Weekly Geeks: Blogging Extras

Ruth writes:

Book blogging, as a concept, is essentially pretty simple: If you have Internet access and an opinion about a book, you can be a book blogger. However, actually maintaining a book blog is much more complicated — our blogs are labors of love that require a lot of time, energy and devotion. For this edition of Weekly Geeks, I want to focus on the little things that make your blogging and/or reading life a bit easier. Do you use sites like GoodReads, LibraryThing or Shelfari to organize your books? Do you swear by Book Darts? Couldn’t live without your Book Buddy? Love connecting with other bloggers on sites such as Twitter? Tell us about what makes your blog tick. Is there something specific that keeps you organized or inspired?

When it comes to keeping track of books, my newfound love of Excel is making all the difference. In my Reading Spreadsheet (in need of a clever title), I have worksheets for books read, books recommended, to read challenge lists, my banned books challenge, and as of yesterday a sheet for my readathon schedule. Organizing is part of the fun for me!


My other bookish organizer is LibraryThing which I use to keep track of books I own, books I've read, and books I want. Now I've even started copying over my reviews from my blog to LibraryThing. My username is EclecticEccentric over there if you'd like to friend me.

To manage my blog reading, I adore Google Reader. My GR doesn't necessarily adore me right now as it is consistently busy, but I have found it invaluable in keeping me apprised of new posts, allowing me to mark posts to read again later, and I'm sure there is a whole host of other possibilities I haven't begun to explore.

Despite my ridiculous love for collecting books, my husband set me straight on keeping every single book that crosses my path. He's also the one who introduced me to BookMooch. I'm now an avid user which may have backfired on my husband as I seem to get just as many books as I send out. Over at BookMooch, I'm Trillian if you'd like to friend me and share some books.

I resisted Twitter. I really did. Even now, I don't actually talk to or follow anyone that isn't a member of the book blogging community. But I just couldn't resist sneaking in on all the wonderful bookish conversations going on, so I joined. My username is Trish422 if you are interested in following me.

So what are your tools of the trade?