Weekly Geeks 2009-40: Tools of the Trade

Topic this week from Weekly Geek:

Book blogging, as a concept, is essentially pretty simple: If you have Internet access and an opinion about a book, you can be a book blogger. However, actually maintaining a book blog is much more complicated -- our blogs are labors of love that require a lot of time, energy and devotion. For this edition of Weekly Geeks, I want to focus on the little things that make your blogging and/or reading life a bit easier. Do you use sites like GoodReads, LibraryThing or Shelfari to organize your books? Do you swear by Book Darts? Couldn't live without your Book Buddy? Love connecting with other bloggers on sites such as Twitter? Tell us about what makes your blog tick. Is there something specific that keeps you organized or inspired?

Apparently, I really need to tune into Weekly Geeks every week. I have been reading blogs for years now, I have even started a few but haven't been able to commit to it until now. I have discovered that I am fairly Internet Shy. But that's beside the point. The point is that even though I have been reading blogs for forever, I am very new to keeping one active and interesting. I see so many well-organized and inspiring blogs every day, but really have no idea how to get mine to that point. I have been very impressed with how many people are willing to help out new bloggers. With these kind of resources available, I may one day turn into a real blogger!

So maybe I should answer the question now. Of all of the above links, the only one I already use is GoodReads. I am learning how to use it to its potential and I actually have two whole friends on there now. Woohoo! It's been fun to type in a book title and see what everyone else thought about it. I finally decided to delete titles of books that I read forever ago and put only recently read titles in my list. I realized I could go on and on adding books I've read but may not really remember well.

I have looked at Shelfari but immediately preferred to stay with GoodReads. And I just now found out what a Book Buddy is and I want one! I have visions of taking my laptop to bed on cold winter nights to come.

And, finally, I just signed up for Twitter but have absolutely no idea what to do next. I think I will just take that one nice and slow.