When you’re an author, they tell you that you must read to get better. So I would read but not all the time or even a book a month. My reading list had grown, but I needed to schedule the reading time. I’m in a book reading group, for pity’s sake.

In August, my goal was to read three books. I have a mix of audiobooks and Kindle. I noticed I like to read three types of books: self-help, romance, and books on all aspects of writing and publishing.

I made my goal. In fact, I went one further and read four books (yeah, I’m an overachiever). It surprised me how much time I found. I would listen to a self-help book in the morning while doing my daily chores, spinning and sometimes knitting or crocheting. I’d read a book on the Kindle app before sleeping at night.

I learned something new about myself. I prefer to listen to self-help books and romances, but like to read books about writing and publishing on my E-ink devices to highlight and take notes. Furthermore, I didn’t even consider the fact that I read short stories on the internet and the prep for my newsletters. That is a lot of reading.

Now, let me explain how this leads to the changes for the blog.

I took September off from blogging and had time to reflect on where I wanted to go with the blog. There needed to be direction as I kept randomly picking ideas from a generator I created. Most of the topics I wasn’t even interested in. The only thing that seemed steady was that I enjoyed the monthly roundups immensely.

Then it hit me. If I’m reading and listening to audiobooks, why not write book reviews for the books I’m interested in? To take it even further, I do multiple types of author promos every month and usually make it a point when doing email author swaps (the one-on-one kind) to read the other author’s offering so I can write my thoughts in my emails every month. Why not share that in the blog?

From now monthly format for the blog will work much like this.
Week 1 – A Preview of the Monthly Promotions and Books I’m reading.
Week 2 – Book Review 1
Week 3 – Book Review 2
Week 4 – Monthly Roundup of both the yarny and literary.
If the month is extra long, aka five weeks, like this October. I’ll pick a subject relating to writing, romance, or self-help to blog about.