Feature & Giveaway: BookCrushin’s 2020 Blog Goals

Crushed on by kelly, on January 18, 2020, in Blogging, Feature, Giveaways / 9 Comments

Feature & Giveaway: BookCrushin’s 2020 Blog Goals

It is hard to believe it’s 2020, but even more how much we have grown over the last7 years and how much more room there is for improvement in our 8th year blogging. Goals are meant to guide us and challenge us to accomplish new and big things. So below Team BookCrushin shares each of our personal bookish goals for the year!

Check out what our 2019 Blog Goals as neither of us want to even rehash all that, and we both did a 6 month check in post, if you want to see that.

I will also share some blog stats and accomplishments for y’all…

Blog Stats

Blog Accomplishments

  • Welcomed Jana to the team!
  • Started an Events Calendar for both San Francisco Bay Area & Philadelphia Metro Area!
  • Team BookCrushin went to SDCC!
  • Third anniversary of #SignedBookSundays challenge on instagram!

copyright Goodreads.com

Kelly’s Bookish Goals

Wow…so I didn’t accomplish most of my 2019 goals, but I almost never do accomplish all I set out to do. I also had a really hard year personally. My own health has degraded, as I suffer from chronic illness which in turn affects other parts of my body and life especially as I age (ugh). We also had a lot of health issues come up with our aging dogs, aka my family, and we lost one to cancer, so it was a rough 2019 for us. However, blogging and my bookish community was a light in my darkness and I loved having their support and having blogging as a constant as well as a distraction. I did complete my goodreads challenge and my beat the backlist challenge. So now I will try and set some reasonable goals for myself in 2020.

  • Read 135 books: In 2019 I read 130 books with a goal of 120 books, and for 2020 I set my goal at 135 in hopes I will crush it again, but still want to be reasonable. In the past I only upped my goal by 5 books a year, but this year, I am being brave and going with 15! I read more and more each year and that is my ultimate goal.
  • Backlist Books: I would like to up my challenge to be more like 35%, which would be about 45 books, so a tiny increase, but I read 48 backlist books in 2019, which was about 37%. So totally do-able, especially with the amount of books releasing each year, it is just a never ending cycle.
  • Finish Series: I have to make this a goal because TBH, I hate endings and I hate series endings more. In the past it was because I was always feeling let down by endings, but now it is more of a “I just want to finish!” No matter if it doesn’t live up.
  • Varied Genres: I loved the adult books I read in 2019, so I want to make it a point to read more adult books, and other varied genres as well.
  • Review Books: Ok…If you read my blog or if you know me…I actually loathe reviewing. So since this is a goal I fail, every single year, I decided to alter my goal. I want to prioritize reviewing favorite books, and books I feel passionately about (good or bad). Something I did a really good job at was doing reactionary reviews on goodreads when I updated my books to completed. I think these help others and my friends know more about me as a reader, and even though it isn’t a professional review…it is something I can work from later if I need to.
  • Bookstagram: Be better at taking more pics ahead of time, try more photo challenges consistently. Try and do more stories! I technically posted one more time than last year – 292 vs 291, ha, so yeah this year hopefully I will do more like 300+ posts. I’d also love to grow my account.
  • Twitter: I want to be more active on twitter again…I feel like I mostly retweet and I know this is helpful but also I need to use the site more.
  • Tracking My Bookish Life: This includes better tracking genres, other book reading stats, and the dreaded bookish spending. Of course, I have failed at tracking my spending because it’s frightening, but it is also my only real hobby and splurge. I am committed to it this year. I will journal and use my reading planner, and maybe some technology.

2020 Reading Challenge

2020 Reading Challenge
kelly has read 5 books toward her goal of 135 books.
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Christy’s Bookish Goals

Last year, I met my goal of reading 200 books (I read 296!), reading backlist books, being more choosy about the books I buy, using the library more, starting a cookbook club, and posting regular Comic Crush posts. I kind of failed at reviewing books but I did better by doing short reviews for everything I read. Balancing reviews and actual reading is tough and I chose what brought me joy. Check out my goals for 2020!

  • Read 200 books: This is my standard goal that I hope to exceed!
  • Monthly backlist read + Book Rewind post: This is a carry-over goal from last year. I have sooooo many unread backlist books (especially audiobooks now that I’ve been without access to my Audible library). I would like to continue to get through them.
  • Monthly adult thrillers: I love adult thrillers SO MUCH and I need to read more of them. This is part of a larger goal to read more of what I want rather than what I feel the need to read.
  • Read all my existing graphic novels: Haaaa I have so many unread graphic novels. I need to get through them!
  • Post on bookstagram 3-5x a week: Look, I admit – Bookstagram is my least favorite way to engage with the book community. I don’t find joy in looking at pictures of books. I find the interactive portions to be very transactional. So I want to post less. Only when I am feeling like it.

Just putting it out in the world – I’d love to moderate or be part of a -con panel. I don’t have a lot of control over this so it’s not a goal but it’s my dream to be part of something at SDCC, WonderCon, or Fanime.


Jana’s Bookish Goals

2019 was a crazy year. I had a few bookish goals but want to refine mine a bit more than last year.

  • Reading Goal: For 2019 I Read 289 and my goal was 140, so this year I set my goal at 200 with the hopes to exceed it. 
  • Backlist books: Last year I wanted to read all my 2018 books I had on my TBR shelf that I got from bookish boxes. Well I did all but three books. This years backlist book goal is to read at least two of my TBR shelf books per month.
  • Blogging: Last year’s goal was to not only contribute to BookCrushin but to learn to write my own blog posts. Now that I know how, I want to be a better contributor, to consistently give more to my team. A goal I am working towards is eventually having my own Paranormal/ Urban Fantasy/PNR/Adult biweekly posts on the blog (also coming up with a name for that feature).
  • Genres: In the past I read a lot of Urban Fantasy and adult reads, but last year I mainly read YA books and expanded my genres to reading almost everything and not just Fantasy YA any more. This year I hope to catch up/read more Urban Fantasy books and start some new Urban Fantasy authors I’ve been meaning to read for a while.
  • Book reviews: This year I want to get better at even just posting a quick sentence review when I finish my books and then substitute them with full reviews sooner rather than later. 
  • Bookstagram: I would like to keep posting what I love. I mainly post what I have recently read or books I recently got. Numbers wise I would like to do 5 posts a week.
  • Spending: I need to keep an eye on what I am spending on more. 
  • Events: I went to a lot of book events last year and plan to again, but I do plan to go to more I want to read and less I want to want to read. I plan to go to a few book festivals as well (YANOVCON, YALLWEST, Ontario book fest, and SDCC). I am going to do my first panel moderating at YANOVCON this month and am hoping to do more!

Giveaway

Leave a meaningful comment about our goals, our 2019 progress…or a bookish goal of yours and you can win any book up to $20 from Book Depository – Open International as long as BD ships to you. Giveaway closes on 1-28-2020.

Must leave a comment to be eligible to win, please be sure the email you use to leave the comment is valid, as that is how we will contact you if you win. Winner has 72 hours to respond or another winner may be chosen.

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9 responses to “Feature & Giveaway: BookCrushin’s 2020 Blog Goals

  1. Danielle Hammelef

    I love that you all are going to try to read more of the genres you enjoy most. I am trying to do the same and am currently reading A Beginning at the End, an adult dystopian, which is new to me and I’m enjoying it so far. I have set my reading goal of 100 books, which is the same as last year. I did exceed my goal, and hope to do the same this year and post as many reviews for authors as I can. Good luck, ladies, with your goals!

  2. openbooksandturnpages

    My bookish goal is to read 100 books. I set my goodreads reading challenge to 50 books but I’m going to try to reach 100. And I would like to try to write more book reviews.

  3. John Smith

    I don’t own copies of them (yet?), but I need to catch up on a lot of graphic novels–the latest Posy Simmonds, and the latest books in the “Amulet” and “Five Worlds” series! And I hope to find all sorts of wonderful fantasy-adventure audiobooks!

  4. cyborgcinderella

    My bookish goal this year is to focus more on the quality of the books I read rather than the quantity, so I’ve set my Goodreads goal at 1 book to take the pressure off and allow myself to DNF any books when I need to.

  5. Mora

    My reading goals in terms of amount of books are very tentative because my life and schedule are very subject to change, but in general I want to read more recommendations from friends, as well as more diverse books (eg with queer or POC or disability rep).

  6. Nadeen

    I really enjoyed reading about your bookstagram goals and how they vary. I recently started my own bookstagram and it’s been a fun way to interact and engage with other book nerds. I hope to grow it and branch out of bookstagram this year! I also loved seeing your reading goals. Mine is way lower with only 50 books but I hope to exceed it if possible! Good luck to all of you on each and every goal you’ve set! (:

  7. Jenny

    Love these goals! For me, I’m attempting to use this year to just catch up on all my backlist tbr, especially the fantasy series. My reading goal is at 150(which is a really high goal for me.) I hope to exceed it and shorten my tbr list!