Bloggiesta Challenge-Getting to know you!

This blog post is for the Getting to Know You Mini-Challenge, hosted by Suey.  I decided to randomly pick two blogs instead of just one!  So today we are all going to meet: Kate & Kristen from The Book Monsters and Trish from Love, Laughter, and a Touch of Insanity. I have been following the first two blogs for a while now and am glad to get to know them better through Bloggiesta!  

First up is The Book Monsters! I really was first interested in this blog because of the theme.  I mean MONSTERS... cool!  Plus I love their features like The Monster Report and Monstrous Discoveries .  They are switching to Word Press right now so if you check out their blog and it looks funny you know why! I asked them a few questions about blogging and of course Bloggiesta!

Why do you blog?  How long have you been blogging? Kristen and I have been blogging since 2009. In 2011, we decided that co-blogging would be a great thing to try and have been together ever since with The Book Monsters. We blog because:
The Books:
Because we love books. We love reading about them. Talking about them. Discovering other people who feel the same way that we do.  
The Community:
The YA and other genre communities are fantastic. We bond together over our love for books and bookish things. We support each other. It can be a great place. 
For Fun:
Let's face it. At the end of the day, Kristen and I blog because we love it. We love our readers, blogging buddies, and all that jazz. If we didn't, we wouldn't be here.

Have you participated in Bloggiesta before?  What do you love about the event? Actually, I think we have been doing Bloggiesta since Bloggiesta started way back when. We love getting together with other people and discovering new things to try and meeting new people.

Where did you come up with your blog theme (because I love it!) ?  The Book Monsters theme has evolved over the years. Our most recent creation, I actually designed myself. But with our move to Wordpress, we have had to alter it a bit with the help of a theme from Ashley of Creative Whim.

Are you getting all your bloggiesta goals finished? Probably not. My goal this time around was to get us moved completely to Wordpress. While that has been done, we have over 1500 posts that will still need looking at and possibly correcting.

Do you have any advice for those of us participating in Bloggiesta that might make our blogs better? Take a few minutes and really look at your blog from the reader's perspective. Personally, I love blogs that has a less is more feeling. You don't have to have EVERYTHING on your blog to make it stand out.

Stalk them!
Twitter
Facebook
Pinterest

Second up is Love, Laughter and a Touch of Insanity.  This blog is run by Trish, and to be honest she is the reason I follow this blog.  I think I found the blog last Bloggiesta or maybe it was Bout-of-Books.  Anyways... I stopped by the blog and she was so fun and nice to everyone that I had to be a follower! And she reads Stephen King... this is her scared picture after reading the Shining:

I sent her a few questions to help us bloggers out with Bloggiesta!
Why do you blog? How long have you been blogging?
Simple answer first--June will mark my six year anniversary of blogging. The answer to why I blog is much more complicated and is ever changing. I started blogging to keep a written record of books I've read that I could also share with others. Over the years my blogging has turned more personal so in addition to the books I also write about life in general, the non-bookish projects I'm working on, and other absolute randomness. It makes my blog less focused but the variety also gives me purpose.

Have you participated in Bloggiesta before?  What do you love about the event?
I've officially participated in Bloggiesta two previous times. Sometimes I forget to take time out of my day to do the little items on my blogging list that have been nagging at me for a while. With a full-time job and a two year old running around at home, blogging often takes a backseat. It's great to be able to devote time to actually work on blog stuff and it definitely makes it more fun that so many others are also working on their blogs at the same time. I've found so much support and great suggestions and been able to offer my own advice, especially on twitter.

Where did you come up with your blog theme?
If you mean the layout of my blog, um...it's pretty standard. Although someone offered to design my header during my first bloggiesta. I mentioned it on twitter, she offered, and voila! The rest was just playing around on Blogger until I was mostly happy. In terms of the actual theme of my blog, I started with a book blog almost six years ago (Trish's Reading Nook) but when I found myself reading less and doing other activities, I felt that I had outgrown the space. I wanted the new blog to encompass all of the facets of my life--the love and the laughter--but along with that sometimes comes insanity. ;) The most important thing about blogging is to make your blog your own; I always try to keep that in mind when I'm working on my blog and reading other blogs. Does the blog reflect the owner? I hope so!

Are you getting all your bloggiesta goals finished?
Ha! We have houseguests this weekend so I knew that my goals would have to be limited compared to times in the past. I hope to update my review directory, which I updated during the last Bloggiesta, draft a few posts, and clean up my blog email inbox. I don't think I'll accomplish all of these things but I hope to at least make some headway.

Do you have any advice for those of us participating in Bloggiesta that might make our blogs better?
Like I mentioned above, to me a great blog is one that has personality. There are so many book blogs these days that it can be tough to stand out among the crowd. Be yourself and make your blog your own. You don't have to do what everyone else is doing to have a successful blog. People will gravitate towards you if you are simply genuine and shine through in your posts. But mostly, have fun with blogging!

Stalk her!
Twitter
Pinterest



I would also like to thank Alysia at My Little Pocketbooks for featuring me for the getting to know you challenge!!!  Stop on by and check out my feature! Angela's Anxious Life