Spread the Wordle

For the Love of Books is my very own weekly Sunday meme dedicated to the wacky, weird, and wild world-wide-web finds related to the world of books. Topics can be anything ranging from unique bookcases, sculptures of books, and odd bookstores, to interesting uses for books, book quotes, bits of book news, etc. I love web-surfing and I have come across so many ideas that the possibities for this meme are nearly endless! If you would like to join in the fun, snag the image on the left and post the link your specific blog post in comments so that others can read about your internet find!

While checking into the 2010 Blog Improvement Project (that I am grossly behind in), I was introduced to this nifty website called Wordle that turns words into art - you even have the option of just inputing your url, and it turns it into a picture that can be tweaked for color, shape, font, etc. I decided to try out a poem first, once of my favorites: How do I love thee? by Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

And just for kicks, this is what my RSS feed looks like:

Blog Post Bingo

For the month of April on The Blog Improvement Project, we had to write up to 14 different types of blog posts for the Blog Post Bingo. We were given links to several sites to give us ideas on what to write about for all of these blog posts, such as 20 Types of Blog Posts, The 5 Types of Blog Posts That Experts Write, and All 13 Types of Blog Posts. Of the 14 types that we were challenged to complete, I managed to complete 10 of them. Check them out if you haven't already read them!

1. A Link Post: For the Love of Books: Bookswim.com
2. A Short Post: Teaser Tuesday: Between Two Kingdoms
3. A List Post: For the Love of Books: Eco-Libris
4. A Long Post: Liberation Bibliography
5. A Review Post: Review: A Centurion's Wife
6. A Personal Post: We Interrupt This Regularly Scheduled Program...
7. A Resource Post: http://jacobsbeloved.blogspot.com/2010/04/communities-thrive-your-library.html
8. An Interview Post: Author Interview With Tina Turbin
9. A Profile Post: My Partner, the Book Vixen!
10. A Post Contrasting Two Different Options: To E-Read or Not to E-Read

The person who completes the most types of posts wins a $15 book voucher, and anyone that completes at least 5 different types is entered into a drawing for a second $15 book voucher. I rather enjoyed this challenge since I got lots of new ideas for posts from it, and it forced me to expand on my writing abilities to become more creative. I had ideas for the remaining 4 types of posts, but I ran out of time to act on them. The remaining types were an opinion post, a poll post, a how-to post, and a collation post. I'll be saving those ideas for a rainy day.

Which of my challenge posts did you like the most and why?

Tag, You're It!

So I skipped the second week of BIP, which focused on original titles for blog posts, since I was short on time that week. (In other words, I was WAY more interested in plowing through my list from Week 1!) Week 3 is all about Categories and Tags. Well, I already organized my categories to suit my drop-down menu bar widget, with six main categories and multiple sub-categories for each one. I designed this system to specifically suit my needs over the duration, since I have less than 100 posts total on my blog so far. In addition, I also have my Labels in an attractive drop-down menu on my right sidebar so as to avoid clutter. Directions on how to do this can be found at Blogger Tips.

So on to Tags! I've read up on tags previously to this and was so confused as to their use and/or purpose that I just lost interest. For the sake of BIP, though, I'm willing to try again. I like the way this article explains the difference between tags and categories: Understanding Categories and Tags. According to the page: "categories exist before the item I’m categorizing, whereas tags are created in reaction to the item, often in an ad hoc manner". Now I get it! One problem - Wordpress may have options for both Categories and Tags, but Blogger does not - it only has Categories, otherwise known as "Labels." Now what? Google it, with my new handy SwagBucks toolbar searchbox!

Well, after searching for an hour, all I can find are directions for Label clouds, not Tag clouds. Boo. Guess I will just have to settle for adding a search box to my site and hope it works just as well as a tag cloud.



Anyone know a site for creating a tag cloud for a Blogger template?

2010 Blog Improvement Project: Week 1

The first task for the Blog Improvement Project is to come up with a To-Do List of achieveable tasks to complete during the duration of the project regarding the design and content of my blog. A link was also provided called 50 Ways to Take Your Blog to the Next Level by Chris Brogan to help with ideas, as well as a link from the Harvard Business Review called How to Write To-Do List That Work. Since I am new to the blogging world, I have already started doing this unofficially by surfing through other blogs, especially book blogs, and I have pulled from Bloggiesta as well. This project will make it official!

1. Finish writing an About Me page.
2. Make a "Reviews by Title" page, like at Reading with Tequila.
3. Include a copyright footer in the layout, which is described at bookalicio.us and myfreecopyright.com.
4. Backup Blog as explained by Farm Lane Books.
5. Decide if I need a privacy policy and create one. I saw it on some random book blog that I can't seem to find again, and it looked like a good idea at the time.
6.Organize Google Feed Reader, as directed by The Book Lady's Blog and Fizzy Thoughts.
7. Decide if I really need to bother with Twitter since I don't have and don't want a cell phone.
8. Set up Google Alerts, as described by ProBlogger.
9. Get my blog listed in blog directories, as explained by Infant Bibliophile.
10. Set up subscription form / buttons for email and multiple readers / social sites. Widget Blogger teaches how to post an email subscription form, as well as a social bookmarking widget.
11. Add blog URL to email signature and Facebook profile.
12. Edit past book reviews for a specific template. This is a work-in-progress as I try out different ideas I come across when writing my next book review.
13. Add comment-inducing questions to past posts.
14. List blog in Yahoo!, Google, Bing, and claim in Technorati.com.
15. Enlarge and possibly redo blog badge.
16. Try out a drop-down menu similar to what's shown at 25 Hour Books.
17. Create more specific labels for posts.
18. Design a unique rating system for book reviews.
19. Redo my "elevator pitch" and thus my header picture to reflect a more book-centered blog.
20. Make a calendar of my posting schedule. I keep missing memes I have started because I forget what day is what!21. Write posts ahead of time and store as drafts. I can do this for Movie Cast Mondays, Waiting on Wednesday, and My Favorite Reads.
22. Add the multi-tab widget I found at Bloggerstop. My Blogger Tricks has good directions, too.
23. Add the three-column footer widget from My Blogger Tricks.
24. Implement a floating feedback button and back-to-top button, again from My Blogger Tricks.


This looks kind of ambitious, but I figure what I can't finish for the Blog Improvement Project I can always save for later.