On the blog:
So you might have noticed (probably not) that my week was very light. My blog went down on Monday because of another DNS attack on the server. Not as big as last year but enough to cause a minor headache for the hosting company. The site was finally fixed on Tuesday and still had a few hiccups on Wednesday. So I moved everything I had to the end of the week and next week, just to be on the safe side. I have my fingers crossed it doesn’t happen again but it is what it is. My hosting company did a great job and I’m very happy they work so hard when stuff like this happens.
Since my blog was down, I wasn’t really able to do any post so this weekend I am having a mini blog-fest so I can get a lot of posts drafted and schedules. I did, however, do a lot of brainstorming and have a few ideas that I want to try out in the coming months. I also pushed myself to do more with Limabean Designs and get really serious about making it a successful business…now I just need clients. 🙂 I am not very good at promoting myself, I always feel like I am bothering people but I plan to roll out some advertising and pushing a few products on Etsy. I also have been working on how I want the website, I plan to do that next weekend, since it was down this week. I think I know what I want and now it is a matter of gathering everything I need. I hope to have it completely finished…enough…by the spring. I can always update it once I really get started. Lots of exciting things happening in the next few month. I have my fingers crossed it all works out…I plan to stay as positive as I can because I know I will experience some bumps in the road but I wont let them affect me because I know I can do this. 🙂
I am really sad about the changes they made to BEA and I have always looked forward to it. This year I can’t justify spending all that money (they made it so expensive this year for bloggers) and I might not even get approved to attend. I might go to BookCon instead but again, the horror stories I keep hearing about it, and the deaf ears it keeps falling on within Book Con Organizers makes me hesitant to go. I wanted to take my daughter with me since she loves books but again scared it’s going to be a mad house. I also missed the VIP tickets so I wont get those perks either, not sure how I missed it but I did. I think something is telling me not to go…but I really wanted too. 🙁 I might just go to say I went and see how it is. Since I guess I wont be able to go to the Convention part of it anymore. I am so bummed! Pisses me off that a few people ruined it for the rest of us and instead of fixing the already problems of BookCon they punished all the blogger who work hard, for no pay, to promote books they love. And we work HARD! Just very frustrated about it since it’s one of my favorite events and now I can’t do it anymore.
In Real life:
We had a few bumps in the road with my son this week but we think a med change and a different way of doing things will do the trick. So we will expect some issues over the next few days while he adjusts, plus those dreaded hormones might be messing him up too. Overall, this week was quiet, I FINALLY purchased a printer, I haven’t had one for so long and figured it’s about time I got one. I also went ahead and bought a few things to make my business a little easier and I am glad I did. I already feel a little more organized when it comes to that. Now I just need to go through all the papers in the house, I have papers stuffed every where but I have a place to finally put them and I think in the next few weeks things will finally be findable in this house. Less stress makes for a very happy Michelle. 🙂
Last Week on the Blog:
- [13 Feb] Cover Characteristic ~ Heart
- [14 Feb] Blogging Issues!
- [16 Feb] Parker by Jillian Quinn Blitz
- [19 Feb] DNS, Printer and BEA Bummer ~ WIR & TSP
What you might see this week:
- Cover Characteristics ~ Embracing Couple
- Task it Tuesday ~ The layout for now
- YALit Giveaway Post (Xpresso tours)
- Review ~ Tyrant by T.M. Frazier
- Bad Nanny Blitz (Xpresso Tours)
- My TBR List Review ~ Am
Books read & currently reading:
I am hoping by the time this posts I will have finished this book. I am almost done 🙂
New on the Bookshelf/Kindle:
- By Your Side by Kasie West
- House of Furies by Madeleine Roux
So tell me what have you been reading and up to this week?
Hope you all have a fantastic week!!!
Happy Reading
ox
Michelle, I’m not sure where you live, but you might try searching out smaller conventions and book signing events to attend. I’m lucky to have a few here in Iowa and even helped organize a small multi-genre, multi-author event last year at our local mall. What’s fun about the smaller events is that I’ve had the opportunity to meet a lot of local and regional authors that aren’t able to attend the larger conventions!
It sounds like a challenging week, with the blog down and changes to your medication.
I’m not in the US so hadn’t heard about changes to BEA, but no doubt a few people will be unhappy with them if you are!
I can never attend conferences since they’re always too far away for this poor Canadian! Still, it’s so sad to hear that bloggers are being pushed out of book conferences. 🙁
I think you and all my blogging friends should do InD’Scribe this year. It’s smaller, so it’s more intimate. Everyone will get plenty of time with authors. Just sayin’. LOL
I hope your designing takes off. I love, love, love what you did for me. 🙂
I’ll keep my fingers and toes crossed for you and Ryan.
I hope you have a wonderful and buggy-free blog this week, Michelle! XOXO
Glad the DOS attacks have been resolved. I am skipping BEA but may do other smaller conventions.
I wish they had small conventions around here. Wish they has a list of them someplace…I should google and see if they do 🙂
Ya, I couldn’t believe that happened. 🙁 It totally isn’t fair that the actions of a couple people effected everyone. Have a good week, and happy reading! 🙂
Pisses me off…This person was know for it, I am sure there were others but one person was the cause of the change. It makes me so angry. It really hurt all the real bloggers trying to make a name for their blogs. Not sure how they pick who attends but I hope its not based on who visits your blog and more on how active you are.
I hate what they are doing to BEA too, last year was my first time getting to go and I want to go again but now I might not ever be able to and that is sad. I am glad you are getting some things for your business and a printer! 🙂 Hope things go well with that endevour. I see you finally broke down and got House of Furies. 😉 I thought you might get that one.
Have a great week and happy reading!
Stormi
Last year was so much fun and they had the Blogger Conference so I don’t understand this year. It’s just way to expensive. $300 is a lot of money.
I wanted to printer for a while now, my little one was bugging me about it. I am hoping things get busy, it’s what I really want to do.
Yay, I grabbed it only because I have her other books and I like her writing.
Yeah, it’s a shame about the BEA changes. I’ve decided just to do ALA this year instead. I considered RT, but ALA is right in my neck of the woods, so it makes more sense for me to stick with that for this year.
RT was rather expensive also but I might do that next year since it’s in Reno. My husband wants to go to Vegas so we might do a day or two in Vegas and drive to Reno for RT. Still working out if we can afford that or not but it would be fun! 🙂
I’m so tech unsavvy when it comes to things like hosts, servers, etc. that I would be a mess if the blog went down. I would literally have no idea what to do, who to contact, or anything.
Hopefully you are able to make some progress with your designs and get some clients. It sounds awesome.
Have a good week!
I sort of trust my host now to take care of it, last year I was in such a panic it ruined blogging. I am glad they fixed it.
I am hoping to get some clients too. I really love doing it.
I would be a hot mess if my blog went down. I don’t even know the first thing to do. I should be working on some blog posts, but I just can’t get the motivation to do any of it. I hope you’re able to gather all you need right now to make your design website. I always feel the same way about bugging people, which is why I could not work in any kind of sales job. I’ve never gone to a big book convention, and I was hoping to go in the next few years. Guess that won’t be happening now.
Last year I was a mess but now I learned to sort of trust the hosting company to take care of it and they did a good job.
I have some designing to do, just need to get my thoughts together to work it all out.
It really stinks how they changed it. 🙁
Stuff like that can be so stressful and am sure companies always do their best to fix things like that as soon as possible. I am glad your blog is live again. Although the few times I visited this week it showed up fine, but maybe I just visited at the right moment.
I am excited to hear you’re working on Limabean designs I hope you can get your site up soon and get some new clients. promoting myself is the thing I always struggle the most with too, you need a lot fo patience in a business like this. And do what you can to get the word out.
I am sorry to hear about the changes BEA made. I am sure they had good intentions, but with the changes they ended up making it much harder to honest bloggers to attend as well. It’s sad you probably can’t attend this year as it sounded like a fun convention. Maybe you can attend a different convention?
I can’t imagine not having a printer, but I probably have been so used to having one I never thought of other ways to achieve the same thing. I think it’s nice to have one. I hope you’ll have a great week!
I handled it pretty good this time 🙂 Last one put me in a life slump and I became overly depressed. Not going to let that happen again!
I am working on it. Just never enough time in a day to accomplish all I want. I tend to rush stuff and I need to learn to slow down and take my time to not get burnt out. So setting the goal of spring is good because I can pick days to work on it and still accomplish other stuff and not get too stressed.
BEA wa so fun, last year was my favorite meeting everyone so I am really bummed about this year. I might go anyway, my daughter wants to go so for her I will try it. It’s only one day so even if it’s horrible, it’s only one day and not expensive 🙂
Ours broke and I just never got a new one, since I would print stuff at work but my daughter was bugging me about printing stuff and I caved. Plus I wanted to print planner stickers and test stuff like that out if I start making them so It was needed. The ink is expensive it works nice and I am glad I got it.
I was sorry to see you were having blog problems earlier this week! That’s like total cause for a meltdown for us bloggers, so that had to be stressful. But that’s awesome that you’re planning more stuff for the blog and the business and staying positive! Sorry about BEA though. I was probably never gonna get to go to any of the conventions, but I know it must be so disappointing to everyone who did love going :-/
I don’t have a printer. For the most part it’s not been a problem, but there are definitely certain times when it would’ve come in handy. Good luck with the med changes and organizing, and have a great week 🙂
After last years blog problem, I was down for almost a month. It was a mess. This wasn’t bad and I handled it very well. lol
I am annoyed by BEA it really was a great way to build relationships with publishers and bloggers, I hate that they lump us with just normal readers. A blogger can have a lot of influence. I think they are making a mistake only letting a few in but it is what it is.
My printer broke many moons ago and I just never got another one. The ink is so expensive but I realize more that we need it and the kids need it.
Sad to hear about BEA and that does sound frustrating. I saw some stuff on Twitter about how prices shot up although I don’t know the details… I’ll have to look into because I’m curious. I had thought about maybe going some year (I almost went last year since it was Chicago- closer to me) but I didn’t. Maybe I should have before the purge lol.
And anothr attack? Yikes that sucks. I hate hackers and people who do that shit. Anyway hope you have a great week and good luck with your business stuff. 🙂
When we went to Chicago it was like $150 to get into the Expo for 3 days now it’s $300. I can’t justify spending that kind of money for two days, You seem to be paying per day and you can’t do the expo for one day which is still a lot of money. Hopefully they will realize it’s a mistake but I doubt it. So the con might be good to just check out since I haven’t been to one and going with my daughter might me fun.
Yes another attack, I guess they think it’s easier to hit the little hosting companies. Thankfully he fixed it.