2017 Blog Goals & Giveaway!

Happy 2017! Come celebrate putting 2016 behind us and starting fresh in 2017! We will each share our 2017 Blog Goals as well as some personal facts and figures for being better readers, bloggers, and all around fangirls! We hope you will enjoy reading our successes as well as help us dig ourselves out of our pitfalls in 2017, but overall just enjoying our little blogging niche. And to say thanks to all of our readers we have an awesome giveaway for you — so read to the end!

Can you believe 2017 is our 5th year of blogging! 5 years y’all! Every year we grow a little more, change things up, and hope to keep entertaining everyone with our love of books. Our 2 biggest changes this year came towards the end where we brought on Kelli and Nicole to join us as they left their previous blogs. So please welcome them with open hearts.

2016 was a strange year for all of us at BookCrushin, but putting our personal issues aside we still rocked our blog! We posted 407 blog posts in 2016, the most we have ever posted in one year and 40 more than 2015! Go Team BookCrushin! After a year of Instagramming my butt off, I posted 215 pics and we have over 1500 followers! I think I personally like instagram the best out of any social media platform that I run, and I hope to continue to be inspired to take pretty pics. Thank you all for the likes, comments and continued support.

So here are our personal goals below & I hope you enjoy reading books with us in 2017! 

 

Kelly’s 2017 Blog Goals:

WOW, 2016 was a chore. The end being way worse than the beginning. However, I am strangely looking forward to 2017, if for nothing other than being able to actually say my reading is my escape from reality and I need it more than ever!

Each year I up my goodreads challenge by at least 5 books, and this year I squeaked by and completed 96 books of 95! So if I math correctly my goal this year is 100 books! 2016’s goal wasn’t easy to accomplish, but I know I had 2 months this year where I read barely 3 books (thanks ACoMaF!), and next year I will be working hard to accomplish my goal. I always wanted to be one of those exceptional people who could read hundreds of books.  I also think that if  I stop re-reading so many books (I re-read at last count 14 books!) and focus on reading more new titles I will kick this goals ass.

Does anyone else get jealous by the end of the year of all the books you didn’t read? Yes? Me too. So this year I decided to ask my bloggers which books did they wish they read in 2016 & plan to in 2017. Here is my abbreviated list!

Books I wish I read in 2016 that I plan to tackle in 2017: 

1. Last Seen Leaving by Caleb Roehrig – I started this one before YallFest, but then the book got packed up onto my shelves after it was signed because I have this weird phobia about reading my signed books. One thing I will definitely try to overcome this year!

2. The Raven King by Maggie Stiefvater – So I am obsessed with Maggie & her books, but I was scared to finish this series and I want to re-read (oh no!) the first 3 books before reading the finale. Sometimes it is so hard to say goodbye that I just ignore it for a while!

3. Starflight by Melissa Landers – I loved everything about the plot of this book, and I WILL READ IT!

4. The Rose & the Dagger (The Wrath & the Dawn, #2) by Renee Ahdieh – Just avoiding endings again! What is wrong with me?!

5. Boy Robot by Simon Curtis – This book sounds beautiful and heartbreaking and I will read it, even if it brings me to tears.

Goals:

You can read what our goals for 2016 were, but I will basically say that I half-assed my goals from last year. I did not review all my arc backlist from 2015, nor did I review everything from 2016. So being realistic, in 2017 I vow to write at least a sentence for every book I read on goodreads. I would like to continue to try and bring our Netgalley reviewer rating up to 80%, it is already way better than last year.

Once again, I need to restrict my book buying. I really really want to tackle my backlist of books I already own! So I will try to only buy physical books this year if they are signed or to be signed, ones that come in my subscription boxes, or to complete series that I already own (because thx OCD!), as well as my MUST HAVES from my favorite authors, but nothing was going to stop me from buying & reading those anyway. I am happy to say that by the very end of 2016, I DID organize my bookshelves & I have added 3 new bookshelves to my library! So yay a 2016 goal completed! I still plan to reduce and organize some more but hell yeah it is done!

I also semi-completed my goodreads clean-up goal from 2016; I deleted 352 books from my to-read shelf and I have plans to delete a whole lot more! I started at my oldest shelved books, and if I don’t own the book, I deleted it. I hope to keep more accurate account of what books I do own by using shelves on goodreads as well. I also started adding more tags, and this year due to stupid re-reads I am going to tag each book I read in 2017 as such, so even if they are not in my challenge I can count realistically.

Best blogging or bookish moment of 2016:

One of my best bookish moments of 2016 was going to YallFest. I have been coveting that festival and this year I drove 12 hours there & back in my 4 day adventure. I met so many amazing people in person, like Christy from Tales of the Ravenous Reader blog, the entire Owlcrate team, and being around so many other crazy book nerds was a blast. I also fangirled over every damn author and acted like a tool, but IDGAF because I had a blast! Another favorite bookish moment was being invited to a blogger panel at Barnes & Noble’s 1st annual B-Fest a YA book celebration. It was a lot of fun to talk shop with other bloggers and potential bloggers. My final favorite moment (of too many to list) was meeting Maggie Stiefvater at BEA. BEA/BookCon was pretty awesome, although hectic and backbreaking (literally books are heavy!) but meeting Maggie for the first time ever was my number 1 thing I wanted to accomplish so that was epic.

Changes to the blog:

I think we need to start posting more on weekends. For some reason we have barely done weekend posts and research shows that people do visit on weekends, so we should probably start sharing some fresh content as well. Speaking of fresh content, I think we need some, now for inspiration to hit! I still plan to undertake that massive project of creating a master list of all reviewed books and trying to keep it up to date. Oh and my final blog goal for 2017 is to make some header graphics, because I made this one & its basic but it works!

 

Shannon’s 2017 Blog Goals:

As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, 2016 was a bit of a blur for me. The champagne hangover was just wearing off from New Year’s Eve when I found out I was pregnant. So my year saw me pregnant, tired, and hungry. So my lofty reading goals fell by the wayside. I originally planned to read 40 books in 2016 and I read a measly 30, well 31 if you count the book I am reading now and should finish up before the clock strikes 12 on New Years 2017. Having a baby is no joke, so I am going to be realistic and set my reading goal for next year at 35 books. I can barely finish a Glamour Magazine so this should be interesting, thank God for waterproof iPad cases and the 20 minute baths I take aka “me time.”

Here is a short list of books I wish I had the time to have read in 2017 and hope to tackle in 2017:

1. Illuminae by Jay Kristoff & Amie Kaufmann- I met Jay and Amie at a book signing and they are such lovely people. Not to mention this book is just so interesting but as a hardcover it’s a beast! I hope to tackle it soon.

2. The Last Star (The 5th Wave #3) by Rick Yancey – I LOVE this series but I am so apprehensive about reading the conclusion that I think I am avoiding it on an almost subconsious level but really it’s time to wrap this one up.

3. Refuge (Relentless #2) by Karen Lynch – I was introduced to this series by Kelly & Sara and I loved book #1 so I really want to get back to this one asap and have a feeling it will be one I tackle early in the year.

4. Vengeance Road by Erin Bowman – I met this author at Yallwest and while waiting in line to have the book signed a fellow book lover raved about this book. Those are always the best endorsements.

5. Passenger (Passenger #1) by Alexandra Braken – I started this one earlier in the year but got distracted and forgot to go back to it. It’s an intriguing premise so I hope to hop back into it.

Best blogging or bookish moment of 2016:
For me getting to attend YallWest again this year was a huge treat. I once again got to meet so many lovely authors and fellow book lovers. The YA community is so encouraging and supportive just being around so many fellow book lovers really energizes me. I also love to meet lesser known authors and get exposed to new books.

Changes to the blog:
Since I am in a book club that reads non-YA books, I think it would be cool to spotlight books that are outside of the YA/NA sphere that we think are just good reads. For example, Dark Matter and Me Before You were exceptional reads for me but they are not the typical books we cover. So it may be fun to have a section that covers other genres from time to time.

Other ideas:
We could have a Siskel and Ebert type post featuring a book that one of us loved but the other hated and it can be a dialogue around our thoughts and how they differ. For example, that book Apolonia that Jamie McGuire wrote I gave it one star but Kelli Spear gave it like 5,  so we could have fun and debate it.

 

Sara’s 2017 Blog Goals:

My reading goal for 2017 is going to be minuscule. I experienced a reading block unlike any other in my life during 2016 and it scarred me, so I am setting low expectations for 2017. Twenty-five books is my goal. Yup, that’s it. One book, every two weeks. I should be able to handle that. I also want to make sure I’m recording what I read, so I downloaded the Goodreads app (still not sure about it) and have a lovely journal that my oldest got me for Christmas that I can use to track everything.

I honestly don’t know how many books I read this year in 2016. My goal was ridiculously huge—250! Whatever. I read 250 pages somewhere. I recorded my books read from January through half of March and that total was 33, so let’s pretend I made it to 50 for the year.

My blogging goals are simple:

1. Review more.

2. Catch up on those outstanding reviews—you know, books I read that I’ve not reviewed, that I was supposed to review.

3. Stop being the only blogger at BookCrushin who hasn’t read all the Sarah J. Maas books. Yes, this is a serious goal.

4. Keep up with First Lines Fridays as much as possible.

That’s it! Thanks for reading and happy new year! May 2017 be a billion times better than 2016!

Best Bookish Moments:

I had two amazing bookish moments in 2016. The first moment was Roanoke Author Invasion, which Kelly and I attended together. It was my first book event, and it was a fantastic experience. There was such an incredible feeling of community, and it was so awesome to meet all my book friends in real life. I also got to meet several of my favorite YA authors, like Karen Lynch, Melissa Haag, S.T. Bende, Laura Howard, Casey Bond, and so many others. It was a total fangirl experience and I loved it!

The second experience was UtopiaCon and man, what an experience that was. I drove from Virginia to Tennessee which, with my three kids, took almost 13 hours. However, it was well worth it because not only did I get to meet even more of my incredible book friends, I also got to meet the incredibly elusive Ednah Walters, who was just as amazing in person as she is on social media. I also got to meet Nikki Jefford and Stacey Marie Brown, two more favorites. And, my kids and I got to meet and stay with the gracious Raye Wagner, whose kindness is rivaled only by her writing talent.

I’m looking forward to RAI ’17 and maybe Penned Con this year, if I can convince Kelly she has to attend with me. We’ll see . . .

 

Kelli’s 2017 Blog Goals:

My 2016 reading goal was 150 books; and I surpassed it at 194. My goal for this year is 175.

I think we need new feature ideas, one I’ve been trying to tweak since joining is the ‘Mad Libs’ review idea, but would require participation from followers. 

My best bookish moment of 2016 was going to BookCon and finally meeting Jennifer Niven!! Ever since reading ATBP I had wanted to speak to her about how much it had meant to me. I didn’t have many (if any) failures! I met my Goodreads goal. But, I would like to attend more signing events in 2017. I was pretty anti-social and lazy in 2016. I really think I need to be better about meeting and speaking to authors WITHOUT blubbering and fangirling (if that last one is possible!). 

Books I wish I’d read in 2016 that I plan/hope to tackle in 2017:

1. Last Seen Leaving by Caleb Roehrig

2. Dark Matter by Blake Crouch

3. The Hating Game by Sally Thorne 

4. The Midnight Star by Marie Lu

5. Kids of Appetite by David Arnold

 

Nicole’s 2017 Blog Goals:

I’d like to start with my 2016 Goodreads reading challenge, which I started out as 100, but lowered during the year to 50. I was afraid I couldn’t even do that much, but in December, despite being very busy, I managed to hit and even pass my goal, with 54 books. To be honest, I read maybe 10 more than that, but since Goodreads doesn’t count rereads, I couldn’t add those to this list.

In 2017, I am again starting out with 100 and hopefully I’ll manage it. I have waaaaay to many unreads books both on my physical and virtual tbr, so hopefully I’ll make a big dent in those. I’m not participating any other challenge this year, because I’d like to read more for fun.

 

2016 was a busy year for me. I changed all my blogging presence, as in names, platforms, everything. I went self-hosted but somehow I still didn’t have the time to review more books, which is probably my biggest failure from last year. I noticed as the years has been going on, I’ve been feeling a bigger stress with reviewing and it’s driving me away from it. I closed my own blog, and joined BookCrushin, now I don’t feel the same pressure while I can still do what I love. My biggest goal is to return to how I used to review books, when I was more critical in what I wrote. Another thing I’d like to achieve is to up my Netgalley ratio to 80%. Right now it’s on 66%, so I feel like it won’t be that hard.

There are some awesome books that came out in 2016, and these few are the ones I most anticipated but still haven’t gotten to. No worries though, I’ll read these in 2017.

1. Gemina by Amie Kaufman & Jay Kristoff

2. Crooked Kingdom by Leigh Bardugo

3. Labyrinth Lost by Zoraida Córdova

4. This Savage Song by Victoria Schwab

5. Passenger by Alexandra Bracken

I also started bullet journaling because I waste so much time on social media and other various apps on my phone, and I need this to change. Or maybe up my game and make a living of it. I’m very proud of my Instagram account and all that I’ve achieved with it so far, so maybe I’ll be focusing on it more and more.

So this is all for me, I hope you all have an kickass year!

 

Giveaway:

For a chance to win your choice of a signed book from our giveaway pile*, just leave us a meaningful comment below, about your reading goals for 2017 or comment on our goals! Contest is open internationally, however winner will have a choice of a book from Book Depository if BD ships to you. Sorry we can no longer ship overseas as it has become too cumbersome. This giveaway will close on 1/14/17 at midnight and will be contacted by email with 72 hours to claim prize. All giveaways are provided by BookCrushin and we are not responsible for lost or damaged mail. Winners have 72 hours to claim prizes by email.

*Giveaway pile is subject to change – may have more titles to choose from than pictured (many non-signed books available too!) – some books may be remainders (like from bookoutlet or slightly used)