My first successful Giveaway ends. And I am within sight of most of my goals for the month, but have decided they were the wrong goals.

The Sunday Post, hosted by Kimba @Caffeinated Book Reviewer, is a chance to share News. A post to recap the past week, showcase books and things we have received and share news about what is coming up for the week on our blog.

Caution: Her site has sidebar ads that sometimes contain cover images which may be offensive to some.

The only Giveaway I've done on my blog up to now was when I very first started, and I didn't get a single entry. So while I only got 52 entries on this giveaway, I feel that it was a success, since I was able to give the book to someone.

June is also the first month that I have been able to set legitimate goals regarding my stats. In April, I didn't realize that some changes I made to my browser meant my own visits were being counted again. And in May I got hit by Ghost Referral spam in my analytics (this is the method I used to block it). Since I was too lazy to manually subtract all the false users and pageviews, I just kept starting over.

My goals for June were to hit 200 (combined) followers; have 500 unique visitors & 1000 pageviews. I only need 1 more follower (note: I am not saying that so someone will follow me, see below); I'm not going to reach my visitor goal but should reach 450; and I will reach my pv  goal unless my site goes down again.

The thing is, I have accomplished what I have with a lot of (mostly futile) hard work - i.e. I have been making a lot of inane comments on a lot of blogs that have nothing in common with my own. I have realized that if I actually want to find a place for myself, and build a community of readers who keep returning, I am going to have to change my focus. I will be spending July working on that, and will introduce a new discussion series on my efforts starting the first week in August.

This has turned into a discussion post itself, so I will just add that this has finally been a quiet week for me on the "real life" front.

Last Week on GMB

• SUN: I Finally Finish My 47.5 Hour Review Copy | Sunday Summary #7
• TUE: 2 Couriers & a Comet | New Audiobook Releases
• WED: A Gift That's Kept on Giving: Azure Bonds (Forgotten Realms) | Review - ★★★★★ Sword & Sorcery Fantasy
• THU: Make New Friends, but Keep the Old: ReReading | My Musings, TTT
• SAT: Finally Available in Unabridged (Full Cast) Edition: Battlefield Earth | Review - ★★★★ Science Fiction

Next Week on GMB

• TUE: New Audiobook Releases
• WED: A Bit Warm & Dark for this Church Lady: Burning Bright | Review {+ BONUS} - ★★★½ Urban Fantasy
• THU: Hasn't Killed Me Yet: Living With Chronic TBR Overflow (Pt 1) | My Musings
  
• SAT: City of Thirst | Review - ★★★★ MG Contemporary Fantasy
• SUN: Sunday Summary #9

Exploring Cyberspace

• "Why Negative Reviews Can Be a Positive Thing" by Kristen @ Metaphors and Moonlight

"2) Negative reviews help readers make decisions. I like to read both positive AND negative reviews before deciding on a book so that I can weigh the good and bad. Without any negative reviews, I’m more likely to just walk away rather than take the risk. Also many positive reviews tend to be vague, like, “THIS BOOK WAS AMAZING!!!” and thus not very helpful whereas the lower rating reviews tend to give more information about the specific things the reader liked and disliked."

• "Easier to hate than to love" by Cynthia@ Bingeing on Books

"Last week, I read a book that I loved and I swear, the review took forever to write. I mean, what am I supposed to say?

 

I LOVE THIS! YOU MUST READ THIS BOOK ASAP!!

 

Let's face it: there are only so many ways I can think of to tell you just how much I adored a certain book. At some point, my brain runs out of ideas and I can't thin of enough synonyms for awesome and earth shattering."

• "YA and its Audience ~ (All that hype)" @ Going Through Books

"But pushing down age limits on books and making them specific for particular people steals away the essence of the book, because each person – whatever may be the age – takes away something different from each book. No two people can be equally moved and affected by a book, and by a book – I mean any book. It could be MG, YA or Adult."

Reading Update

I re-listened to the following in preparation for upcoming reviews:

Buy | +GR

I read/listened to the following for the first time:

In Progress:

Up Next

New Review Copy

Other Acquisitions

All the Kindle books I acquired that have Audible versions available.

Some of the other Kindle books I acquired.

Talk to Me (pretty please)

• Any tips about getting lots of Giveaway entries?
• Do you read negative reviews?
• Do you consider Cozy Mysteries with a touch of the paranormal to be Fantasy?

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• If you are a first time visitor, how did you discover my blog?
• I recently debuted my redesigned blog. What do you think?

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