Book Blogger Hop No. 68: How long have you been blogging?

Welcome to the Book Blogger Hop,

hosted by Billy @

Ramblings of a Coffee-Addicted Writer!

For more information, and 

to find out the topic of next week's question, click HERE.

What to Do

1.) Post on your blog answering this week's

question:

 How many years have you been

blogging? Anything special

you want to tell everyone about 

your experiences?

(submitted by Elizabeth @ Silver's Reviews)

2.)  Enter the link to your post in the

Linky list on Billy's blog.

3.)  Visit other blogs on the list and

comment on their posts. 

4.)  Be sure to find out next week's

question when you visit

Ramblings of a Coffee-Addicted Writer!

My Answer

This is an incredible coincidence, because I'm currently celebrating my Sixth Blogoversary! My very first post went live on Sept. 22, 2010, and I've been blogging ever since! It's been so much fun, too!! 

In order to celebrate, I'm holding an international giveaway!!  Just click on the button below to access the giveaway post and enter! I'm giving away one book of your choice, delivered by The Book Depository, worth up to $15.00!!

 

When I first started blogging, I basically reviewed books and published bookish musings. Gradually, as I began to familiarize myself with other book blogs, I began adding other kinds of posts, such as book memes, author interviews, giveaways, blog awards, book tags, and blog tours. Eventually, I had to stop participating in blog awards and book tags because these activities became much too time-consuming. But I continued publishing the other kinds of posts.

As for my blogging experiences, I can say that, overall, they have been wonderful and very positive! I've met some great bloggers along the way, such as Brian @Babbling Books, Elizabeth @Silver's Reviews, Michele & Mckenze @A Belle's Tales, Mareli @Mareli Thalk ink, J-9 @Blood Rose Books, and Literary Feline (Wendy) @Musings of a Bookish Kitty, to name a few! These bloggers have been a source of inspiration to me in  my blogging! There have been many others, too; they're just too numerous to name. I also sadly remember Stephanie @Five Alarm Book Reviews, who deleted her entire blog when she decided to stop blogging.... She did that because it was self-hosted on Wordpress, so, had she left it up, she would have had to continue paying for an inactive blog. But, oh, the loss! I wish she had decided to come back to Blogger, or perhaps started another, free, blog on Wordpress.... She always had AWESOME posts, and I still miss her dearly, even though she dropped out of the blogosphere several years ago. I "inherited" the meme "Shelf Candy Saturday", which I post on this blog on a weekly basis, from her.

I have to mention the authors, as well! Most of them are Indie authors, and they've been just WONDERFUL!! Here are some names, with links to their interviews: Cambria Hebert, Kieran Kramer, Paul Anthony Shortt, Cassandra Lawson, and the "dynamic duo": Clark Hays and Kathleen McFall.   

One thing about my blog that many people might not be aware of is that it wasn't always named "A Night's Dream of Books". It used to be named "Twilight and Other Dreams". That was due to my great love for The Twilight Saga! Lol. However, I decided to change the name because I didn't want people to think this was "just another Twilight fan blog". So, I took inspiration from the Shakespeare play, "A Midsummer Night's Dream", and came up with the present name. Besides, what would a die-hard bookworm prefer to dream about most? BOOKS. Of course!

Thanks to the Blogger blog-creating system, I experimented with several templates and backgrounds, until I came up with the present one, which I love! As you can see, I ADORE the color blue!! Lol. The background was created for Blogger by merrymoonmary (that's the name this artist uses, but the page is no longer available), and the template is the Picture Window template, which I customized. The AWESOME header and blog button are the work of a VERY talented website designer named Jennifer Johnson @Sapphire Blog Designs. Her website design button is in my sidebar.

Before I hired Jennifer to create my present header, I attempted to make some of my own. I was limited in what I could do, though, as I didn't (and still don't) know how to work with PhotoShop. However, I did the best I could with another program -- Picasa. While not as versatile as PhotoShop, it will still allow a blogger to create headers and buttons.

I have created several blog buttons with this program, such as the one above, which is based on Jennifer's header. I also created the buttons for the memes "Waiting On Wednesday" and "Shelf Candy Saturday".

Here are some of the headers I created with Picasa, before I finally decided to have Jennifer create one for me. I do prefer her beautiful design!

     

 

I'm really looking forward to the next 6 years! After all, book blogging has become a VERY important part of my life! I couldn't imagine living without it! It's become more than "just a hobby"; now it's an all-consuming passion, right along with reading!
      

   

What are your thoughts on

this topic?

Please leave a comment!

If you're participating in this meme,

I'll go comment on your 

own BBH post.

If not, I will then comment on one 

of your blog posts!

Thanks for visiting!!!