A Little Bit About Me and Why I Started Blogging

Posted August 1, 2012 by Lisa Mandina in / 2 Comments

My 1st book t-shirt idea

August 9th will be my 3rd year blogoversary, and as I feel like I’ve really gotten into the blogging this past year, I’m going to do a whole month celebration. And I figured the most important thing to start with was why I do this in the first place.  A while back I began blogging, mostly as kind of a diary thing.  I talked about all kinds of things, my life, movies, books, tv shows, etc.  It was part of another website, one I’m not sure if I can even log into even more.  I teach middle school kids, and back in 2003 I got my Master’s Degree in library science and information services.  And I also work part time at Barnes and Noble.  I’ve been trying to get a school library position since 2005, but have yet to actually get one.  So the bookstore is one way I kind of get to do what I want, a lot of the time I get to work in the kids department, so it is almost like I’m a school librarian.  And even within my own classroom I’m always talking to my students about what they’re reading, and sharing about what I’m reading and my love of reading.
I moved my blog to Blogspot about 4 years ago.  And I continued kind of with the “diary” style of blogging.  I did do some book reviews and movie reviews still.  One of my friends from the bookstore, who I will be featuring her on Sunday hopefully, was also blogging, and hers was all books.  I really admired her blog, and talked to her all the time about books, so about 3 years ago, I decided to narrow down my blog.  At first I planned to do movies, books, and tv, and that is why my address for my blog is not quite the same as my blog title.  It was about miscellaneous reviews.  When I did decide to change to just books, I named it Lisa Loves Literature.  But I don’t think I’m able to change the web address without losing all my posts, so I’m stuck with what it is for now.  I only know basic html, so that is one reason that I love Blogspot.  It makes it really easy for me to blog.  About a year ago I decided to pay someone to create my background, and that was Amber Laha.  I wanted a girl, with lots of books, with a dachshund.  My dachshund at the time was my Sydney, who I lost last January.  I do have another dachshund now though named Dora.  And I debate on either changing the dog picture to look more like Dora, or maybe to just add another one, so I can leave the Sydney dog.
I really got into reviewing when I was helping our state library association, MASL, choose books for their yearly award nominees.  This was a great way to keep track of my thoughts for the final rating, as well as I could share with my students my thoughts on what I’d read.  Then I remember finding that on Twitter, there were lots of authors.  Every time I read a new book, and liked it, I would look for that author on Twitter and follow them.  Oftentimes they would follow back, and that was the coolest thing in the world to me!  My  new motto was that authors are my rock stars.  (Which fits in well with the hop I’m participating in this month!)  Some authors I may not have read at the time I started following, but I followed them because I saw their books were popular in the Teen department.  And I’ve tried to read at least one of their books since that point.  I do still have a few I need to read one of their books.
I now blog mainly for my love of books.  I love to read, and I love to talk about what I’ve read.  I have a couple friends I can talk to about my books, and I do love to share my knowledge at the bookstore when I get a chance with customers, or at school with my students.  But in the book blogging world, I’ve found my kind of people.  I have met some of the nicest people, and get to talk books ALL the time with them!  And they don’t think I’m weird when I talk the way I do about books and book characters.  I also have gotten some awesome opportunities to meet authors!!  I’ve been getting “free” books with ARCs as long as I’ve been working at a bookstore, I think about 10 years total between B. Dalton and Barnes and Noble.  But I’ve had a chance to win actual books from my fellow bloggers, and that has been great!  As well as learning of Netgalley, and when I got my Nook, all the e-galleys I get to read.  I honestly have only purchased about 5 or 6 books for my Nook, mostly what I read on there are e-galleys.  And the Shelf Awareness newsletter where I can keep up on the book world news as well as often get chances to get ARCs as well.
I hope you’ll all keep up with me this month.  I’m going to try to post every other day, if not every day.  My Lazy Days of Summer Giveaway will end tonight at midnight.  And I know for sure my big giveaway will start on the 9th, with other giveaways spread throughout the month.  Thanks for following me, and giving me blogs to follow back, I’ve learned about so many books I may never have known about thanks to you guys!

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2 responses to “A Little Bit About Me and Why I Started Blogging

  1. Thanks for sharing about the beginning of your blog-it seems like a lot of the bloggers I know are celebrating their third (not surprising since I have my third blogoversary coming up in November). I like your blog design-it sounds very true to you and it's super cute as well!

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