Bloggiesta Ole! – Join in the Festivities and Create a Better Blog

Maw Books is hosting this second and what looks like a bi-annual event January 8, 9, and 10 – 2010. It is 3 days where bloggers come together to organize their blogs, complete mini challenges, win prizes, and connect with others.

This will be my first Bloggiesta. What a great way to start the new year, and get a bit more organized. Kind of like a new years blog resolution. I will just have to back up my blog prior, just in case any minor or major oopsies occur.

Natasha has a very professional and organized blog. There are also some helpful links and tips on her Book Blogs group (linked below in the text.) This is a perfect event for her to host.

This event is flexible do as much or as little as you like. Listed below are a few of the activities that you can attempt to do within the time frame. The text below was taken from directly from Maw’s site:

What to do during the Bloggiesta?

• Write reviews.
• Write backup posts for a rainy day.
• Write that great post idea from three months back.
• Work on series posts.
• Write guest posts.
• Put out invitations for guest posts.
• Conduct and edit author interviews.
• Create template posts for your future reads (ie: title, images, linking, tags, etc,) so you can open up, write review and post without being bogged down with technicalities
• Clean up your tags, archives, books reviewed list, etc.
• Create a text file (or Google Doc) of cheat sheets (html codes, post url’s, etc)
• Improve your blog template, clean up sidebars, add a favicon, install those plugins that you’ve been meaning to do.
• Add or edit your about me page, review policy, disclosure policy, privacy policy, create landing pages (for example – an about me for Twitter readers page) or any other pages you might have.
• Any bloggy type housekeeping that you’ve been neglecting.
• Clean up and update your challenge lists.  Link up your posts with hosts.
• Make sure all of your social network profiles are up to date.  Brand yourself through those profiles with color scheme, images, etc.
• Go get a gravatar.
• Visit the Blogging Tips group on the Book Blogs Ning and find ways to improve your blog.
• Work on any specialized projects that you may have going.
• Clean out and organize your feed reader and blog subscriptions.
• Create an elevator pitch.
• Make business cards.
• Find a blogging buddy.
• The sky’s the limit!

How to play:

1. The date is Friday, January 8th,  Saturday the 9th and Sunday the 10th. You can really start whenever you want within that time but official hours are 8am to 8am (wherever you are).  That is a total of 76 hours, of which you should aim high for a total of 18-24 hours spent on the challenge. (I chose both a weekday and a weekend to hopefully accommodate different needs.  The hours spent on the challenge do NOT need to be in a row. Use the entire 76 hour time frame and see what you can do with it.  (I say aim for 24 hours but really if you can only do six, twelve or eighteen that’s fine too. I just like to have something to aim for.)
2. It’s your call as to how much you want to put into it. But you have to put something into it or it’s not a challenge. So stay up all night or sleep and take care of kids when you need to.
3. When you start the challenge, come to this blog and  to the “starting line” post and link to your specific post about beginning the challenge which is posted on your blog. That way I’ll be able to track participants and know who’s really at the party.
4. How many updates (if any) you want to do is up to you.  Make it work for you.  Personally, I plan on making a to do list and then crossing off items as I accomplish them.  There will be bloggers hosting mini-challenges as well.  These are great to learn new information.  To get an idea of the mini-challenges last time, check out the list.
5. If you are on Twitter, use the hashtag #bloggiesta to join the chatter.
6. Your final summary post needs to be posted no later than Monday, January 11th. Come back to the finish line and link to your specific summary post.  Your summary should include the number of hours spent on the challenge, what you accomplished, links to mini-challenge hosts if you completed them and any other experiences you’d like to add.
7. Sign the Mr. Linky now if you intend to join the challenge. I’d like to get an idea of how many people will be participating.  If you blog about the challenge, point them to this post.  I’ll have a starting line post on Friday to sign in when you begin the challenge.  Don’t forget to subscribe, so you’ll be notified of  future bloggiesta posts.

To join in, post about it, then add your link to Mr. Linky. If you cannot join you may just want to find tips on how to make your blog more organized.

To access the challenge page at Maw Books click the badge at the top of this post.