Category Archives: blogs

State of the Blogs, 2013

I’ll post a recap of the year’s best reads tomorrow, followed by a look ahead on New Year’s Day.  But because there have been some big changes in my small corner of the blogosphere, I thought I’d give a short recap.Warrior

You’ll notice that I’ve used the plural form of the word “blog” in the title of this post.  That’s because I’ve got four of them.  (Yes, I’m nuts.) 

The year started out good.  Blog traffic continued to climb.  By July traffic was setting records.  Nearly every post had comments, and the number of followers was slowly growing.  I found all of this very satisfying, especially the comments, since a community of regulars had formed.  There were some great discussions.  Blurbs from Adventures Fantastic were starting to show up on the covers of books by major publishers.  I was having a lot of fun, which was a large part of why I do this.

Then Google decreed that Adventures Fantastic was a spam site.  I’m not quite sure how they figured that since I went over their guidelines with a fine toothed comb.  And while I did include a number of links to other sites, Google was very clear that sites which include  links in reviews weren’t spam.  The automatic response to the appeal I lodged with Google said it would be several weeks before they even looked at it. Continue reading

Team Robot Blogger Awards

photo12_110308-225x300Angry Robot Books has created an award for bloggers.  I’m not sure if it’s limited to members of the Robot Army, but it’s called the Team Robot Blogger Award.  It encompasses the imprints Angry Robot, Strange Chemistry, and Exhibit A.  There is also an Author’s Choice Award given to a blogger who didn’t make the shortlist for the Team Robot Blogger Award.

The winners are Kristen at My Bookish Ways (Team Robot Blogger Award) and Josh at Just a Guy That Likes to Read (Author’s Choice Award).

There were 12 blogs on the short list.  In addition to My Bookish Ways, the other nominees were A Fantastical Librarian, Bibliosanctum, Curiosity Killed the Bookworm, Fantasy Faction, Jet Black Ink, My Shelf Confessions, Popcorn Reads, Shots Blog, The Founding Fields, Upcoming4.me.  Oh, yeah, and,…um, yours truly, Adventures Fantastic.

Congratulations to the winners and all the nominees.  The winners get the cool trophy shown above, and the winners and everyone on the short list will receive three free books.  I’d like to thank Angry Robot Books for the nomination as well as the prize.  It was a surprise and an honor to be nominated.

All three imprints are having a 50% off Black Friday sale, BTW.  Click the links above for some great reading at a great price.

New Additions

If you’ve visited Adventures Fantastic before, you may have noticed a set of links of potential interest in the upper right hand corner that weren’t here the last time..  I’ve been intending to do this for some weeks now, but tonight was the first time I had a chance to actually sit down and do it.  I’ll be adding more as I come across things I like and as time allows.  For now, though, here are a few other places to visit that you might enjoy.  Although I suspect many of you are already familiar with them.