The Quiet Concert Turns TWO!

The Quiet Concert Turns Two! 

Well, dang. Another year has gone by and that means that this lil’ ol’ blog is officially TWO YEARS OLD. Sometimes it feels like only yesterday since we started blogging and other times if feels as if we have been doing this forever.

Looking back

Last year was a really great year for us, but it was also a challenging one. Nicole was working full time and going to school part time and Ashley was working full time and planning a wedding, so time was a real challenge for us. We definitely fell into a routine to keep the content flowing and didn’t accomplish everything we had hoped we would in our second year of blogging. But we are still proud of how far we have come.

It took us our first year of blogging just to get acquainted with the ins and outs of book blogging and it took us our second year of blogging just to grow comfortable with it all. Well, somewhat comfortable. We still have far to go, but over the past year we’ve hit quite a few milestones. Networking-wise we’ve definitely grown our reach (although by how much, we couldn’t tell you cause that would require us to track that sort of thing); we’ve become more familiar with Twitter and Instagram and have utilized both a lot more (although still not enough!); we started (seriously and consistently) requesting books on Edelweiss and Netgalley (and have been actually getting approved!); and we’ve even managed to make some Publisher contacts and received our first ever physical ARCs (which is a surreal experience every time). Meanwhile, blog-wise we got a new design (thanks Stephanie @ New Chapter Designs!), changed up our commenting system, launched a new feature (err, with only one post), and posted a bunch of non-review/discussion posts! To some, this might not seem like a lot for 2 years of blogging under our belt, but considering where we started and our hectic lives, it feels like a lot to us.

♪♪ started from the bottom, now we here ♪♪

But most importantly, we’ve gotten to know all of you a lot better. It might have been our love of books that motivated us to start this blog, but it is all of you that motivates us to keep going – old friends and new. We are continuously in awe over this community of book lovers and cannot imagine our lives without this hobby of ours and that means you guys. And with every day that passes, we feel more and more a part of this community and that is truly the best feeling ever. 

Looking forward

We are both really excited for what our 3rd year of blogging will bring. If the past two years are any indication, things are only going to get better. But the real challenge to ourselves this year will be to branch out. Now that we’ve established our comfort zone, it’s time to break out of it every once and a while. There is so much of this blogosphere that we haven’t explored – new blogs to find, new connections to make, new features to launch. Some things will be easier to do than others but the point will be to try and keep improving. We've figured out a lot along the way, mostly thanks to the generosity of the lot of you, but there is still so much we don't know, or hold ourselves back from because we are afraid. So it's about time we change that, we've got to figure it out eventually! But the important thing we have to remember is that we set our own pace. Who cares if it takes us 3 years to do something that it took another blogger 3 months to do. It's ok.

But boring stuff aside, we are so darn excited for all of the bookish awesomeness that await us. We head off to ALA Midwinter in less than a month and will meet many familiar bloggers for the first time in person! And that is just the start of the year! There will be BEA in May, book signings throughout the year and other events that we might not even be aware of yet but are in our future for sure. AND ALL OF THE WONDERFUL BOOKS! BRING IT ON 2015!

Giveaway

As a way to say thank you to all of our supporters, here is a little giveaway to win a book of your choice (up to a $15 value). This giveaway is open internationally as long as Amazon or The Book Depository ships to you! A BIG THANKS AND LOTS OF LOVE TO EACH AND EVERY ONE OF YOU! *Hugs*