There's Gunta Be Some Changes 'Round Here!

You may have noticed that of late there have been some changes around LibrariYAn. About a month ago, I attended KidLitCon, a gathering of kid lit bloggers. In addition to meeting some great bloggers, I walked away with new thoughts and ideas about the purpose of my blog and my vision for its future.

And so, the changes that I've made or that are in-process...

1. New background and altered layout: I've had basically the same setup since I began this blog almost a year ago. I felt like I need to mix things up and revisit the organization and aesthetic of the blog. So, there's a new background, a new header, and a few other changes to pretty it up a bit.

2. I'm an Amazon Associate: Since I began this blog, whenever I mentioned a book, I would link to its Amazon page, to provide readers a chance to read other product reviews/summaries, and offer a quick and easy way for interested parties to purchase said book. There I was referring people to Amazon, but what I didn't know was that I could make a small - very very small - amount of commission off of my referrals by registering as an Amazon Associate. So now, I have special links in my posts and also an Amazon search box on my blog that earn me a tiny bit of money, should you go from my blog and purchase something (anything!) from Amazon. In order to be in compliance with FTC regulations, you'll also see I note my participation in this program at the bottom of each post. Feel free to access Amazon through my blog any time you're interested in making a purchase!

3. Nonfiction Monday Meme: I haven't done this one yet, but I'm planning to start up this week. As a first-round judge for the Cybils, I've been reading an awful lot of nonfiction lately. At the conference, a bunch of folks talked about getting involved in memes* as a great way to get involved in the blogging community and drive traffic to one's own blog. So, I figured that blogging about the nonfiction books I've been reading and posting these as part of Nonfiction Monday is a no-brainer. If all goes well, I just might look into participating in other memes!

And well, I guess that's about it. I'm pretty excited about these changes. I'm so excited that I also got myself some FREE business cards at VistaPrint** which feature my blog address and contact info. I plan to hand out them out to publishers and librarians at conferences and the like.

See you on Monday!

* A meme is basically a regularly scheduled blogging prompt. A bunch of bloggers all create posts on the same topic/question to raise awareness, promote discussion, connect with others and/or have something to post about.

** Shout-out to librarian extraordinaire April Bunn for suggesting this to me ages ago.