Top Ten Bookish Goals for 2013!

On today's episode of Top Ten Tuesday, brought to you by The Broke and the Bookish, Midnight Book Girl will make bookish goals for this new year while her split personality Lazy Book Girl attempts to thwart her in the coming months! (I love talking about myself in third person, and referring to myself as a girl even though I'm in my 30's). 

January 8: Top Ten Eleven Bookish Goals For 2013:

1. POST MORE!
2. REVIEW MORE!
3. Continue taking notes so my reviews don't completely suck.  My reviews are getting better because even if I wait a long time I have notes to refresh a book in my mind so that my reviews aren't all: Um, this book is good, I rated in 4 stars on Goodreads so it's probably save to recommend it to you. Also, the cover is pretty.
4. Tweet authors when I give their books a good rating, and...
5. Send some of my review links to actual publishing houses so they know I like their authors.
6. Go to BEA 2013! *this actually happening, in large part because of the awesomeness that is Midntye Reader.
7. Keep better track of book stats- I read enough to complete most of the challenges I sign up for, but I fail to really organize my reading into categories.  I'm shooting for an end-of-the-year-pie-chart-loaded post, but I'm also going to try to do some kind of monthly break down. 
8. Comment and tweet more- this is always a goal, and some days I do well.  I'm also re-dedicating myself to replying to every comment on my blog starting... Now!
9. Cull my TBR books.  I need to do this.  I have too many books.  Yes, even for a complete book-a-holic I have too many books.  A significant portion are books I bought prior to book blogging, when my literary world was still very small and I didn't really know that it was possible to mostly read books I loved.  Plus, when you're a book reader people think they can gift you any book and you'll like it simply because you read.  I get it, I'm a reader, I fit in a nice little gift buying stereotype.  But that doesn't mean that the book you find in the reject bin at the dollar store is a book that I'm going to make time to read.  
10. Go to more book signings!  
11. Limit the books I buy from Amazon  and really try to keep it to ebooks for Amazon and Barnes and Noble.  If I really want a book because the cover is gorgeous than I need to be able to pay a little more and shop from a local, independent bookstore.

I have others, but these are the most important.  I'm not ever going to be a huge blogger- I don't do lots of giveaways and I'm too lazy to turn this blog into a job so that I can really sell my blog to publishers who will shower me with free arcs and host giveaways for me.  I admire those bloggers, but I'm not terribly organized or driven, and I think most bloggers who have highly successful blogs are.  I really admire them, and if it was a disease, I'd willingly infect myself.  But I'm not a Type A person, I'm a Type E as in Er...  It took me awhile to figure out what kind of blogger I wanted to be and find a way to be okay with not having a million followers- although I'm shooting for 700 GFC and Feedburner followers by the end of the year.  I just want to be more involved in our wonderful community!!

So, what are your goals?  How many of you are planning on being at BEA this year?

Bloggiesta: It's On Like Donkey Kong!

Ole!  It has begun!  Here's what I'm hoping to get to (and have already failed somewhat because I spent most of the day in my car driving to and from places, and other drivers frown upon me blogging on my laptop whilst driving, apparently it's "reckless driving" and there's a fine for it):

~Write 10 reviews (5 of these can be mini-reviews)
~Leave 20 comments per day on other blogs. (Completed for Friday, go me!)
~Make sure that I am replying to and visiting the blogs of all the commentors on my blog.
~Spend time on Twitter daily interacting with other bloggers.
~Create a spreadsheet for all books read in 2012 and links to any reviews written. Done!  I made a spreadsheet!!!  I am so proud!
~Work on new and old features: Up Late With Kate and Sundays In Bed With.. Made the pic for Up Late With Kate on Friday!
~Prepare 2 non book review posts, something to spark conversation!
~Really consider switching back to a 2 column blog. Done!  Thanks, to the awesomeness that is Lori at Imagination Designs (honestly, need a new blog design?  She's the best!).
~Update Blog pages and all Challenges.
~Post 3 reviews on Amazon.
~Participate in mini-challenges. 

This will be my main post that I'll just update daily.

Friday:
~Lori switched me to a 2 column earlier this week, and I'm loving it!  I think my blog just looks cleaner and less cluttered- I was going crazy with the widgets simply because I had the room.  What do you think?
~I love the new spreadsheet too, because then it'll be a lot easier to update my blog 2012 Reads, because all the links will be in one easy location.
~I did make a picture for my Up Late With Kate meme (to be used in the future).  Here's what it looks like:

The designer who came made my blog kit no longer is active, but she had this picture as a freebie on her old blog.  So I tweeked it a bit.  Okay, I added text.  And cropped!

Now I'm going to do a little commenting and tweeting! 

Saturday:
I work today, but I woke up early to reply to blog comments.

I participated in Jen Ryland's Step Out of Your Comfort Zone Bloggiesta challenge- my answer?  I'm going to make my own lip gloss (I got the idea off Pinterest, natch) for Bloggers Dressed In Blood (event starts off Monday, check back!)!  I am both excited and scared to death.  As I pointed out, I'm very creative, but I'm not crafty, so wish me luck!  Have you done her challenge yet?  You should! ;)

I also discovered the awesomeness of Pocket, thanks to The Book Vixen's challenge (honestly, she has one of the best blogger names out there!).   Pocket is a great way to mark links you want to read later, and there's a mobile app too, which is going to be awesome when I'm going through my google reader on my phone.

I also graded my blog (I got an 82, which is okay!) with the help of Smash Attack Reads challenge.  I also found out that I need to bribe ya'll to retweet my links and share them on Facebook, so, um, re-post my links! ;)

And thanks to Jenni Elyse's challenge, I finally figured out the Gravatar thing! 

Okay, it's late, I still have much to do in the morning, so I'll have to try to get a bunch done when I wake up!  Good night, bloggiestas!