News & Giveaway: BookCrushin Re-Launch & Blogiversary

Crushed on by Kelly BookCrushin, on August 24, 2018, in Giveaways, News / 72 Comments

BookCrushin Re-Launch & Blogiversary: Celebrate 6 Years of Blogging with a New Look, New Co-Blogger, & Giveaway!

This week we are not only celebrating our 6th Blogiversary, but also we are re-launching the site with a new look & new co-blogger! I hope you all love the color scheme which is a call back to our old colors, just in a cleaner and more expanded way. Plus don’t you just adore the new logo?! To celebrate all of this & more, we are also hosting an amazing giveaway!

 

New Co-Blogger!

First things first, I need to officially welcome Christy, not only to the blog (as I never did this when she joined me), but as my new Co-Blogger!!! I haven’t had a co-blogger since our co-founder and my best friend Shannon, had to pull back from blogging to focus on her new daughter. So for the last 2 years I have had some excellent contributors providing content but never had anyone really helping me craft, promote, and mold the blog. I can’t tell you how excited I am that Christy wants to do this wild blog thing with me! Plus it amazes me at how great she is at all the things I am terrible at, like promotion, videos, and being creative! She is an inspiration and I am so lucky to have snagged her!

Here’s the story of how Christy started blogging with BookCrushin. So clearly we were already friends, and even had the chance to hang out in real life more than once. We texted all the time, and I already considered her a close friend. Plus for the last year and a half we have been co-hosting a themed monthly photo challenge, #SignedBookSundays on Instagram, and have always worked well together.

So earlier this year, when I was struggling with a family tragedy, all my free time was spent dealing. Of course I wasn’t reading and I had an obligation for a review. Christy asked me if there was anything she could do to help me, and I was like “I know you read this book, would you do a guest review for my blog?” She of course kicks out an amazing review and saves my ass. Eventually, it just made sense for her to come be a part of BookCrushin, as she just fit in so well here. She constantly inspires me to be better, to promote myself better, and to not get bogged down or overextended.

So please officially welcome Christy to the team!

Christy: Yeah, but who rescued who? When I met Kelly at YallFest, she took me under her wing and showed me the ropes. She helped me meet some of my favorite authors without completely freezing up. She listens to all my bookstagram fears! Now she’s letting me be part of BookCrushin and, as someone who was ready to give up blogging altogether and basically had in most of 2017, having this renewed energy is a lifesaver. Being part of BookCrushin and having the Kelly part of BookCrushin as a bestie has brought balance and calmness to my life and I am so thrilled to be here!

 

New Design!

So we were so lucky to have a brilliant vision of trying to take our branding that we have been working with the past 6 years and molding it into something more clean and fresh! So here it is! We went with a broader, yet similar color palette. Still holding onto the blue, pink, and green colors, but muting them a little and adding in a few more colors to the mix. I personally love it, even if I wear mostly black every day.

Hope you love it too!

We also went with the new Ultimate Book Blogger Plugin & Tweak Me v2 Theme both from Nosegraze! Now because we have been blogging for 6 years without the UBB, a lot of the features will take us some time to populate, but we hope in the long run it will make this blog better and more efficient. One thing that I have always wanted to do was have a review archive and now we do! And yes, the review archive is technically blank at the moment, but we will slowly edit our old reviews to start populating into that archive.

If you are starting a self-hosted blog, I highly recommend these tools! I was always jealous of the new blogs who used it from the start & thought well I will never get to use it because who wants to put all that new work into an already established blog…well now we have a chance to start fresh and hopefully (slowly) edit some old reviews to add them into the new archive.

Credits:

Logo design: Sarah Kershaw – The YA Book Traveler

Banner design: Sarah Kershaw – Your Book Travels

Banner photo: Lindsey DeLuca

UBB & Tweak Me v2: NoseGraze

 

Giveaway!

We have a massive giveaway to celebrate our relaunch! If you are a V.E. Schwab fan you might be interested and if you are new to her fantasy worlds, trust me, you want this prize pack to kick start your addiction!

Open US/PR only, so sorry but international shipping is just not affordable. Giveaway closes on 9/18/18 (winner has 72 hours to respond or a new winner will be chosen). It may be possible to get the books personalized, but no guarantees. Prize pack will ship approximately a week after the V.E. Schwab event on 9/26/18.

 

Prize Pack:

Signed Copy of Vicious (Villains #1)

Preorder HC of Vengeful (Villains #2)

Signed SDCC Ashcan of The Steel Prince

2 Signed Copies of A Darker Shade of Magic – Special Edition (one for you and one for your book bestie!)

Shades of Magic quote tote

Lila & Kell Art Print

SDCC exclusive Shades of Magic keychain characters

Shades of Magic inspired candle (not pictured, that one is mine, but we are buying a different one!)

 

 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

 

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72 responses to “News & Giveaway: BookCrushin Re-Launch & Blogiversary”

  3. liviahoardsbooks

    Happy 6th year blogging anniversary! I remember first meeting Kelly online in a Jennifer L. Armentrout read-along. And we eventually met in person at my first ever YallWest book festival in Santa Monica about 3 years ago I believe. Shannon and I also got to meet at YallWest before she welcomed her new daughter into the world. Hi Christy, and welcome to the blog officially! I think it’s wonderful how you ladies all came together and the new design looks great. I’m sending my virtual cheers to many more years of co-blogging for you!

    • kelly

      Aww thank you so much Livia!! That first YallWest event was so awesome…how far it has come from then, right?! I met so many amazing people from the JLA readalong and still happy to have most of you in my life still to this day! We can also thank JLA for Katy being a blogger and inspiring us to start blogging too!

  9. Joanna

    I’ve been waiting for this since you gave us your cards! I’m so excited to read more from y’all! 😀

  10. Meigan

    Congratulations on the new partnership! And I love the new design, a fresh start for a new venture. Best of luck to both of you!

  13. Katelynn

    I’m so excited for the both of you!!!! I’d love these books to get me through college haha

  17. Danielle Hammelef

    Congratulations! I love, love the heart and book logo as well as the colors! I’m a huge fan of color and these look awesome together. You two are inspirational as such good friends who can work together so well.

    • kelly

      Thanks we tried quite a few color combinations, and what would be the main colors…and at the last minute we changed it to what you see here!

  19. Alaina Evans

    I love this revamp of color scheme and such! So excited Christy is now a co-blogger!! That is so cool. Can’t wait for future content!

  26. Crystal Wu

    I like the colour palette used on your blog! The soft pastels and cream reminds me of ice cream and makes me hungry. Your Logo is also super cool!

  29. Tiffany

    I just found out about you guys, and I cannot be more excited!!! I can’t wait to see all the reviews and fun posts you have!!

  30. Debbie A.

    Congratulations! I follow you both so it’s exciting to see you collaborate together. Wishing you all the best.

  35. Tammy V

    Enjoying the overall look. Nice to have a partner to bounce ideas off of. Especially one that is a friend. Congrats on the launch!

  36. Vanessa

    Congratulations on your 6th aniversary! I like the new look. The color sceme is very pretty.

  48. Natasha Lewis

    Congrats on the rebranding and partnership! This is an epically generous prize pack to be giving away!

  49. sam

    I love celebrating anniversaries 🙂 Congrats! This is such a huge thing. People dont understand what it is like to stick with something any more! This is awesome!