How Do You Stay Connected to the Book Community?
I resisted Twitter for a long time but now I love it. I’m super picky about who I put on my feed though so there is no drama or negativity. I love Twitter parties like those through #historicalfix and #ttwibrat (Travel the World in Books Read a Thon).
I follow a few authors who are interesting.
Saladin Ahmed (@saladinahmed) is a fantasy writer who is a prolific twitter user. He talks about geek issues and life as a Muslim-American.
Courtney Milan (@courtneymilan) writes historical English romances that she self publishes successfully. On Twitter she writes a lot about diversity in publishing.
Nnedi Okorafor (@nnedi) is one of my favorite authors.
Tananarive Due (@tananarivedue) writes horror/fantasy and her Twitter feed is full of civil rights information.
Swaps
I fell in love with internet swaps for quilting and now I do book ones too.
Bex’s Ninja Book Swap is a fun one. It happens periodically. You get a person to send a bookish package too.
I’m doing the OTSPSecretSister swap this time too. This is a 6 month commitment to send packages to your Secret Sister.
Blog Events
Obviously I love blog events or I wouldn’t be doing Book Blogger Appreciation Week! Here are some other ones I do during the year.
Armchair BEA – I love this one. I’m actually thinking about prewriting my answers this year and still participating even though I am going to BEA because I feel like I’ll be missing out if I don’t.
Diversiverse – Usually in October for 2 weeks it celebrates POC authors.
Travel the World in Books Read-a-thon – Usually in October too after Diversiverse
Weirdathon – This is a new event for March 2016 celebrating weird books.
Nonfiction November – So many great recommendations from this one.
Oh, shoot – looks like I missed BBAW this year! sigh…super busy week. Anyway, good post with some great ideas & links – thanks!
I found you through Small Victories Sunday linkup –
Sue
Book By Book
Thanks for mentioning Nonfiction November! It’s been such a fun event to host and see grow over the last couple of years.
It is one of my favorite events!
I stay connected through Twitter and challenges.
Is that the Face of Boe? Where was that taken?
It is the Face of Boe. It was taken at the Doctor Who Experience in Cardiff.
That’s cool.
I have not heard of the Weirdathon! Sounds interesting!
I’m so honored that you listed the month-long weirdathon!! I also love following @nnedi on twitter. and I should get in on one of these swaps! They look like so much fun.
I’m really liking hearing about favorite events. Some that I’ve never heard of. That is fun!
I’d really like to get involved in more blog events. Sometimes I get stuck on my current TBR and it is hard to break out of that. Thanks for this inspiring post on connecting with others! Cheers!
Usually I can find something on my TBR list that will fit the theme of an event.
I love Twitter too! And like you, I’m also picky about who I follow because I don’t want to be sucked into drama. I want to keep my blog (and the social media sites related to it) a happy place.
I just want to smack people upside the head when they whine about too much Twitter drama. There is an unfollow button, ya know!
All great ways to be a part of the community – I love how useful this post was, sharing events, twitter parties etc.
I’m a big commenter but this year I’m hoping to take part in more events (such as BBAW) as I’m always hearing about great experiences.
I loooove the Diversiverse event! Aarti’s a terrific host, and I always get a ton of new book recommendations.
This is great! It’s so good to read lists of what’s available – I feel like I’ve learnt so much this week!
This has been a very educational week.
Aarti’s Diverse Universe is really good. I try to read something scary for it since it’s October.
Way to be super organized about this! I didn’t know that Diversiverse was a thing, but now I’m definitely going to look into it.
I love Diversiverse! You get so many great recommendations.
I am amazed at the reading challenges you are doing. What plugin are you using to display this progress?
I use Ultimate Book Blogger from nosegraze.com for all my book posts. The progress bars are an add on to that. Most of them are just for my own tracking.
Thank you
I love blog events also!