Tuesday Thingers - Amazon Vine

Welcome to another week of Tuesday Thingers! We always love to hear from regular participants as well as new people.

Hi everyone! Another off-topic (to Library Thing) week for us this week. I've recently become aware of a new program through Amazon (played with it over the past month or so) called the Amazon Vine. It is "Amazon Vine™. The Exclusive Club of Influential Amazon Voices." I've enjoyed it and thought I would pass the information along in case a few of you hadn't heard of it yet.

Basically, Amazon allows some people to sign up for the program who have posted reviews on their site. Based on your interests and your reviews, they will offer you items to review, completely free of charge! All you have to do is review 75% of the items sent to you (I've done 3 books and 1 electronic/home item so far) before they will let you order more items from the Vine Newsletter.

One day, I logged in and simply had an invitation on my home page to check out the new program, and it gave me the option of signing up.

Questions: Have you had an opportunity to check out the new Amazon Vine program? Have you signed up? Is this program something that interests you? How do you feel about the reviews posted on Amazon in general (not counting the ones that have made the news)?

I never heard of Amazon Vine before. Since I didn't receive an invitation, I can't check it out. But, if I did get one, I'd join. It sounds like something I'd enjoy. I don't put many of my reviews on Amazon, but I guess I could and then I'd get an invitation. I just might do that.

I'm lukewarm about Amazon reviews. I do read them to see if any of the reviewers agreed with me about my thoughts on some books, but I find the reviews to be hit or miss. It seems like people either love a book and those reviews talk about the book as if it's the greatest novel ever written. Or people hate a book and call it "trash". I don't like reading things like that because is a book "trash" just because you didn't like it? Someone's trash could be someone else's gold.

I also find that authors sometimes ask people to post reviews, so you don't know if you are reading a truly biased review or not. It doesn't always happen, but it can. Basically, like all reviews, you have to keep an open mind and make your own choices.


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Tuesday Thingers - Social Networking

Welcome to another week of Tuesday Thingers! We always love to hear from regular participants as well as new people.

Christine over at Erotic Book Junkies / Romantic Crush Junkies actually gave me the idea for this post a while back. There are so many wonderful resources available to us as bloggers and individuals. Take a look at just a few of the many social networking sites: Facebook, MySpace, Library Thing, GoodReads, Twitter. . . the list can go on and on!

Sometimes it is hard to keep up with everything, and sometimes we all need a place just for us - where we don't have any blogger responsibilities.

Questions: How do you feel about social networking sites? Do you have any you like more than others? Are there any you don't like? Do you have any that you don't associate with your blogs and/or book reviewing? If you could only belong to one of these sites, which one would it be and why?

My Answer: I belong to many of the social networking sites - My Space, Facebook, Goodreads, Shelfari, Library Thing, Twitter. I liked all of them at first, but then it just took up too much of my valuable time. I keep thinking, instead of playing around on these sites, I could be reading. My favorite book site might be Shelfari. I like that you can add an unlimited amount of books to your shelf and they have several great groups. I joined the groups, but end up not participating because of time.

I don't have any that I dislike. If I don't use it, it's because of the time factor. Not because of the sites themselves. I'm trying to cut back on some of the things I do. I, also, belong to many Yahoo groups for my various interests and that takes up time too. I love the Yahoo groups because the messages all come to my email and I get so many great recommendations from readers with the same interests as mine.

Basically, I'm trying to keep it down to Yahoo groups and blogging. Those are the two places I get ideas of future reads from.

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Tuesday Thingers - Do You Have Glue?

Welcome to another week of Tuesday Thingers! We always love to hear from regular participants as well as new people.

This week we are exploring something totally different and un-Library Thing - we're looking at Glue! I first heard about Get Glue when a bloggy friend won a Kindle 2 from one of their contests! The topic then came up again at the recent Seattle blogger get-together. SO. . . I decided that maybe this whole Glue thing deserved a little attention.

What is Get Glue?

From their Website:

Developed by AdaptiveBlue, Glue enables you to connect with your friends on the web around the things you visit online. Glue is powered by semantic recognition technology that automatically identifies books, music, movies, wines, stocks, movie stars, recording artists, and more. Glue works hard to make it easy for you to find out what your friends think about things you're visiting online.

SO . . . on top of helping you find great books, movies, etc, you can also follow Get Glue on Twitter and play their games to win great weekly prizes. :) If you read some of their recent posts, you will probably find some familiar names winning some of those prizes!

Questions: Have you gotten Glue yet? If so, how do you like it? Do you follow Glue Genie on Twitter? Won anything in their quizzes?

My answer....I heard of Glue, but I never checked it out before. I just went over to their website and it looks interesting, but I'm afraid I'll get addicted. LOL I'm online way too much as it is. Although I Twitter, I don't even do that very often. I prefer spending any online time I have blogging. Actually, I should be spending all my time reading...my TBR is growing and I've become addicted to online games now. So, I doubt I'll be joining Glue - there's just not enough hours in a day.


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Tuesday Thingers

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You can now add books to different collections and then view just those collections! Some of the pre-designed collections include: Wishlist, Currently Reading, To Read, Read But Unowned, and Favorites. Then of course you can add your own collections too!

To begin classifying your books, go to your book shelf and you will see a little brown briefcase/box type icon on the right hand side. Simply click that and choose one of the collections!

Questions: Have you explored the new Collections feature? Do you plan to use the new Collections? Are you going to add any special collections? If so, what are they?

My Answer - I didn't know about this, but it's a great idea. If I have some time to organize my books, I will certainly take advantage of it. That's the problem them, not enough time to do everything I would like to, but I do think this is a wonderful tool to have on LT.


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Tuesday Thingers - Did Not Finish

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Questions: How often do you find yourself struggling through a book (if you HAD to estimate)? How far will you read before you stop and consider it a DNF (Did not finish)? Will you skim ahead and see if it gets any better? Once you put it down, do you still write a quick review? What do you do with the book when you are done?

My Answer: It's not often I struggle with a book...I can count on one hand where this has happened to me. Often, I read through the whole thing anyway. I have been known to skim through to the end and then I'll do a quick review. I won't bash a book because I know how hard authors work on a book and, also, that others might have liked it but I will give my opinion on it and why it didn't work for me. I don't think that's bashing.

I'll usually put the book up on Paperback Swap or Bookmooch to trade for another book.





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Tuesday Thingers

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Questions: Do you Tweet? If so, what do you like best about Twitter? What do you like the least? Do you have any Twitter applications or extras that you use frequently (TweetDeck, TwitterFeed, etc)? Do you belong to any of the Twitter groups on LT?

My Answer: Yes, well...sort of. I'm on Twitter, but I don't Tweet very much. Mainly because of lack of time. I'd rather spend whatever extra time I can find reading, but occasionally I will go over and Tweet about a book giveaway or something like that. I can see why it would be addicting, which is why I don't go there too often. I'm afraid! LOL No, I don't belong to any of the Twitter groups on LT or have any Twitter applications. I don't even know about them.



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Tuesday Thinger: All Your Covers (Just For Fun!!)

Questions: Do you have any missing covers (they show as a plain gray book)? Did you have a favorite view (title, author, date entered)? Do you have any favorite covers? If so, is there anything they have in common?



My Answer: I have, I think, about 7 plain gray books. I guess I like the author view the best as it's easier for me to find the books I want by author. I don't have any favorite covers, though. I like them all, some more than others. As a rule, I prefer people on the cover but sometimes I think the cartoonish covers are kind of cute (not all of them, but some). It depends on the book, though. Some of the suspense or thrillers that I enjoy are better suited for dark covers and sometimes a dark cover with just the title is perfect. I don't have anything specific that is a favorite though.

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Tuesday Thingers

This week we are going to take a peek at the styles of Your Library and how you can customize them. To see what I'm talking about, go to Library Thing, and click on the Your Library tab. Just under the tabs, you will find a section that says Styles, A, B, C, D, E, and then a symbol that looks like a pencil. If you click on the pencil, you can edit your styles, or the formatting of the pages that show your books' information.I believe the standard information is the Title, Author, Date, Tags, and Comments. You then have the option to add ISBN, Common Knowledge fields, etc. . . there are 44 different options you can select from! Of the 5 styles (A,B,C,D,E), you can have up to 12 options per style.You can also use this screen to change the number of books shown per screen, the style visitors will see when they view your library, and you can choose to show the book-swap column.

Questions: Have you explored the different styles? Have you customized any of the styles? If so, what are your favorite customized items (isbn, Dewey Decimal, Reviews, Book-Swap, etc)?

My Response: I use style B. I like that it has the little cover pictures and pretty much just makes a list of the books. I'm a visual person and I like that the covers have the info about the books right next to them. It just makes it easier to see everything at a glance, for me. At a glance, I can see the cover, the author, date published and the tags, which let me know the genre of the book. For me, this is the best format. I've looked at the others, but I still stuck with style B.

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Tuesday Thingers

This Week's Question:

What is your least-favorite book(s)? Is your least-favorite book listed in your LT library? If it is listed, do you have anything special in the tags or comments section? How have others rated your least-favorite book?

My Answer:

I had to give this some thought and I really couldn't remember, so I went to my handy dandy Excel spreadsheet to see what I didn't like and the one book that I really had a problem with was The Book of Lost Things by John Connolly. It's the one time I really wanted to stop reading, which is something I never do. I finish everything I start, even if I don't like it. The only reason I kept reading was because it was part of a discussion group for a Yahoo reading group I used to have. Since I was the owner of the group, I felt obligated to read the entire book regardless of how I felt about it. I think my problem with it was that it was too much of a fantasy combined with real life. I don't know why that bothers me since I love vampires, paranormal, ghosts, etc. I guess this one just didn't grab me. There were others in my group that felt the same way. It turns out I was the only one who completed the book. LOL

However, looking at the reviews on Amazon.com, this is a very popular group and rated highly by most of the reviewers. It had a 4 1/2 star rating. So, maybe it just wasn't my type of story. I don't have this listed in my LT library as I think I read it before I joined LT.

Tuesday Thingers

Last week we talked about the Library Thing Early Reviewers program, and along those lines, this week, I'd like to mention the Library Thing Member Giveaways. In this section, you can both request a book similarly to the Early Reviewers Program, and you can also add a book giveaway yourself.

According to the Library Thing site, the Member Giveaways site is a more informal way for authors and members to giveaway books on the site, whereas the Early Reviewer program is more formal with set guidelines and time lines. Here, the member/author sets the conditions of the giveaway and adds the detail themselves. The winners of the giveaways are selected randomly via the site, the same way the Early Reviewers books are selected (I'm assuming that part) and their contact information is sent to the person who posted the giveaway.

From the site:
To post a book for a Member Giveaway, at least one of the following must be true:
You are a LibraryThing Author
You have at least 50 books in your LibraryThing account
You have a paid LibraryThing account

If you meet these minimum requirements, then just click "Post a Giveaway" and follow the instructions screen.

Fun fact - currently there are 378 copies of 103 books being given away via the LT Member Giveaway.

Question: Were you aware of the Member Giveaways Program? Have you posted any books in the giveaway? If so, what are your thoughts on the program? Have you requested any books, and if so, did you win any?

My response:

Yes, I am aware of the program and I think it's a great program. I've browsed through it, but I haven't participated yet. If I have any books to giveaway, I'm more likely to give them away on my own blog. I'd like to see people I've met in cyberspace give my books good homes. I do think it's a great addition for Library Thing to include and seems to be popular.

If you want to participate in Tuesday Thingers, just click on the box above to get to Wendi's Book Corner. Wendi's our lovely host.

Tuesday Thingers

Tuesday Thingers is hosted by Wendi's Book Corner. If you'd like to play along, just click the picture above.

This Week's Question: Were you aware of the Early Reviewer Program? Have you received any books from the program? If you have, how have you liked the book(s)? Any other thoughts on the LTER program?

My Answer: Yes, I learned about this program as soon as I joined LT. I signed up for it immediately. The first month I was lucky enough to win Any Given Doomsday by Lori Handeland and I loved it. Unfortunately, I've never received another book again. I've browsed through all their books each month and request them like crazy, but I never get anything. I only received the one book. I'm still hanging in there, though, and someday I'm sure I'll get another.


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Tuesday Thingers

Today's question: Do you have a specialized blog where you only review a certain genre or type of book? If so, what is your favorite thing about that type of book? If not, what is/are your favorite genre(s)? What makes that genre(s) a favorite?

Favorite Genre?

General Literature / Fiction
Christian
Historical Fiction/Romance
Mystery/Suspense/Thriller
Romance
Science Fiction/Fantasy
General Non-Fiction
Biography / Memoir
Health, Mind, Body

My answer: My blog isn't dedicated to any particular genre. I review whatever books I happen to be reading. I do have my own favorite genres though. I love romantic suspense, cozy mysteries, thrillers, and romance. Some paranormals and historical western romances, too.

I've read those genres for years and they are the ones that can transport me to another place and/or time. I can escape the real world for a few hours. I prefer books that can make me forget the stresses of everday life.

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Tuesday Thingers

Welcome to another week of Tuesday Thingers! We always love to hear from regular participants as well as new people.

This week, our question is inspired by all the group threads that are dedicated to finding the next great book to review.

In order review books on your blog - you've got to GET books!

Today's question: How do you get your books for reviewing? Do you track them somehow (excel, database, etc), or just put them in a tbr (To Be Read for anyone that doesn't know) pile?

My answer: Mainly I have review contacts and I, also, participate in Hatchette Books review program. I'm also signed up for Library Thing's Early Reviewers but I only received one book through them. Sometimes I'll receive an email request from an author or publisher. The rest of the reviews I write are books from my TBR. I review just about every book I read.

I track everything in an excel spreadsheet. That way I know what I have or what I've read. I have a terrible memory and I'll never remember otherwise. LOL


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Tuesday Thingers

Today's question: Do you use a rating system on your blog? How do you feel about using the rating system provided on sites like Library Thing and Amazon? When looking up information on a book you are interested in, do you use the ratings provided by these sites (or similar sites) to help you make the decision on purchasing the book?

My answer: No, I don't use a rating system on my blog. I originally thought about doing that, but then decided against it. I do keep a journal for my own use with ratings (1-5 stars) just so I can remind myself if I liked a particular genre, author, series, etc. On my blog this year, I decided to give a "Great Book Alert" medal for those books that I truly thought were outstanding. I thought it would be fun at the end of the year to look back and see which books I loved the most.



As for all the sites with ratings, I admit that I do read them. I don't make my decisions of whether to buy a book or not because of the ratings. In fact, often I don't read the ratings and reviews until after I finish a book. I like to see if people felt the same way I did. I tend not to read the reviews before because I've noticed that sometimes people give away a plot point and I don't like spoilers for my books. I like to be surprised. That's a pet peeve of mine - I feel reviews should be a basic outline of the story and the reviewer's opinions of it, not the entire story so there's no point in reading it for yourself.



This was a fun question, thanks for posting it Wendi. If you want to join Tuesday Thingers, click the button above.

Tuesday Thingers

Today's question: Have you ever used the Swap This Book function which can be found on the main page of any book (here is an example of Flirting With Forty by Jane Porter: link shown on book page, what it looks like if you click on the link)? If so, what do you think about it? If not, are there any other swap sites you utilize to exchange books once you are done? What do you do with your books if you no longer want them anymore?


My answer: I've never noticed this function on LT before, but I always swap books when I'm done. Very few books are keepers for me, mainly because of a lack of space plus I never re-read a book anyway. I use Paperback Swap (I love that site) and sometimes Bookmooch (but not often). I used to take them to a UBS, but they don't take the older series books like Harlequins or Silhouettes so I end up putting everything on PBS. Also, it's not a one-for-one trade at the UBS and it is on the PBS and Bookmooch.

Do you belong to any of the book swap sites out there?

Tuesday Thingers

Today's question: A few weeks ago, someone told me about the Common Knowledge feature of Library Thing. The statistics and basic information can be found through a link at the bottom of any page. Currently there are over 869,540 facts that have been entered. How do they get there? We add them!

It took me a while to figure out that you enter them from the book or author page. When you have a book or author page pulled up, if you look at the left hand side, there are a bunch of links you can choose from. One of them is Common Knowledge. If you click the link, it will bring up a section where you can add facts.

Have you ever looked at the Common Knowledge page, or viewed the history of changes/additions? If you were aware of this section, have you added any information? Do you find this information useful or interesting?

My answer: No, I didn't know about this feature at all. I just checked it out when I read this post. Looks like there is alot of information there and could be very helpful. I'm not sure yet how I'd use it, but I could see where alot of people would want to. I'll have to look at this some more over the weekend. There's so much at LT that I haven't looked at and I really need to do that.

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Thought I'd share some pics of my beautiful kitties...

This is Trini.....











And now Geiger...














and of course Socrates...

Tuesday Thingers

Today's question: Last week, I asked about your favorite areas of Library Thing, some that you were familiar with, some that you were curious about, and some that you had never really looked at. It was great to look at all the different areas, and I even learned that sometimes it pays to scroll all the way down to the bottom of the page . . . I learned that there were links that I had completely missed! Yikes!

One person mentioned that they wanted to learn more about LibraryThing Author. I happened to stumble upon this great page within the site that has some great information on it about LT Authors, becoming a LT Author, and how readers can use the section to learn about their favorite authors, the books they read and what inspires them.

Did you know that there are 1497 authors participating in LT Authors? If you haven't checked it out, head over for a moment and see if you can find out something new about an author! If you don't have time to go snooping, have you ever looked at the LT Author page before? Did you know that it is for authors and readers alike? Have you ever looked up a favorite or new author on LT to see what they read and if they have left any comments or reviews themselves? Have you ever told an author about LT Authors and encouraged them to check the site out?

My Answer: I usually just happened to stumble upon authors I'm familiar with on LT, but I never actually went looking for them. I've never looked at the LT Author page, but it really sounds like a fun page to check out and I'm going to look at it. I haven't encouraged any authors to join LT, but I'm fairly new at it myself and I don't know many authors personally...a couple that I do know are already on LT.

Tuesday Thingers

Today's question: Here is a list of the main areas of Library Thing:
1. Home (http://www.librarything.com/, before you log in)
2. Home (once you log in, contains Your Home, Your Profile, Connections, Recommendations, Reviews, Statistics, Clouds, Gallery, Memes)
3. Profile (Recent activity, tags, comments, members with your books)
4. Your Library
5. Your Tags
6. Add Books
7. Talk
8. Groups
9. Local
10. Search
11. Zeitgeist (Stats, Top Lists)
12. Tools (Widgets, Store)
13. Blog

What area are you most familiar with? What area is your favorite? What area are you curious about? Are there any that you have not really looked at?

I'm going to use the answers to help generate some topics for future posts.

My Answer...

First, I'd like to thank Marie for all the hard work she did on making Tuesday Thingers such a huge success. Second, thanks to Wendi for keeping this going! Both of you are greatly appreciated for everything you do!

Now to this week's question...

I'm not as familiar with LT as I'd like to be. I use the Profile the most - I love seeing how many members have the same books I do and what my Friends are adding to their libraries. The groups page is fun. I love seeing what all the groups are talking about. I also use their widget to show what books I'm currently reading. I also you the Library section and adding books alot, too. There's still so much that LT has to offer and I just haven't had the chance to really look at things over there. Maybe with the long weekend ahead, I'll have more of a chance to explore.

Tuesday Thingers

This week's question...

Today's Question: The LT Home Page feature. How are you liking it? Or not? Do you go here when you log into LT or do you use your profile page more?

My answer...

I think the home page is great. It has everything I want all on one page. I like having the newest forum discussions listed and it's fun to see what's popular this month. The "On this day section" is also quite interesting to read. I don't really read the reviews section and I don't look at the tag section, but everything else is well organized and it's nice to have it all on one page.

Tuesday Thingers

This week's question......

Most of us book bloggers like to write book reviews- if we don't love to write book reviews- but here's today's question. When it comes to LT (and your blog), do you review every book you read? Do you just review Early Reviewers or ARCs? Do you review only if you like a book, or only if you feel like you have to? How soon after reading do you post your review? Do you post them other places- other social networking sites, Amazon, etc.?

My answer...

Yes, I do enjoy writing and reviewing books, although sometimes it gets a bit overwhelming. However, I do enjoy sharing my thoughts on a book. Since I've been blogging, I write reviews of all the books I read whether it was requested by an author or not.

I have to write the reviews right after I read the book and definitely before I start the next book. I just like to write them when the story is still fresh in my mind. Sometimes I'll post a review on Amazon, Shelfari or LT as well. Not always.