I’m going to start this post by briefly talking about an exciting event here at Doing Dewey. I’ve gone self-hosted! With some googling, I’ve learned how to move my wordpress.com, e-mail, Bloglovin’, and feedburner RSS followers over. This post itself will be a test of whether or not that’s moved my feedly followers over or if they will have to move manually. Otherwise, everything is back to normal or better! Some of the features I’m most excited about are: embedded link-ups and rafflecopter giveaways; commentluv; e-mail alerts when I respond to comments; and the scroll bar below posts showing related content. Next challenge – updating my layout! Now, on to some more general blogging events I think you guys will love…
Covers On the Silver Screen: Monuments Men Read-a-long – January
Covers On the Silver Screen is an event created by Jennifer at Bookalicious Mama. Throughout the year, she’ll be hosting read-a-longs of books being turned into movies. Since I’m co-hosting the Book to Movie Challenge, I was very excited about this event and asked Jennifer if I could help co-host this event. She graciously agreed. So over the four weeks of January, we’ll be taking turns hosting discussion posts as we read through Monuments Men before it hits the screen. If you’re interested, you can sign-up using (Doing Dewey’s first ever embedded) linky below: [inlinkz_linkup id=351130]
Bout of Books Read-a-thon 9.0 – Jan 6th-12th
Bout of Books is a week long read-a-thon that occurs three times every year. It includes challenges, twitter chats, and giveaways. It’s a great read-a-thon for a busy time of year, since the goal is simply to read a little more than you would otherwise. Sign-ups are here. I will be joining in and hosting a challenge 🙂
Way of Kings Read-a-long – Jan 1st-March 5th
Hosted by Anya at On Starships and Dragon Wings and Nrlymrtl at Dab of Darkness, this read-a-long includes many discussion posts and finishes up with a great giveaway. Although I won’t be reading along on schedule since I’ve already started The Way of Kings audiobook, I will be joining for the discussions. Sign-ups are here.
Tamara
So PROUD of you! I can’t wait to see all the changes that will be happening!
And my, my, the challenges- what fun! I might be joining in some!
DoingDewey
Thanks Tamara! I’m enjoying playing around with the changes I can make a lot 🙂
Charlotte @ Thoughts and Pens
YAHOOO! Congratz for taking the leap, Katie. You will never regret moving to WordPress.org. All the things that you can do with your blog while being self-hosted is just awesome. I hope you’re having a blast.
Looking forward to your new design. <3
And OMG, you're participating in a lot of challenges. 2014 would be a busy year for you then. 😀 And hey, I might participate The Way of Kings Read-a-Long. I am a new Sanderson fan now. I just hope that that monster of a book will deliver. It's more than 1000 pages right? Bahahaha.
I'm heading to Anya's blog now. Thanks, Katie!
Advance Merry Christmas! Congratz again. 😀
DoingDewey
Thanks Charlotte! I’ve been enjoying myself a lot 🙂 I actually haven’t narrowed down my list for challenges yet, but I will hopefully be posting a finalized list in the next few days. It will still probably be a lot though!
If you end up reading The Way of Kings, I hope you enjoy it as much as I am now. Merry Christmas to you too!
tanya
I knew something was different! Congratulations on self-hosting. It’s pretty exciting. And I’m even more impressed that you got all your RSS feeds moved over successfully.
DoingDewey
Thanks! To get wordpress followers moved over, I had to wait on the wordpress staff. They were actually quite speedy, within 12 hours of my request, but I was pretty nervous for those 12 hours! I was sure I’d have to start all over without any followers. I was very glad when I had everything moved over 🙂
Sam Tule
Wooo congrats on self-hosting!! I’m looking forward to Bout of Books…that’s always a good time.
DoingDewey
Thanks! I’m excited for Bout of Books to. Read-a-thons are one of my favorite parts of blogging 🙂
Jennine G.
Very cool – looks great! This is my goal for 2014…to improve my blog with a complete overhaul. My husband is finishing up his website, so I’m going to piggy back off of his hopefully! Lol.
DoingDewey
Thank you! 🙂 Good luck with your blog overhaul! I hope the transition goes very smoothly.
Rebecca @ Love at First Book
Congrats and welcome to self-hosting!!!!
DoingDewey
Thanks Rebecca! I’m excited to try out all the new things I can do 🙂
Alice in Readerland
I’ll have to check these events out, I’ve been seeing so many cool events but have always been a bit shy about joining, maybe I will in 2014! 🙂
Happy reading!
DoingDewey
Oh, you should! Bookish events are one of my favorite parts of blogging. Everyone gets very social and it’s a great way to meet people 🙂
Andi (Estella's Revenge)
Congrats on the move! And I cannot wait for Bout of Books 9.0!
DoingDewey
Thanks Andi 🙂 I’m excited for Bout of Books too!
C.J.
Congrats on making the switch! I keep hearing how worthwhile it is to self-host, but haven’t figured out if and when I want to do it.
DoingDewey
Thanks! I’m excited to experiment with all the new things I can do 🙂
Laurie C
The blog looks great! I’m self-hosted WordPress, too, and I’ve been very happy with it. I’ve been putting together a little list for the Mini Bloggiesta coming up on Jan 25-26 of some things I want to work on.
DoingDewey
Thanks Laurie! I’d still like to do some more updating of the layout once I’ve put a bit more thought into the changes I want to make, but I’m already having tons of fun with plugins since I started self-hosting! I’ll be interested to see what updates you make for Bloggiesta. Perhaps it will give me some ideas 🙂