Thank you so much to Brent at Linky Tools for his super-fast response to my blog issue last week. I thought there was a linky issue that was causing my blog layout to go all wacky with the Hop, but it turns out that wasn’t the case at all! He diligently worked on the issue for hours and resolved the NON-LINKY issue for me. Amazing! THANK YOU SO MUCH, BRENT! You are fantastic!!!
If you haven’t read the changes to the Hop, please read this post before entering your link. If you do not read this post first, you will have major issues entering your link. Do not email me if you have issues and have not read this post first! Got it? (If you have issues and you HAVE read this post and done everything correctly, then, by all means, please e-mail me!)
Grab the Logo!
Welcome to the NEW Book Blogger Hop!
Are you a book blogger? Are you a reader? Then welcome to the place where all of us connect over the weekend and chat about books!
Background on the Hop
In March of 2010, in response to what I thought was a void in the book blogging community, I started the Book Blogger Hop. I loved all of the #FF tweets on Fridays, where everyone tweets out their favorite people to follow in order to gain new followers and give their friends some exposure. So I thought to myself – “How cool would it be to have something like that where fellow book bloggers could come and find new book blogs to follow, find new books to read, and gain more exposure for our blogs?” This CRAZY idea became the Book Blogger Hop!
The Book Blogger Hop is much more than just a “follow for a follow”. It’s about making connections. There are literally hundreds, if not thousands, of book bloggers around the world. It can seem like we are blogging in a bubble, always checking out the same blogs over and over again. The Hop is about taking the time to make a quality visit to another blog, getting to know the person who is writing, and seeing if you really *want* to follow that person! I am not a big fan of blindly following other blogs just to increase your follower numbers, because who is to say that the people will come back? Just because they are “following” you doesn’t mean they’re reading your blog. How many times have you “dumped” the messages in your Google Reader account due to the daunting number of messages there are, many from blogs you “had” to follow (in order to participate in a hop, giveaway, etc). I’d much rather have a lower “follower” count and know that these people are following me because they WANT to follow me, not because they HAVE to. I like the knowledge that I’m connecting with people on more than just a “have to” level.
With that said, let’s get some of the nitty-gritty out of the way. You may be asking – what exactly IS a book blogger? Here’s MY take: Do you have a blog? Do you blog about books/authors? Do you write book reviews on your blog? Do you rave about books and authors on your blog? Is your blog content primarily about books? Then you are most likely considered a book blogger!
How it Works
As long as you meet the qualifications of a book blogger, you may add your book blog link into the linky list below. But before you do that, there are a few requirements. Read up, to save yourself a headache with the linky! 
1. Before you add your link, you must post about the Hop on your blog and link directly back to THIS POST (not just my domain, but the direct post for this Hop). The linky is going to review the link that you enter in your submission, looking for a link to this post on your blog. If it doesn’t find one, your link will not be approved. This is called back linking and I had to institute it because people were taking advantage of the Hop and getting some free advertising without promoting the Hop themselves. You can read more about this here.
2. While you are creating your post, answer the following question (there’s a new prompt each week)!
“Highlight one book you have received this week (for review, from the library, purchased at the store, etc.) that you can’t wait to dig into!”
Here’s MY Answer: Yesterday, I received an unsolicited review copy of PRETTY: A NOVEL by Jillian Lauren. Upon reading the back cover blurb, I am hooked and I wish I could dig into this book right now (but, alas, I have at least six other books on my plate at the moment!). Here’s some info to whet your appetite!
[amazon_link id="0452297346" target="_blank" ]Pretty: A Novel[/amazon_link]
by Jillian Lauren
Publication Date: August 30, 2011
Publisher: Plume
Bebe Baker is an ex-everything: ex-stripper, ex-Christian, ex-drug addict, ex-pretty girl.
It’s been one year since the car accident that killed her boyfriend left her scarred and shaken. Flanked by an eccentric posse of friends, she is serving out a self-imposed sentence at a halfway house, while trying to finish cosmetology school. Amid the rampant diagnoses, over-medication, compulsive eating, and acrylic nails of Los Angeles, Bebe looks for something to believe in before something–her past, the dangerously magnetic men in her life, her own bad choices–knocks her off course again.
3. Now it’s time to enter your blog link into the linky below (after the list of instructions!).
Instructions:
- Click on: You are next – Click here to enter
- A new page will open
- In the “Link Title/Blog Title” box, please enter the NAME OF YOUR BLOG and in parentheses after your blog name, please state the main genre that you review (i.e. Crazy-for-Books (contemp. fiction))
- In the “Link” box, please put a direct link to your blog hop post
(i.e. http://crazy-for-books.com/2011/07/book-blogger-hop-729-81.html) - There is a note about the Back Link requirement. Please make sure you have linked back to this blog hop post in the post on your blog or your link will not be accepted! Did you read that important note I told you about at the top of the post?
- Please enter your e-mail address in the box provided in case I need to contact you about your link submission.
- The list is randomized, so your link will not appear in a specified order. If you are looking for your link, I suggest you do a Ctrl-F on your PC keyboard and type a few letters of your blog name so you can find it easily.
That’s it! Now you can start hopping around, visiting other links in the list, meeting fellow bloggers and chatting about their blogs and books they are reading. If you aren’t a blogger, this is a great opportunity for readers to find new sites to follow and meet some new friends who enjoy reading the same things that they do! I strongly encourage you to take some time to visit these blogs and spend some time with your blog friends. We all work hard on our sites and we enjoy getting company, so let’s read more than just the blog hop post – let’s connect! That’s what the Hop was created for! Happy Hopping!
Ruh-roh…. hmmmmmmmm……..
My blog (http://yearofreadingmybooks.wordpress.com/) is all about NOT acquiring new books through any means (free, library, paid for) for the next year (I do get to buy up to 20 books a severe reduction from past years). Given my pledge to severely limit my acquisition of new books, this one is tough. So, I’ll cheat a bit and talk about a Kindle sample I got – Marcel Proust: A Life by Edmund White. This is my second and last plea to not judge me because I like Proust!
I plan to spend some time on this blog, after my Bowen and Cather stints are done, blogging about reading Proust and to try my darndest [sic?] to show you why Proust is a really wonderful writer – not deserving of his reputation as only interesting to highbrow readers working on a literary theory dissertation. I have the sense that this biography will fit the bill of being interesting, lively, not a long, long tome, and a nice complement to reading Remembrance of Time Past.
So, that’s the one I “got” this week that I’m most looking forward to reading,
Happy Reading, Ruby
This sounds like a great one! Newer follower! Here is my hop this week: Pawing Through Books
Thanks, as always, for hosting the Hop!
That book does sound interesting. I hope you’re able to get to it soon.
Wow!! So many changes..my head was all muddled for a bit figuring out the linky business! I am so sorry to hear about all that mess! And I am glad its all fixed. What a drastic drop in Links!!
Great question..!! And excellent job on the policing..i.e you actually went through the trouble of sorting out the issue instead of throwing you head up in frustration and shutting the hop down! Kudos!
And once again, thank you so much for hosting!
Actually, we still ended up with over 200 links last week, so not that drastic a drop!
Having problems with your site – the linky says I don’t have a backlink, which I do.
I tried emailing you, but all that link does is take me to the Yahoo!Mail sign in page.
Will keep trying!
http://thejenaissance.blogspot.com/book-blogger-hop_29.html
Make sure you are linking directly to THIS POST and not just to my domain name. Not sure about the email link. When I click on it, it opens up my email program, so it is set up correctly. Do you use Yahoo email?
I emailed you back.
Am loving the Book Hop and am moving my twice a week Tues/Thurs blog to Tues/Fri so I can participate.
I made the newbie mistake of using last week’s linky, but figured it out!
Thank you for taking the trouble to do this.
I have found a blog here that I like http://yearofreadingmybooks.wordpress.com/ and hope to find others. Going through a series of cataract operations, so not really reading a lot online now . . .
Older follower joining again for Blog Hop. Is this one you are going to begin right away? Enjoy!
Here’s mine: Can’t Wait
Don’t you just hate when you want to read that title NOW!
Thanks for hosting Book Blogger Hop, m’dear!
I got this post all ready to go last night, completed the question, linked appropriately to the exact post, and went to put it into the linky… only to find it closed already!
Yep, you guessed it, I had done everything for last week’s question! Guess I forgot to hop last week, since it was all new to me!
So now that I finally have some time today, I went in and fixed it, linked to this post, answered this question, and I should be back on track!
GraceKrispy@MotherLode blog
Whew! Almost forgot to link DIRECTLY back to the post! (I need to change my template, but then again, the link will be different each week, so, I’ll just have to remember!) Pretty does sound interesting and like something many of us can relate to (maybe not the drugs and such, but the not-so-great choices we may have made when we were younger). Enjoy!
Thank you so much for all your hard work on this hop!! I hope people realize that you have a TERRIFIC hop here, and appreciate you for it!! I know I do!!!!! It’s too bad you have to ‘police’ it sometimes…. You GO, girl!!! : )
I loved this week’s question! I’ve made so many friends in the book blog world and am really impressed with so many blogs it was hard to hunker down and make a choice.
But I did it! I’m shining the spotlight on a Jersey girl! Hop on over to my blog at http://www.howardsherman.net to find out who she is and discover her amazing book blog.
Howard Sherman, Implementor
http://www.howardsherman.net