The Quiet Concert Turns Three!!

The Quiet Concert Turns Three! 

This blog is now officially THREE YEARS OLD!!! It is so hard to believe we have been doing this for three years now.  Thank you to all those who have and continue to support us, we would not have hit this milestone without you!

Looking Back

It is so crazy to think three years ago we decided to start The Quiet Concert.  We had no idea what we were getting into.  No idea the work it would take to run a blog but really no idea what an amazing group of people we would get the pleasure of meeting both online and in person.  Blogging has brought so many great friends into our lives and allowed the two of us to continue our adventures together.  Most of you already know but Nicole and I (Ashley) went to college together, it is where we bonded over our love for TV shows and books. We continue to share that bond and get the amazing opportunity to go to bookish events together (and of course non bookish activities too!).

This year we have had the amazing opportunity of being able to go to ALA MW in Chicago.  It was cut a bit short due to the huge snow storm that hit but we were able to meet up with so many great bloggers and interact with fantastic publishers.  In the Spring we were able to celebrate each other's birthdays and go to NYC for BEA!  Looking back at our accomplishments, we have connected with a couple new publishers and hit 500 Followers on Instagram and over 1000 followers on Twitter!  

Looking Ahead

We are both really excited for what our fourth year of blogging will bring.  It feels amazing just to be able to type that sentence.  I guess we are not technically newbies anymore but at times it still feels like it.  There is so much of this blogosphere that we want to continue to explore – new blogs to find, new connections to make, new features/discussions to post. We mentioned it last year in our celebration post but it feels so prevalent to mention it again - it is important for us to remember that we set our own pace.  We both juggle traveling, adventures, loved ones, and events so while it might seem we are not around as much, we are still here, just enjoying other things at the moment. We are always still reading and loving on the bookish community.  

But boring stuff aside, we are so darn excited for all of the bookish awesomeness that await us. We just got back ALA Midwinter this past week  and were able to say hi to many familiar bloggers!  And that is just the start of the year! We are hoping to make it to ALA in the summer, 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 2016!

Let's Celebrate!

As a way to say thank you to all of our supporters, here is a little giveaway to win a book of your choice from one of the images below!  This giveaway is open to the US only! A BIG THANKS AND LOTS OF LOVE TO EACH AND EVERY ONE OF YOU! *Hugs*

a Rafflecopter giveaway

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*

a Rafflecopter giveaway

One Year Blogoversary + Giveaway

The Quiet Concert Turns One! 

Today, err yesterday, we celebrated our one year blogoversary. We cannot believe that a year has gone by already. When Ashley suggested we start a blog together, neither of us really knew what we were getting ourselves into. All we knew was that we both loved reading and talking about books so it sounded like a fun idea. Never did we imagine that it would be this much work, but neither did we imagine that it would be so incredibly rewarding. This community is amazing. And it is seriously an honor to be a part of it. We have met so many wonderful people and feel truly blessed to have had a chance to share our love of reading with each and every one of you. 

Looking Back

Believe it or not, when we started blogging we didn't know what an ARC was, we hadn't heard of BEA, we didn't know about Edelweiss or Netgalley. Hell, we only just recently learned about requesting print copies from publishers (not that we are there yet but thanks Jessi @ Novel Heartbeat nonetheless!) Although Ashley and her boyfriend knew a thing or two about coding, Nicole was a newbie. We didn't use Twitter. To be honest, we still barely know how to. In other words, we had a lot to learn. And although we've probably got the basics down by now, we still have a ways to go. 

But the most important thing we had to learn was what we wanted this blog to be for us. When we started blogging, our whole intent was just to share our thoughts on books. But the more we immersed ourselves in the community, the more we felt the pressure to keep up and do more, be more. We expected too much of ourselves too fast. But thanks to some well timed life events - Nicole started business school and Ashley started planning a wedding - our time became more precious and we were forced to take a step back. At that time we realized that we don't need to be the most successful blog out there. If we never even enter the competition, that is ok with us. We are happy with our little corner of the blogosphere. We have made some really great friends through blogging so we've already gotten more out of it than we ever could have imagined. So we will post whenever we want, however we want because what's important to us is conversing with all of you. That's it. 

Looking Forward

This past year has been a whirlwind of firsts for us and as exciting as that has been, it's also a relief to go into 2014 with some clue as to what we are doing. Having a year of experience behind us and having adopted a more relaxed attitude about blogging, makes us excited for what is still to come. Now that we are settled in, we can focus our energy on what is most important - having fun and talking book... and maybe finally investing some time into all those ideas floating around in our heads. 

We don't know what this blog will bring you in 2014. We are still evolving. We will always be evolving. But that being said, we are certain of one thing - we are exactly where we want to be and we aren't going anywhere.

Giveaway

We want to say thank you to everyone who has been a part of this journey with us. From the regular commenters to the one's who've stopped by just once, we thank you. We thank you for taking the time to come see what we have to say and sharing a little piece of yourselves in return. You guys are all amazing. And as a small token of our gratitude, we are giving away a $20 GC to either Amazon or TBD (your choice). 

a Rafflecopter giveaway