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July 2017 Reflection



Now that July is over, it's time for our monthly reflection! July was both a good and bad month for Reading is Inevitable, when considering both the blog and bookstagram. If you are unfamiliar with my monthly reflections, then you can read my explanation below and/or check out the monthly reflections tag.

Basically, these monthly reflections are a way for me to reflect on what we have and have not accomplished for the past month in terms of Reading is Inevitable. I also begin planning for the month ahead, including writing new goals for myself based on what I would like to accomplish. They're a great way for me to continue growing and improving Reading is Inevitable.

Looking Back Into July

The Blog

Unlike last month, where I saw an increase in traffic to the blog (down by 45% because I didn't post much -- oh my!), pageviews actually increased. I'm happy to see that they're improving, having increased by about 77%! (Yay!) I also managed to post every Monday and Friday of July, with the exception of the 14th and 17th of July.

This Month's Posts:
"Navigating Bookstagram - Stories & Tips From a Small(er?) Account - Monthly Challenges"
"June 2017 Reflection"
"Summer 2017 Challenge - Reading Popular YA Books"
"Reading a Letter From 2016 Me"
"2017 Reading Goals Update"
All the Books I Own But Have Not Read (Part 1)
"Navigating Bookstagram - Stories & Tips From a Small(er?) Account - Inactivity"

Bookstagram

As explained in July's last post, a Navigating Bookstagram post titled "Inactivity", we have been inactive on our Instagram page for most of July. As a result, we lost 18 followers and only posted twice

Goals

Fun fact: when writing this post, I almost completely forgot about my goals. I just moved on to August before looking back at June's monthly reflection and remembering that, oh, I make goals each month! (I have no idea what my July goals were...)


  1. Unfortunately, I did not post every Monday and Friday of the month. I did come close, however. I only missed a week of posting (so one Monday and one Friday, or two posts). This is an improvement for me and I hope that I can start to finally keep on track with the blog. 
  2. Whoops. That didn't happen at all. I already mentioned how we didn't post at all on bookstagram. I think it's partially because we were going to try out a new sort of look, but found out that we're not very good at doing that particular look. However, I did figure out a new editing style that I hope to use in August.
  3. We weren't very creative, as we didn't post, but we are taking steps towards being creative. As I think I've talked about in the past, Em and I would like to be more creative with our pictures. I suppose you can see that in the second picture we posted in July, in which some staging had to be thought of. I also started drawing out ideas for picture layouts.

Coming Up in August

The Blog

So far, I only have one post scheduled for August (the part 2 to July's "All the Books I Own But Have Not Read (Part 1)"), but I do have some post ideas that I've been thinking over for some time now. I also think that I'll continue posting twice a week in August, but after that, I might switch over to only Monday posts with the exception of Friday monthly reflections.

Bookstagram

I really hope to start posting again in August. While we don't have many new pictures to share with our followers, I do have some old pictures that we've shared that I have edited to fit our new "theme", of sorts. So I hope that I can trust myself in saying that there will be some posts in August.

Goals




  1. Figure out what to do with blog graphics. Recently, as you may or may not have noticed, I've changed up the way I make my title pictures for each post. While I've started to get a thing going, I'm not quite so sure if I want to stick with this theme or how to shake it up a bit without making each picture too different from the others.
  2. Post regularly on bookstagram. This was a goal of mine from last month, but, since I did not complete this goal, I'm going to try to accomplish it this month.
  3. Post some more book reviews on the blog. I realized that I haven't been posting as many book reviews on the blog in recent times. In fact, the last review on the blog was Emily's from April, and the last one I wrote was published in November! So I think it's about time that I get some more book reviews up. After all, it's not like I stopped reading since then!



That's all for this monthly reflection. Hopefully August will be better, both for the blog (which was fine in July) and the bookstagram (which suffered). And maybe this time I'll actually try to remember my goals. 😉


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This Month's Popular Posts

Quotes: The Nightingale

I realized that, over a year ago, I wrote a post called "Quotes: Audacity" , and that this post did really well (it's actually Reading is Inevitable's most read post!), and yet I never wrote another post of quotes from a book. I liked writing that post, too. I like sharing quotes I like from books. That's why I started doing it on our bookstagram page . So why did I never write another one of these "quote blog posts"? I don't know. But I intend to write at least another one. And that's why I'm here today. Well, there's that, and then there's also the amazing book that is The Nightingale.  If you've read some of my recent blog posts or have poked around a bit, you would know that exactly a month ago I published my book review on The Nightingale , in which I explained my love for it and why you should read it yourself. And while I actually have another post in the works on that book because it definitely deserves more than on...

How to Cure a Reading Slump

When I got out of school this summer, I was excited for a lot of things. One of the things that I was the most excited for was getting the opportunity to read more often. I have a lot of books that I want to read and the thought that I would (hopefully) get to read more of them was thrilling. Only, there was one problem: I wasn't in the mood for reading. We all have these times. They're awful. During these periods of times known to us as "reading slumps", we usually experience a lack of motivation or desire to read. You might find yourself picking up your book, thinking about how much fun you're going to have, and then - bam! - after a few words you feel bored to tears.  I don't know about you, but I absolutely hate it when this happens. So, after quite some time of dealing with this problem, I tested out a few solutions to "curing" a reading slump. Check them out below.

Would You Rather Book Tag

Hello everyone! So, this is my first book tag (yay!). I actually wasn't personally tagged, but I happened to find this tag on two of my favorite book blogs ( Honest Book Talk and Leslie's Library ), and both of them said that they tag anyone who would like to do it, so here I am! This looks like a really fun tag and I'm glad for this one to be my first one! Without further ado, let's begin!

Blog Update - 03.17.17

As some of your probably know already, it was our one year anniversary for our bookstagram and blog this past Sunday! It’s amazing to think that in one year we were able to literally start from nothing to where we are now: 1,500+ followers on Instagram and more than 3,000 pageviews to the blog. We seriously can’t thank you all enough. While our bookstagram certainly has done well, I think I owe an apology to you, our blog readers. I really haven’t kept up with the blog. Heck, my last blog post was back in January. That really isn’t good or fair for your guys. I think I want to change that.