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Saturday, April 3, 2010

Saturday Spotlight - Love To Read For Fun

Today I have an adult blogger who works full-time (I hear you on trying to balance blogging and real life!) and still maintains a spectacular blog. Learn more about Marquetta below!

Name: Marquetta
Nickname and/or blog name: Love To Read For Fun
Blog URL: http://lovetoreadforfun.blogspot.com



Tell me a bit about yourself.
I'm married and have an 11 yr old son. I work full-time which makes trying to be a book blogger kind of scary. I'm worried I won't have the time to dedicate to it to make it great. My hobbies are reading and watching television but I'm not a couch potato (not too much anyway). I'm currently training for my first 5k race. It's taking longer than expected but I'll eventually get there. I love reading. I became an avid reader when I was 12 yrs old. I started reading my friend's older sister's Harlequin romance novels. Ever since then I was hooked. That's why I am a romance junkie. When I read, the world around me does not exist. I feel like I'm inside the pages of that book. I love the feel of turning the pages with my fingers. I love dog-earing pages to hold my place (I don't believe in bookmarks). I love the smell of books. But I've recently jumped on the e-reader craze. I got a Kindle for Christmas and I absolutely love it! I never thought I would. I still read print. Kindle makes it so easy. Too easy. I'm always restraining myself from downloading books on a daily basis.


When and why did you start your blog?
The way I started my blog is kind of crazy. I started off with my family blog. I would post pictures and write updates regarding my family. One day, out of boredom, I started searching Blogger for other blogs, just to see what was out there and maybe to get ideas on what I wanted my blog to look like. I stumbled upon The Chick Manifesto in January 2009 and she was hosting a Reading Challenge called 'Read the Good Trash Movement". It was a reading challenge where you had to pick 12 V.C. Andrews books to read. I thought it sounded fun and I used to read V.C. Andrews when I was in middle school. Once I signed up for that challenge, I started looking for more book blogs to find new authors and books to read. During the summer I signed for another challenge. I was still blogging about my family with a little book review for the challenges mixed in. In September, during Banned Book Week, I decided to read some of the books that had been challenged during 2008. I thought, for myself, that it would be a good idea to write about my reactions and thoughts about whichever book I read. I soon found myself starting to write "reviews" for every book I read. It got to the point that my Family blog was turning into a book blog. That's when I decided to bite the bullet and create my own separate book blog. I didn't want to have to manage another blog but I decided it would be the best thing to do. I'm sure my family, looking for updated posts about my son, didn't want to scroll through tons of book reviews and reading challenges to get to what they wanted to see.


What is your blog all about? Any cool features you want to share?
My blog is basically my favorite hobby - reading. I read a lot to escape, relax and for fun (hence my blog name). I figured the blog would be for me only and no one would really look at it. But then I started commenting on other blogs and that allowed other bloggers to take a peek at mine. As of now, I don't have any cool features. I'm still farely new at this and I'm feeling my way around. I did create my own Reading Challenge before I started Love To Read For Fun. It's called the Banned Book Challenge. My goal next September is to host this challenge and make it public to everyone. I had my first giveaway earlier this year - 150 followers contest. It was a great success. I gave away the Fade trilogy by Lisa McMann and the first 3 books of the Midnight Breed series by Lara Adrian. I recently started a monthly giveaway called Knocked My Socks Off. Each month I give away a book that I've read and given a 5 star review. My first give away was earlier this month. I gave away Dare To Surrender by Lilli Feisty. This month I've read several good books. It's going to be difficult to chose which book I want to give away. The contest is currently for US residents only as I am giving away my own copy of the book but I may change that in the future.


What are some of your favorite genres and/or books currently?
I love romance. My favorite author is Nora Roberts. In November I met her at a book signing. It totally made my year. I'm trying to branch out and read other genres. It's difficult because I know what I like and the worse thing for me is to read a bad book. I'm trying to decided if my blog will have a genre them - where I only read and review Romance. Or am I going to profile books from all genres? I've been wanting to expand my reading palette and having this blog will give me the chance to do so.


How do you find out about the books you read?
I normally find out about the books by going to the bookstore or Target of all places. I only follow Nora Roberts book releases. I mark them on my Blackberry calendar. Haha! I'm going to try to be more in the book world now that I have this blog. Twitter is also a good source of information and other book blogs. I'm bad with keeping up with release dates. I don't read author's blogs. I normally accidentally find out that a book is released when I'm at Borders or other stores.

Any tips or advice for those starting or thinking about starting a blog?
I don't know if I have any tips per se. I started completely by accident. I say if you're going to start one, make sure you're willing to commit to the time you have to put into it. I think I spent over week trying to find backgrounds and templates for my blog. I'm still not happy with what I have. I never thought it would be that difficult to pick out a background! I finally decided to have a blog makeover by Rachel @Parajunkee's View. I love the new look! She was great and it was so easy. My blog is pretty elementary compared to what I've seen and read. I'd love to learn more about HTML so that I can tweak my blog a little more. I'm hoping by this time next year, I will have this book blogging thing down to a science. Right now, I'm still feeling my way through.


Thank you Marquetta for stopping by! I absolutely love the new look! Stop by her blog to see how marvelous it is!


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6 comments:

  1. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  2. Ah this seems like so much fun! Great interview with her. :) I think I just found yet another blog I'd like to follow. I've been lurking around and reading some of your reviews and I think your blog is great.

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  3. Really great interview. I like Marquetta's blog so it was nice to learn more about her!

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  4. Great interview!

    Thanks for finding a new blogger for me to follow :)

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  5. Great interview! I got a blog makeover from Parajunkee too and loved it!

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  6. I love to get books at Target too! I always make a point while gettting groceries to look at the books. And I agree about the time required for blogging, it can be a lot and takes away from my reading time.

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