Tammy’s Top Ten Things That Make Blogging Easier

Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by The Broke and the Bookish! It’s been a while since I’ve done a Top Ten, so I thought I’d chime in today with this fun topic. As book bloggers, there are so many resources that make blogging fun and easy, and it wasn’t very hard to come up with this list.

Goodreads. This is a no-brainer! Goodreads is simply the most informative, easy to use and irreplaceable website that I use for blogging. In fact, I bet nearly every book blogger has this somewhere in their top ten.  I probably visit Goodreads at least five times a day, and more if I’m working on a post. I download almost all my book cover images from Goodreads, use their story summaries, and get important information like release dates and publishers. Clicking on the author’s name is a fast way to find out more about the author, including a link to their website (in most cases). Of course, Goodreads lets me keep track of everything I read, and everything I want to read too. Life without Goodreads would be very different, and I’m sure posts would take longer to write without this amazing site.

Kindle Fire HD. I’ve had my Kindle Fire for only six months, but it’s become one of my favorite toys! The reason I got it in the first place was because whenever I downloaded e-galleys from Edelweiss and NetGalley to my Nook, they had an expiration date. I didn’t know this at first, and boy was I surprised when I tried to download or find a book, only to discover it had expired. That was way too much stress for me, and I knew that Kindle files didn’t expire. So I quickly ditched my Nook and got a Kindle. I can do so much on it too, besides read digital books. I have all three of my email accounts set up, Twitter, Facebook, Goodreads, Word Press and internet, so I can do just about everything on it. I highly recommend it if you are in the market for an e-reader.

My laptop. I know this may seem silly, duh, you can’t blog without a computer, right? But maybe not everyone uses a laptop, and I do love having the convenience of taking my computer with me if I need to. I doubt I’ll ever go back to a desktop computer!

Google. I seem to always be looking something up in order to write my blog posts, and I use Google all the time. I can’t imagine completing a post without it!

WordPress. When I started blogging I chose WordPress simply because I had a friend who was blogging and using it. It never occurred to me to research different blogging platforms back then! I’m glad I chose it though, because so many bloggers are moving over from Blogger these days. WordPress is fairly easy to use, and when you don’t know how to do something, they have an excellent online guide as well as blogger forums where you can ask questions and get answers from the experts.

NetGalley & Edelweiss. Of course I love receiving books in the mail, but getting early digital review copies is pretty ok too! I love the convenience of e-readers sometimes more than physical books, and with Kindle it’s a breeze to simply click and download the titles you’re approved for.

Dictionary.com.  I use the dictionary and the thesaurus all the time when I write reviews and discussion posts, and it’s so easy to simply use the online version of these tools.

Photoshop Elements. I love making my own buttons, headers and other graphic elements for my blog, and Photoshop Elements is very versatile. It does most of what I want it to, without me having to spend $600-800 on software (or whatever it costs these days!)

Four-month white board.  I like to schedule things old school! I’ve tried using a schedule on the computer, and it just doesn’t work for me. This four-month white board was a great find, and I can easily erase a month when it’s over and write in the next one. It sits behind me in my office so I can swivel around anytime I want to consult my blogging schedule!

Twitter. Who doesn’t love Twitter? It seems to be one of the best and most popular of the social networks, both for bloggers and authors. Not only can you promote your blog posts on Twitter, but you can make friends there too. Some of my best days have been spent chatting with fellow bloggers and authors on Twitter.

Agree? Disagree? I’d love to hear what makes your blogging life easier!