Book Blogger Convention

Today was my second straight day of waking up at 7am!! I work at night, and I don't normally rise before 11am at the earliest. I didn't know the sun was that bright. While I lost out on some sleep the last two days, it was all worth it to go to BookExpo America and the first Book Blogger Convention.

At the convention I today I ate lunch with some very passionate YA (that's young adult) bloggers. I haven't read a young adult book since I was a young adult. I always thought only teeny boppers read those books. I don't think I'm old at 27, but it's hard to see myself reading a book not geared toward my age group. But I'm going to make an exception for author Maureen Johnson. She was the keynote speaker, and Maureen had me and the entire room in stitches of laughter. She spoke of going to a Catholic school even though she's not Catholic. If she is that engaging just speaking for 90 minutes, I think her books might be too. An audiobook of her novel Suite Scarlett was in our swag bags. When I get the time I'm going to listen and go from there. Who knows Maureen Johnson might have opened my eyes to another genre.

Some of the bloggers mentioned that they take notes while reading books that they review in addition to making dog ears. I'm not sure if I want to take notes while reading. What about all of you? Just read the book or do you take notes??? It would make me feel like I was back in school. I never really liked school despite getting an internship in college that lead to my current job. I don't always like to dog ear my pages, but in this blogging world I realize I have to do it.

Today at BBC I got so many useful tips for driving content on here, I don't know what to do with all of them. In the coming days I will be introducing some weekly items to the blog. Not just "It's Monday, What are You Reading?" and the Friday night blog hop, but weekly items that are my own. I learned about those two by researching other blogs, and now it's time for me to do things I like. One change I am making immediately is to my review policy. At the convention today I overheard someone say you should have a 50-page rule. If you don't like something after 50 pages stop reading. It pains me to do this. Up until now I have always read the entire book no matter how much I dislike it. This has always been my rule before I even started blogging. But in the month since I've started this, I realize I need to adhere to the 50-page rule. A press release or e-mail pitch is designed to draw you in, but you never know what's going to happen once you have a book in front of you.

Even though attending BBC was a hit to my wallet, it was worth it. The advice I got and the people I met was priceless. I swapped business cards with so many people, I don't know which blog to check out first! I hope they do this again next year. I already put my penny in the jar to start saving for next year!!! Many thanks to Trish at (http://heylady.net/) Hey Lady! Whatcha Readin'? Thanks to everyone who made BBC possible, but a very special thanks to Trish. From what I understand she was the driving force behind it. Thank you Trish!