Easy Email Organization Idea for Book Reviewers

About a week or two ago, I came up with a way to organize the emails I get from Celebrate Lit for the books that I will be reviewing.  I thought I would share it with you in case it would be a help.

I use Thunderbird as my email program on my computer.  The following is my setup for Celebrate Lit:

 

Here is my "workflow" for handling the email:  As I go through my emails and find books that I'm interested in reviewing, I fill out the application form.  At the same time, I make a new subfolder under Applied and name it the title of the book.  All emails referring to that book goes into that folder.  When I receive my Welcome email with the date that my review is due, I rename the folder according to that due date (monthday to keep it in chronological order.....aaaaand I just realized I'll have to be extra careful when I have January/February due dates!), and I move the whole subfolder to the Pending folder.  I separated August's book reviews into a separate subfolder called This Month so that I can quickly see what's coming up next (which will actually take care of January/February -- whew!).  As I finish each book review, the whole subfolder goes to the xCompleted folder.  The x in front is my shortcut for "archived" which basically means, "You'll probably never need this again, but just in case, this is where it is."  The xMiscellaneous folder is for housekeeping-type emails from Celebrate Lit.

Bonus:  You now know what's coming up on the blog!  PS The Secret Sisters Club will feature a very special guest book reviewer!  Aunt Kris will surely enjoy that one! ;-)

New Blog Tip: PrintFriendly

I just discovered an amazing little widget that literally saved me HOURS of future work!  For several months, I've been wanting to convert my recipe posts into alternative print-friendly versions so that y'all can print just the recipe and not all my rambling.  I considered using Goggle Docs, but really didn't want to spend all that time copying, pasting, and reformatting.

Today, I found PrintFriendly.com!  Not only do they offer a widget that I now have at the bottom of each post, but they also offer a PrintFriendly bookmarklet which allows you to turn ANY web page into a print-friendly version!  You may wonder, "Well, what about all the rambling mumbo jumbo that you put in with your recipes?"  You can easily tell it to delete portions of the page!  You can also tell it to not print the images.  (Unfortunately, that is an all-or-nothing feature.)  To make it even better, rather than print the page, you can have it converted to a PDF file and save it on your computer!

I was so excited about this website, I just had to post right away and tell y'all!

Please note: I was not asked to do this review and was not compensated in any way.

Blogger Tip: Fixing Truncated Posts in Google Reader

Full Disclosure:  I'm disguising this pet peeve of mine as a blogger tip.

I use Google Reader to read all of the blogs I follow (UPDATE: I no longer use Google Reader.  Here is why.).  It's a fantastic time-saver.  It allows me to go from one blog post to another from all of the blogs quite easily.  Most of the blogs have their settings set up so that I can read the entire blog post and view all of the images on the blog post.  Others, however, have their settings set up (most of the time, unknowingly, I think) so that I see only the first part of their blog post and NONE of the images.  In order to see the entire blog post, I have to go directly to their site, usually after "starring" it to look at later.  This adds unnecessary time to blog reading.  I have contacted a few of the blog owners and kindly let them know of the problem AND the solution (for those who use Blogger as their host).  I have no idea what to do for WordPress people.  (I guess I could google it!  Here's a possible solution.)

For Blogger users, you need to do the following:

While in your Dashboard, click on Settings.  Then, click on Site Feed.
At the top where it says "Allow Blog Feeds," make sure the drop-down menu says "Full."

This will take care of the problem, and your readers who use Google Reader (or other RSS Feeds) will be much happier.

Blogger Tip: Who Pinned You on Pinterest?

I read a great tip the other day about how to find out if anybody has pinned any of your posts on Pinterest.

Here is a generic link:
http://pinterest.com/source/yourblogURL/

Replace "yourblogURL" with your blog's URL (or web address, in case you don't know what URL is).

For example, for my blog, here is the link:

http://pinterest.com/source/21stcenturykeeperathome.blogspot.com/

That's it!  You can bookmark the link, and check it from time to time.

How to Add a "View Mobile" Link to Your Blogger Website

If you'll notice, I have added a new link on my menu bar that will allow mobile phone users to view my site in the Mobile version that Blogger has available.  I really like how the mobile version looks on my phone and it's MUCH easier to navigate and view.  I don't get to see all the extra stuff in the sidebar, but I can always click on the View Web Version that's at the bottom of the home page.

Here are a few examples:

Left to Right:  My blog in regular Web View, my blog in Mobile View, my blog in Mobile View scrolled down so you can see how it lists the articles, a particular post in Mobile View

Left to Right:  My friend Valerie's blog (The Bishop's Wife) in regular Web View, Valerie's blog in Mobile View (I think the print is small due to the header graphic), One of Valerie's posts in Mobile View.

How to Add a "View Mobile" Link to Your Blogger Website

While in the Blogger Dashboard, I clicked on Edit Pages.  I then clicked on New Page.  I titled it View Mobile.

I kept it simple, typing in only "Click here to view this site on your mobile device."  I put a link for the words Click here.  The link is comprised of the URL for my blog followed by the characters /?m=1

http://21stcenturykeeperathome.blogspot.com/?m=1

I do not know if the same procedure will work for WordPress or other websites, but I do know it works for Blogger sites.

If you would like to add a link to your website and have no way of trying it out, email me with the link to your homepage, and I will try it out on my phone.

Here is an even easier option:  Change your settings!

Go to Settings, Click on Email & Mobile,  Change Show mobile template to Yes.  Done.  Now, you don't even need the View Mobile Link.  However, I'll keep mine for "just in case" someone needs it.