Blogoversary Week: Day 1 How it all started +Giveaway
Thank you for stopping by Short and Sweet Reviews as we celebrate our first anniversary!
I started Short and Sweet Reviews a year ago this week. All this week we will be celebrating with fun posts! We won't have as many reviews this week (sorry), but we will be making up for it next week! I hope you check back every day because we will be having giveaways each day until Friday! Make sure you stop by on Thursday especially- we have a special scavenger hunt set up for you!
I originally blogged (journaled) over at Live Journal. I started that journal in 2002 (so this year would make 10 years for that one). It still exists, but is mainly a personal journal where I talk about randomness and my son. I hardly ever get over to LJ now, especially now that many of the people I "friended" are no longer on Live Journal.
I learned about the idea of blogging for books when one day I googled something to the effect of free books. Thomas Nelson had this crazy program where they would send you a free book if you wrote a review about it. I blogged for Thomas Nelson and their Book Sneeze program for a year on Live Journal when I decided that I wanted to separate my book reviews from the pictures of my son and Short and Sweet Reviews was born!
I decided to make the jump from Christian fiction to young adult fiction because I was inspired by blogs like The Story Siren and MundieMoms. I loved ya, but I was an adult that hid her obsession because until the Twilight craze hit- it wasn't cool to love ya. I was limited, though, to what my library offered. I didn't KNOW what was out there. I stumbled upon Goodreads and from there stumbled upon ya book blogs. I thought to myself- if they can blog about books, why can't I?
So why are we Short and Sweet Reviews when our blog address is One Minute Books? Well, when I made the blog it was actually an accident. I was trying to decide if I should make the blog Short and Sweet Reviews or One Minute Books. I registered the blog as One Minute Books and then accidentally made my header as Short and Sweet Reviews. It has been a year and I still haven't decided. I am afraid that if I change us to One Minute Books that people will forget us somehow.
I started out slowly, blogging about books that I got from Christian Publishers and from the library. I knew that if I wanted to be serious about blogging that I needed to simply get reviews up on my site. I had read many book reviews around the internet and I was frustrated- I didn't like reading reviews that were 12 pages long or gave the entire book away in the contents. I wanted to know if a book was good or not and worth reading. I simply liked being introduced to new books without ruining the book. That is why the reviews on Short and Sweet tend to be shorter (at least for me). It is a fine line to walk, writing a short review without making it too short and useless, and I will admit I have made that mistake a few times. I won't make my reviews longer- that makes it feel like work to me. Above everything, blogging needs to be fun and for me writing long reviews are not fun.
So there you go- the origins of Short and Sweet Reviews!
To help us celebrate day 1 of our week of giveaways we are giving away a mystery box of CHRISTIAN books. Our roots started in Christian Fiction and non fiction. The box will include 4 books and I will look over your Goodreads account to make sure you don't have the books.
1 book will be an Advanced Readers Copy of Prophet by RJ Larson
This giveaway is for US/ CA only. You must be 13+ to enter. Please fill out the rafflecopter below to enter:
