Sunday, December 4, 2011

Sunday Salon - November in review

Can't believe that November has passed by.  Seems like only yesterday that it was the end of October and now we are at the beginning of December.  The last week felt a little rushed and I felt like I was out of my skin a bit and hence I have been feeling like I am little rushed and not in sync with the rest of the world, but I am hoping that this week will slow down a little and I won't feel as though I am going out of my mind, especially since I will be really busy on Saturday with Help Portrait Abbotsford (yes, it is part of the Help-Portrait event that is going on world-wide) and that will take up most of my day.  Honestly I am very tired at the moment and can't wait to have some much needed sleep today and also get some much needed cleaning done.

November was a very productive month in terms of reading, especially since I felt that I didn't get much done during the month.  I managed to get to my goal of reading 15,000 pages for the year and have already surpassed last years goal of 38 books read (I am at 41 at the time of writing this post) and am hoping that in the next few weeks I can get to 50.  If I don't, I will be close in case.  It was also a month in which I blogged a lot (I had 45 posts, which is the most I have ever posted since I started this blog a little over 2 years ago).  Even though I sometimes didn't feel like it, I managed to put up a post most of the time.  And even though I have complained about the lack of comments on my posts, I am starting to realize that I am doing this for fun and the enjoyment of the readers that read the blog on a regular basis.  I understand that not every thing needs to have a comment, but sometimes I feel like I need the affirmation.  But I am slowly starting to understand that not every post needs to have a comment to know that you guys appreciate what I do.  As long you keep reading, I will keep reading.

November book reviews:
1. Frankenstein
2. Little House in the Big Woods
3. Rebel Angels
4. The Wild Rose
5. The Christmas Scrapbook
6. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

November movie reviews:
1. A Charlie Brown Christmas

5 comments:

Confuzzled Shannon said...

I don't get comments all the time. I tend to hover over my stat at statcounter. So i know people are coming they just might be like me and not know what to say a lot of the time.

LBC said...

My Sunday Salon post this week was about my lousy reading in November. You did MUCH better than me. I recently reread Frankenstein as well.

Deb Nance at Readerbuzz said...

I thought this article had some great ideas for building community at your blog: http://www.problogger.net/archives/2009/02/28/8-tips-for-building-community-on-your-blog/

Good luck!

Michelle Stockard Miller said...

Hey Melissa, you got a lot of reading done. Great job!

You should really add the share buttons at the bottom of your posts. They are helpful in two ways. 1) they allow people an easy way to share your posts on Twitter, Facebook, etc. 2) They make it easier for you to come back to your posts and reshare them several times to direct traffic to your blog. All you have to do is go to layout on your blog and click on the little blue 'edit' button in the blog posts section. A box will pop up that says configure blog posts. Look down until you see 'show share button' and check the box. Then go down and click save and then be sure to click save arrangement at the top when you get back to the layout section. If you share your posts periodically, especially if it's a post you're wanting to draw attention to, like a giveaway or something, it will help direct more traffic over. You should see an increase in comments.

Hope I was able to help. Let me know if it works. =O)

P.S. Do you have Networked blogs automatically posting your blog posts to Facebook? did you know you can get it to tweet from there too?

Wendy said...

The comments Deb and Michelle left you about increasing traffic are good ones. Just remember, building an audience takes time and requires not only great blog posts, but you going out and being social with other bloggers (like leaving them comments, or participating in a group read or event). There are times I post something and I get only 1 or 2 comments...that happens. It does not mean you don't have readers, just that people don't necessarily have something to add in a comment.

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