lot of girls, working 50+ hours a week, and going to college for my MBA. The 18 on books I previously read were a combination of Halloween features, Christmas features, and books that I had read in the past that had a great impact on me.

The Cricket on the Hearth

June was the only month I did not post any book reviews, and October was my busiest month, with 12 book reviews posted. I have to add that for December I am currently at 7, and do plan on at least 5 more before the New Year, but certainly do not expect it to exceed October.

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Some notables for 2014 for me:

I made the very tough decision to begin working on my MBA. After working non-stop for 2 years straight to get my BBA, I did take the entire year of 2013 off, as I promised my girls, and did not start college again until January 4th, 2014.

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After many months of contemplating, searching, and debating, I became the very proud owner of Beeblebrox Bare Bottom Benjamin Blu, or Benny to me! He is a Hairless Sphynx cat and I am not ashamed to say that little ball of wrinkled-velvety-soft skin has changed my life! I like to tease my 4 girls about their “little brother’, but believe you me, that little guy has gotten me through a lot of weekends when I was wide awake all night long from being a 3rd shift worker and having the weekend off.

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I made the decision to leave my Supervision position with my company and go back to a Materials Coordinator position that I had previously worked in for almost 5 years. I have worked for my company for over 18 years, and am so thankful to have such a wonderful employer.

I joined the Editorial Freelancers Association, and am currently working on getting myself set to begin editing and proofreading books for new and current authors. I have a love for books and the English language that I would probably have a very difficult time putting into words in order to get anyone to understand. (Now that is ironic, right?)

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I would personally like to thank each and every single one of you for liking, following, or just commenting on a random blog post. I could not begin to tell you the excitement I have when I see that someone liked a post I made, and even better yet, left a comment, or followed my blog!

I will be setting some goals for myself for 2015, and there will be more to come on that!

Shelfari – hosted by Amazon.com – And All That Other Social Media

I was kind of surprised that I stumbled upon this new book recommending site while reading someone else’s blog, seeing as how I have been using Amazon a few times a week to update book reviews.

It states it is a “community-powered encyclopedia for book lovers.”

Well; that certainly applies to me. And yet; it reminds me a bit of Goodreads.com. So I have to say that I did not register with this site yet. I may, or may not. I have no shame in saying I have enough electronic sites that I struggle to keep up with as it is, so I certainly do not need to add another one right now. If this is a site that takes over the internet and becomes a platform for authors, I will then be left no choice but to sign myself up.

Right now I am going to continue trying to keep my blog(s) alive and thriving, keep better track of my about.me account, finish my profile for my brandyourself.com account, make sure my Google+ account is current, and while I am at it, I may even learn to use my Twitter account so that it is actually an effective tool for me. I have not been on my Pinterest account in who knows how long; my Instagram account has one picture on it after being live for months, and I am pretty sure I created a Flickr.com account for my photography, but as I have not checked back in since I did create it, I am thinking a month or two ago, I hope I remember my log in name.

So how do you handle the Social Media overload? Do you control it, or does it control you?

As I Finish Up Your Stories…

…I would like to ask that if I had indeed contacted you about reading, reviewing, proofreading, and/or editing your story, and you have not heard from me, to please send me a personal email.

Those whom I am about to review are Marilyn Cohen de Villiers, “A Beautiful Family”, Kate O’Hara, “Aphrodite on the Half Shell”, the 2nd book of “The Universe of God 2: the Chronicles of Jesus”, (twestephens please email me, I am lacking contact information). Also Adan Ramie’s, “Darkness Undone”.

Mary Ellen Deleon, please send me the date of your blog post on the 3 chapters you asked me to read, I can have that done as soon as I hear from you.

CB, I left a reply on my post, please contact me via my email so I know if there are certain ones of your short stories you would like me to look at, and I need your contact information as well.

I also am in the process of reviewing 2nd stories for Caryl McAdoo and Tony Smith.

If I have not mentioned you and had contacted you previously, Please send me an email. I likely just overlooked it, as I know there are books I purchased and are on my nook that I did not list here. Some books I found from reading through your blogs, and you did not necessarily ask for a review; I just found the premise of your story interesting, and wanted to read it!

I also received a couple emails from persons unknown to me, and unless if you put “Book Edit or Review” somewhere in the subject line, I would not have opened it. I do still have them in my inbox, but please send me another email so I know you are someone who has seen my blog post and not a random email virus waiting to infect my laptop!

Thanks so much, I look forward to hearing from you, and Happy Reading!

angi.gibbs@yahoo.com