A nice chilly morning here in Indiana! Pulling out the socks, jackets and sweaters kind of weather. A day to plant bulbs and cook soup. A weekend for wishing a sister a happy birthday and worrying about a sick son traveling with the flu. A week of ridng a roller coaster with the Indiana Fever, celebrating Nobel Prize winners and talking with future teachers from Indiana University. Not a person of color among them.
Today? I’ve got to catch up with my Google Reader which I’ve neglected for the past few days.
I checked out some of the nominations for the Cybil awards. Thanks for the reminder, Doret! My TBR pile increased a bit.
I visited the Brown Book Shelf to drop a hint about getting a copy of Varian Johnson’s upcoming “Saving Maddie” for review purposes only to run into the request for nominations for the 3rd annual 28 Days Later. This list has become so important to us in children and YA lit that it seems like this has been around much longer than 3 years! In getting names together for that, I found out that Troy Cle is about to release Olivion’s Favorite, the second book in his Marvelous World Series. (Guess I need to go drop another hint!)
Wouldn’t this make a fantastic present: a portrait by Jesse Joshua Watson!
KidLit Conference begins Saturday 17 October. Registration is still open. These online conferences always sound so wonderful, but I lack the…commitment? organization? time? to actually participate in one.
I have to stop with this reading from Teach Paperless on the importance of blogs not as places to provide information, but in building a community that connects over ideas and develops a symbiotic relationship.
Blogs live and die by their readership. Not in the old financial sense that’s killing many newspapers. But rather in the sense of building community. That’s the lifeblood of any blog. It’s about connecting and getting that readership to play an active role in continuing the life and value of the blog.
This hits me as I’ve been wondering why my readership grows but comments remain flat at ‘zero’, even on giveaways. I would pose a question here, but I’m afraid it would just float and echo in the ether.
Cotton Quilts Edi 
Edi,
I hear you. According to Blogger, Color Online has 163 followers. I don’t know how many readers subscribe but if I had to guess, I say less than 5% comment. If we hit double digits, it’s only because of my comments included.
How do we foster greater interaction on the site?
One suggestion for your giveaways, use stumbleupon or some other site where members are looking for blog spots they think might interest them. Hit up all your friends too, to link to your giveaways. I’ll step up to link to your giveaways.
LikeLike
I’ve nominated titles for CYBILS and a but I’m struggling with BBS. Every title I’ve thought of has been nominated. I’m going to check the list again. And I’ll likely nominate some of the titles Doret recommended for CYBILS. The girl rocks.
LikeLike
Yes, Doret is amazing! If I spent less time on the computer, I could read maybe 1/2 the books she reads. But, it’s also her networking and amazing research.
BBS authors’ list is expansive, but as was mentioned there, names that are mentioned several times bring attention to that name. So go ahead and duplicate some! I enjoyed reading the suggestions for children’s books as I don’t know that genre anymore.
When I began blogging, I saw it as a way to put information out there and I didn’t try to build community. I slowly moved in that direction, began to understand some of the etiquette required and did a few more things to encourage comments and participation. I still continue to be a more information oriented blog, with little of *me in my posts. I think that’s an important shortfall. Like last week, I mentioned celebrating birthdays but didn’t say it was mine! I don’t talk much about what I do as a librarian. I think being a blogger people can relate to is the important part of getting a community. I think!
LikeLike
look at you two, “writing” your conference papers already! I’m having a hard time coming up with titles for BBS, too…but love both your blogs and don’t want you to rate your value to readers by the # of comments you get…you never know what someone took away from one of your posts, and you don’t want comments that are forced.
LikeLike
Hey Z,
The little survey I did a while ago indicate a very dedicated followed and I’d rather have that than a bunch of miscellaneous posts. I’m trying to figure out the dynamics here.
LikeLike
Edi,
Thanks for mentioning my book. Perhaps you would like to post this on your site:
LikeLike