More Tweaks To This Blog

Its been quiet around the blog here since August. Part of it is my reading funk, part of it is wondering how to evolve the blog to keep it fun and interesting for me. I've toyed with some ideas throwing some out that I've quickly dropped, and others that I followed through on.

Here is a list of things I plan on changing going forward:

1) More focus on series that are complete. Before starting this blog, I almost never started a series until all the books were done. Over the last 2 years, I switched my reading to focus more on current and new releases (i figured thats what you guys would care about). This has been causing a problem for me, especially in the last year. I tend to do a lot of my reading while other things are going on, so in most cases its not in a nice, quiet environment. Due to this, my memory retention isn't always great, and with 1 year reading gaps between books, I've been struggling to remember details in previous books. To remedy this, and hopefully return some of the fun back to reading, I will concentrate more heavily on complete series. I won't say I will always do this, especially if individual books in a series tell complete stories (like the Recluce, Dresden novels and the Eddie LaCrosse novels). So you won't see quite as many shiny, new releases here.

2) More focus on digital books. I have been reading books almost exclusively on my iPhone since August. Now that I am running out of space to store books, and a more common ebook format is emerging (epub), I am once again interested in a dedicated ebook reader. Thus, I have pre-ordered the Nook from Barnes & Noble. Because most (but not all) of my reading will be done digitally, books available in the Kindle or Nook (epub) format will get much higher priority. I will still read some "paper" books, but I really want to make an effort to "go fully digital". As a side note, I will also post occasional pieces that focus on the ebook market in general (i.e. not just fantasy related).

3) Related to #1 above..I am borrowing an idea from Tia, but the opposite (hope you don't mind Tia!). I will make showcase posts to highlight concluding books in a series. These will be mostly just cover art and synopsis, with some personal commentary. The purpose of these will be just to remind you (i.e. highlight) series that are now complete. I know there are many like me who prefer to read a series when its done. These showcases/highlights will be reminders that a series is now complete and ready to read in its entirety. For example, to name 2 in November: the final Castings Trilogy by Pamela Freeman and the final Codex Alera by Jim Butcher. I would post a short highlight/showcase to remind you these 2 series are about to be complete.

4) I will continue the Today in Fantasy posts, since it seems there are at least semi-popular.

5) I might branch out to include the irregular non-fantasy review. These would most likely be mystery or espionage themed books.

So none of these are huge changes, though the most visible will probably be the increased coverage of the general ebook/digital reading market. This doesn't mean you will see ebook posts every day, but 1 or 2 a week is likely. First up will be a post on the Nook, and why I decided to pre-order (in case anyone else is wanting to jump in to the ereader market, and has questions about the Nook).

Much thanks to everyone who has stuck around during the lull the last 2 months, and hope these changes are of at least some interest to you :)

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