For Day Four of Book Blogger Appreciation Week, the topic is How do you stay connected to the community? Examples: social media, regular commenting, participation in blog events, etc. Tell us your faves!
All of the above, for me. I try to respond to comments on my blog and comment regularly on others. I use Facebook to share bookish news from all over as well as my own posts. This year I became a new Twitter user and I really enjoy it for brief moments of connection and recognition, like thanking another blogger for a giveaway book.
I especially love blog events and find them terrific fun. It’s great to join in with other bloggers and readers who are excited about a particular author or theme. Here are some of my favorites:
- Margery Sharp Day and Mary Stewart Reading Week, as I already mentioned yesterday.
- Willa Cather Reading Week, Remember Mary Hocking, and Woolfalong at Heavenali (queen of blog events!)
- Diana Wynne Jones March at We Be Reading (this year to be called March Magics).
- Austen in August at Roof Beam Reader.
- Nonfiction November, hosted by the stellar quartet of Doing Dewey, Regular Rumination, Sophisticated Dorkiness, and I’m Lost in Books.
And to cater to my own interests, I created Witch Week and Elizabeth Goudge Reading Week, both of which have been highlights of my blogging life.
I’d love to hear about more events, and about your favorite ways to connect.
The Emerald City Book Review Archive 
I loved participating in Witch Week! I definitely want to get involved with that again this year – hopefully October will be slightly less crazy in my non-blogging life so I can do so more effectively. I also really need to try Nonfiction November. Excellent recommendations.
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That week is also crazy in my life, but I’m determined to keep WW going. Nonfiction November is also a great event.
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Austen in August is great! Have you tried Armchair BEA? I really enjoy that one as well.
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I forgot to mention Armchair BEA! It was tremendously helpful in my first year of blogging for making connections.
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I am so happy to find out about March Magics! I never knew this event (or DWJ to be honest!) existed. I love finding new events and authors!
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I’m so glad you’re excited for March Magics. I’m sure it’s going to be a great month.
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OMG, I read so many books by Elizabeth Goudge in my early 20s, I have to look into this event, thanks for sharing
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Hooray, another Goudge fan! I’m going to do a one-day celebration this year on April 24, her birthday.
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And in case I haven’t said it lately, Lory, thanks for creating Witch Week! I wasn’t able to participate as much as I wanted to last year, but I’m hoping I can step it up again in 2016. It’s such a fun event!
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I should mention in connection with this topic that it was a huge boost to me in my first year of blogging when I contacted you and other admired bloggers about participating in Witch Week, and you all said yes. Without your enthusiasm I might well have gotten discouraged and quit by now. So we keep each other going…
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I think the ways in which we keep up to date with the community is such a varied and personal thing. I’ve seen events a lot about today and that’s been really helpful for me because events are something I’m trying to participate in this year as I have yet to do any of that so far. There seems to be so many great events out there – something for everyone!
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It is very personal — with so many ways to interact, hopefully everyone can find what works for them. There are indeed a ton of great events out there, and you are sure to find something that interests you.
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I’m just getting back into blogging, but I’m a sucker for readathons, especially Bout of Books 🙂
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I would like to do Bout of Books someday when I am on vacation and my family is gone somewhere else!
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I’m having such a good time seeing what events other bloggers participate in. I haven’t heard of a bunch of them. Witch Week? I’d like that one.
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Fantastic, I do hope you’ll consider joining us for Witch Week — that’s October 31 to November 6, and the theme this year is “Made in America.”
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Ahhh love the blog events! I was interested in Woolfalong, because Virginia Woolf is my girl. But I also wasn’t clear if there were like link ups or anything? It’s much harder for me to follow through with vaguer events haha. This March I’m trying to host my own, which is horrifying.
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The “Woolfalong” is a bit vague, although the name is cute. I think basically people are encouraged to read and post about Virginia Woolf all year long; Heavenali has some suggestions for various months but it’s not really an organized readalong. If you do a post and send her a link I imagine she’d be happy to link to it or tweet about it. I hope your March Weirdathon is a smashing success!
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It’s lovely to see the many author-themed events you chose to devote time to. That is a wonderful way to discover new reading communities, ones already having common ground for sharing and comparing. I haven’t really taken advantage of these yet, except a few years ago in the Classics Circuit, which featured “book tours” of classic authors. Some that you mentioned would be new authors for me (Margery Sharp, Elizabeth Goudge) but of course there’s Austen and surely others out there I’ve read, at least in part. I like your theme reading too, such as your own Reading New England.
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Finding such events was a nice surprise for me when I entered the world of book blogging. I had no idea of how much activity there was going on around such authors and themes.
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Sounds like you’ve found great ways to connect! Oddly, as my blog has gotten bigger, I’ve found this to be one of the hardest things to do – it’s harder to keep a personal connection with so MANY fellow bloggers at once. I’m learning to balance it, but it’s been hard. That’s why I love the discussion challenge so much – because even if I can ONLY consistently follow bloggers’ discussions, I feel like those discussions are such a great way to get to know people!
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That is a really good point. I think the size of my audience is manageable right now for me to interact with everybody, but if it got bigger it would be difficult. Focusing on the discussion challenge is a good idea — you definitely do get to know people that way.
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Thanks for the Nonfiction November mention! Blogging events are one of my favorite ways to connect too.
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Nonfiction November is what got me hooked on nonfiction!
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Yay! That’s so nice to hear 🙂
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