Studious Saturday: My reading and blogging goals for 2019
Welcome to the first Studious Saturday post of 2019 on Facing the Story! I hope that you have enjoyed the holiday season (I certainly did!) and are feeling refreshed and ready to start the new year. After a short social media and blogging break at the beginning of January, I decided to finally revive my blog again with a burning topic that I think many other book bloggers are currently discussing, namely their goals for the year. Mine are to…
Read 55 books
I have set my Goodreads challenge for 2019 on 55 books which is only 5 more than last year. I surpassed my goal of 50 books in 2019 by finishing one exciting thriller on New Year’s Eve so I feel that this goal is achievable based on my usual reading speed.
Branch out to other genres
It’s no secret that I usually lean towards the Mystery/Thriller, Contemporary Fiction and Historical Fiction genres, however I tried some Science Fiction last year which I enjoyed and I am hoping to carry on exploring the genre. I am also currently reading my first Fantasy novel and loving how different it is to my usual choice of books. This will definitely be one of my reading priorities for the year.
Discover Spanish Contemporary Literature
Living in Spain has its perks and one of them is the huge selection of novels by acclaimed Spanish and Latin American authors. Unfortunately I didn’t plan out my reading for 2018 so well and I only read one book in Spanish. I hope to correct this in 2019 and finally start on the never ending list of Spanish literature that my colleagues have recommended.
Schedule my posts in advance
This will be my main blogging goal for this year, especially as I have many other personal goals which mean that I will have less free time during the week to write and blog hop. I struggled with planning several times last year and I could tell the difference in the quality of my writing between the periods where several posts were scheduled in my queue and those where I was hastily proofreading and editing a post right before publishing it. Essentially, I am hoping to use Kaleena’s 2019 book blogger spreadsheet template to plan out my month in advance so I can fit enough time to blog hop, write out my posts and read ARCs with plenty of time to spare.
Design a new look for my blog
Although I am pleased and proud of my content, a fresh and clean design can really make a difference to a blog as a whole and I admit that my current design is not particularly eye-catching or satisfying. I am a huge lover of a minimalist look but I think the current design is a bit of an overstatement in this category. At some point this year I hope to create a new logo and background and also choose a new theme.
Those are my main reading and blogging goals of the year which I hope to achieve, although I know that sometimes life gets in the way and it is not always possible to achieve them all. Nevertheless, I plan to work hard on my blog this year and to enjoy the books I am planning to read. I also wanted to take some time to thank you all for staying with me during my blogging journey – I never believed that so many people would read my reviews and thoughts on books when I created Facing the Story last year and I am extremely grateful for your kind words and support.
Question time
What are your reading and blogging goals for 2019?
9 Comments
Stephen Writes
Great post, Darina. Good luck with your aims for this year and happy reading! I share your goal to read other genres and schedule posts 🙂
facingthestory
Thanks, Stephen! I think that scheduling is a big one for many of us bloggers, hopefully we can make it work this year 🙂
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Kaleena @ Reader Voracious
Thank you so much for linking my spreadsheet template, and good luck with all your goals this year! I am cheering for you, Darina!
facingthestory
Thanks, Kaleena! It’s definitely proving to be useful so far, thank you for sharing it with all of us!
Meggy | Chocolate'n'Waffles
Good luck with your goals 🙂 I’ve set my Goodreads challenge to 100, and so far I’m loving the books on my TBR! I need to stop signing up for too many blog tours!!
facingthestory
Thank you! 100 sounds a lot but when the books are engaging and interesting then it’s manageable. I do agree with you that blog tours put a lot of stress on reading sometimes though. Hope you have a great reading year 🙂
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