MYSTERIES in PARADISE: bloggers

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27 September 2009

Weekly Geeks - 2009-37: Diversity Roll Call

This week's Weekly Geek task posed by Ali asks us to consider how blogging brings people from diverse backgrounds and reading tastes together.

I thought first of all I might take another look at where the visitors to my blog come from. I know they aren't all bloggers, but they are invariably crime fiction readers and it illustrates how crime fiction is a universally popular genre.

The first image shows how by far the majority of my readers are English speakers, although for those who are not, I have provided the Google translate widget.

However this second graph indicates a far greater diversity of backgrounds.

I belong to a group who meet in a FriendFeed coterie called Crime and Mystery Fiction.

While we converse in English, in reality we come from all over the world: Australia, New Zealand, the UK, the USA, and Denmark. What binds us together is the fact that we read, enjoy, and review, crime fiction. The room has 108 subscribers at present, and we catch up on a daily basis, watching and commenting on each other's blogs, sharing news, and so on.

Some are able occasionally to meet in the flesh in their home country, and just occasionally people from different geographic locations get to meet. Here are 2 such meetings. (Click on the images/links to read the stories).

Dorte met Tim

Norman met Mack.

15 April 2009

Featured on Scene of the Blog!

Many thanks to Cathy of Kittling Books for featuring MYSTERIES in PARADISE on her regular feature Scene of the Blog.
Cathy and I discovered each other some time last year, and you may have seen me refer to her blog a few times.

So far in this project Cathy has let us spy on a number of fellow bloggers. She has a label that allows you to search for them, but I had problems in loading it properly in Firefox although IE worked fine.

Here are those featured so far:

So many thanks for this feature Cathy. It was great to be part of it.

7 April 2009

Blogging breeds Networks

One of the things I never imagined I would discover when I began this blog is the new friends in cyber space that I would make.
One of those is Cathy of Kittling Books who has been kind enough to give me the following award:

It was presented to Cathy by Wendy of We Read with the following:

So if you’ve received this award you’ll see elements of your page here on mine, you will have amazed me & you will have inspired me to find out ‘how can I do that too’. But perhaps more than that you’ll have made me smile and feel good about myself as I recognise I’m not alone if I’m reading.

1) display the grasshopper award (in my last post) on your blog knowing you have touched someone you may never meet IRL.

2) pass this on to any fellow bloggers who have taught, inspired or entertained you.

My first experience of blogs came through Peter Rozovsky at Detectives Beyond Borders who first of all joined us on oz_mystery_readers back in November 2006 and then started suggested we read this and that on his blog. His blog is still a wonderful benchmark for those who haven't been doing it as long.

I have been blogging now for over 15 months, and will be able to celebrate my 600th post very soon. A number of people whom I already knew, like Sally of Books and Musings from Downunder, were well established in blogging, and they have been a great source of information and critical help.

The very first person to leave a comment on my blog was Marg of Reading Adventures, and she welcomed me to blogging. I eventually met Marg last year at the Ned Kelly Awards.

And then the 2nd comment ever was Maxine (Petrona). She was so encouraging and gave me the idea that blogging could be a conversation. Until then it had felt a bit like spruiking on a street corner. Hot on Maxine's heels came Karen of EuroCrime and they sowed the idea that this blogging thing was global, and put you in touch with people worldwide.

By mid January last year, only 15 days into my blogging life, I had managed a post a day, and held discussions with 5 people I've mentioned here. Their encouragement spurred me on to keep this blog going, so thank you. I have great pleasure in passing the Grasshopper Award, so kindly given to me by Cathy, on to each of you.

28 March 2009

WG 2009-12: Linking to the reviews of others

This week's Weekly Geek task relates to our reviews and linking to each other's.

1. Write a post encouraging readers to look through your archives (if you have your reviews in a particular place on your blog, point them there), and find the books that they have also written reviews. Tell them to leave a link to their review on your review post. For example, I've written a review for Gods Behaving Badly and Jane Doe leaves a link to her review of Gods Behaving Badly in the comments section of my review.
2. Edit your reviews to include those links in the body of the review post.
3. Visit other Weekly Geeks and go through their reviews. Leave links for them.
4. Leave a note somewhere on your blog to let people know this is your new policy.
5. Write a post later this week letting us know how your project is going!

I have been trying to do this as a general policy for some time whenever I write a new book review.

I have identified a number of other crime fiction bloggers, and often, but I must confess not always, check to see if they have also reviewed this book. If they have I put a link to their review on the bottom of mine.

My reviews are all listed at Smik's Reviews and you'll find that I have also created a customised search of the blogs of fellow crime fiction bloggers. I have only been blogging for about 15 months and so I have 3 lists: the books I reviewed in 2008, the books I have reviewed so far in 2009, and a complete list of nearly 150 books so far.

The crime fiction blogs I watch are found on Crime Fiction Journeys and you'll find the customised search called Crime Fiction Search on the top right of both Crime Fiction Journeys and on the top right of this page. There's an explanation of how Crime Fiction Search was created in this post.

So, for example, I am currently reading THREE BAGS FULL by Leonie Swann, and hope to write my review before the weekend is out. If I search my Crime Fiction Search for THREE BAGS FULL, then I can see who else has talked about it in their blog. That makes it reasonably easy for me to create links to their blog pages.

One of the reasons for doing this linking is to help create a community of bloggers with similar interests.

So, here is an invitation.
If you read and review crime fiction, even occasionally, check whether I have your blog listed on Crime Fiction Journeys. If you are not there, let me know, and I'll remedy that, but I'll also add your blog to the Google list for my customised search.
If you would like to make use of my Crime Fiction search yourself, I can email you the code if you would like it, or the list of blogs that it searches.

7 March 2009

DJs Bait in a Box

Some blogging friends are coming up with such interesting features to their blogs.
Dorte at DJs kimiblog has been running something called Bait in Box.

She's been using interesting images like the one to the right, but primarily what she is doing is running a little competition among her readers.

She gives you a quote of some lines from a book, crime fiction of course, and generally a British author, but sometimes an expatriate, and asks you to guess who. Only you are not allowed to say who!

The rules are as follows:
1) if you think you can guess who wrote it, please post your guess.
2) if you recognize the quotation, please post a clue to other readers - do not spoil the fun by giving too much away.

Dorte herself gives clues, and the "bait in a box" is a prelude to a book review she will be posting in the next few days. It is a very nifty idea!

15 October 2008

Blog Action Day against Poverty, 15 October

I blogged about this over on my work blog today, so sorry if you read both, because I am going to repeat myself here. I think it is such an important aspect of life on this earth.
Today, October 15, bloggers unite to publish posts that discuss poverty in some way. By all posting on the same day we aim to change the conversation today, to raise awareness, start a global discussion and add momentum to an important cause. Blog Action Day is a nonprofit, grassroots movement of thousands of individual bloggers coming together for one cause.

The Blog Action Day asks people think about poverty and its causes, and heralds the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty which is being observed world wide on October 17.

Make Poverty History

At work we are making colleagues aware of the day by participating in STAND UP 2008 to break the Guinness World Record of over 43 million participants.

STAND UP 2008 and MAKE POVERTY HISTORY are part of the Global Call to Action Against Poverty (GCAP), a coalition involving about 80 countries that aims to end the injustice of poverty. It is the largest anti-poverty movement in history calling for action against poverty and inequality and for the Millennium Development Goals (a global plan to halve poverty by 2015) to be honoured. The campaign seeks to raise a powerful voice for - and with – people living in impoverished communities around the world.
Last year over 107,000 Australians took part in STAND UP contributing to the official Guinness record of 43,716,440. The movement is looking at breaking that record.

The STAND UP website contains a list of actions that participants in the campaign can take.

16 September 2008

Participants in Book Blogger Appreciation Week 2008

Looking for some new blogs to follow?

Here's a list of those who have registered in Book Blogger Appreciation Week. Explore and enjoy!

6 September 2008

Voting Open at BBAW

Voting is now open for the awards for Book Blogger Appreciation Week.
Unfortunately my blog didn't make it to this stage, but Detectives Beyond Borders did, so pop over to BBAW and register your vote.

Weekly Geeks has been nominated for Best Community Builder and The Hidden Side of the Leaf for best Challenge Host. Both of these blogs are written by Dewey, so that is a really good effort.

Historical Tapestry (friend Marg is associated with this one) has been nominated for Best History/Historical Fiction Blog.

Caribou's Mom, one of the blogs I watch, is in the list for Best Literary Fiction Blog.

Well done to all nominees.

14 May 2008

The Power of Blogging

Bloggers Unite for Human Rights, May 15

Bloggers Unite is an initiative designed to harness the power of the blogosphere to make the world a better place. By challenging bloggers to blog about a particular social cause on a single day, a single voice can be joined with thousands of others to help make a real positive difference; from raising awareness for cancer, to an effort to better education systems or support 3rd world countries.

It is an interesting perception of the power of blogging, and reminds me a bit of Howard Rheingold’s concept of Smart Mobs.

Bloggers Unite For Human Rights challenges bloggers everywhere to help elevate human rights by drawing attention to the challenges and successes of human rights issues on May 15. What those topics may include — the wrongful imprisonment of journalists covering assemblies, governments that ignore the plight of citizens, and censorship of the Internet. What is important is that on one day, thousands of bloggers unite and share their unified support of human rights everywhere.

Previous campaigns were

17 Dec 2007 - Acts of Kindness
7 Sept 2007 - Bloggers against Abuse
18 July 2007 - Organ Donor Awareness Campaign

The site contains information from Amnesty International about human rights.

Closer to home, people might look at information to be found on Australia’s Human Rights & Equal Opportunity Commission (HREOC). They have some excellent education pages, providing resources and information for teachers, students, media, legal services, and business groups. Their focus is what human rights are, where they come from and how they are protected in international and Australian law. Most importantly the resources encourage people to explore the relevance of human rights in their own communities.

7 May 2008

Writing a Better Blog

Improving my blog, learning how to do it better, has been one of the things I've focussed on this year. I've found many great blogs to follow (see them listed in Blogs I'm Watching) , met many new friends through blogging, and learnt a lot by just watching what others do, and following their tips. I've llearnt also that to get most out of blogging, you need to leave comments on the blogs of others.

Many thanks to Petrona for the link to the 2008 31 Day Comment Challenge.

Challenges are very popular with bloggers of all walks of life. By taking on a challenge you challenge yourself to learn or do something new. The 31 Day Comment Challenge is running from May 1-31 2008, but don’t let that put you off. There is a list of activities, one for every day of the month

Day 1: Do a Commenting Self-Audit
Day 2: Comment on a blog you’ve never commented on before
Day 3: Sign up for a Comment Tracking Service
Day 4: Ask a Question in a Blog Comment
Day 5: Comment on a Blog Post You Don’t agree with
Day 6: Engage another commenter in a conversation
Day 7: Reflect on What you’ve learned so far
Day 8: Comment on a blog outside your niche

There's more on the site :-)

The second site I found today was Sue Waters’ blog Mobile Technology in TAFE. Sue’s recent posts have been related to blog cleaning, layout, and what she calls the weight problem. Sue is one of those behind the 31 day Comment Challenge.

I'm not sure that I am actually going to sign up for the challenge, but certainly, if you are looking to learn more about blogging, the advice is worth taking. I was so taken with some of the ideas that I have also blogged about it on my work blog. Over there I've listed some of things I think I've learnt about blogging this year.

27 April 2008

Weekly Geeks

I'm not quite sure why I joined this - I've seen it referred to a couple of times, and it looks interesting. If you sign up, comment that I have sent you - I might win the chocolate monkey

Here is what it says on the site
The basics:

1. Every week there’ll be a different theme. One week might be “catch up on your library books” week and the next might be “redecorate your blog week” or “organize your challenges” week or “catch up on your reviews” week. It’ll be fairly bookblogcentric, but not exclusively.

2. Everyone who joins agrees that they will try to check each week to see what the theme is, although they DO NOT have to participate each week, only when they feel like it.

3. Everyone who joins is welcome (encouraged, begged!) to send me ideas for weekly themes via email, comments, whatever. The more ideas, the better.

4. I will post the weekly theme each Saturday, but you can check in any time it’s convenient to find out what the theme is.

5. If you post about your progress with that week’s theme in your blog (whether you were wildly successful or didn’t get around to any of it) then you can come back and leave a link to that post in the comments for that theme.

6. The next week, when I announce the new theme, I will also post a mini-carnival-like blurb, with links to everyone’s progress posts. Either way, you’ll have a link to your blog every week you participate, which will hopefully help other participants find their way to your posts.

7. In order to motivate participants to spread the word, anyone who posts promoting this challenge is guaranteed to be able to choose the theme for one of the weeks this year (their choice of week, first come first served). No need to pick a week now; just let me know when you have a theme idea and you can pick your week then. In addition, each participant who writes a promotional post by the end of April will have their name entered in a drawing for this chocolate monkey. If any of your readers sign up and leave a comment saying they heard about it from you, you get two entries for the chocolate monkey. You may never again have the chance to say to your friends and family, “Yeah, the internet gave me this chocolate monkey.”

This week's challenge is to visit 5 new blogs and leave comments.

16 April 2008

Flattery will get you everywhere

Barbara Fister has kindly mentioned me in a couple of places this week and I just thought I'd bring them to your attention as interesting blogs to read.

Last week when she was guest blogger at Moments in Crime she posted Why I read and then tagged a few of us to comment. Reading is such a compulsion with me I refer to selling books second-hand as feeding my habit. Not that I sell many of the books that come my way. I usually pass them on, lend them out. Anyway you might like to read what I wrote and add your own comments, both here and there.

And the Carnival of Criminal Minds has come to Barbara's blog and she has created a wonderful catalogue of even more blogs for you to investigate. Thank goodness most of them are already on my RSS reader. Her blog is an excellent list of pointers. You'll never be without things to read if you follow just a few of them.

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