I’ve Moved! Update Your Feed! Last Chance!

This is your finalize notice to PLEASE update your feed. The Google Friend Connect will remain the same, how that works, I dunno, but it does (even though it looks like it’s not on the new blog), I have to update the code but it will close this blog! (I think it’ll still say you’re following Book Reviews by Jess but this blog will automatically redirect you to The Cozy Reader)

So, for anyone who hasn’t updated their info please do it today!

The Cozy Reader

RSS Feed

Email Subscription

I’m off to post my In My Mailbox and hopefully a few reviews! I’ve got a pile of books just waiting to be reviewed! :)

Hugs!

New Blog is LIVE!

Please check it out!

The Cozy Reader

A huge thank you to Gisele for the beautiful layout and the time she spent on this. She was very generous to work this into her very busy schedule. Thanks Gis! You can check out Gis's other work on her blog.

I'm sure there will be a few things still out of place,  such as my signature on old posts.

Please feel free to steal my new blog banner.

Here's the code:

<a href="http://thecozyreader.com" mce_href="http://thecozyreader.com"><img src="http://thecozyreader.com/wp-content/themes/thecozyreader/images/thecozyreader_190x110.png" mce_src="http://thecozyreader.com/wp-content/themes/thecozyreader/images/thecozyreader_190x110.png" /></a>

I'm keeping my current Twitter account and the fairly new Facebook page too. I did create a new email:

thecozyreader@gmail.com

I will be directing the blogspot address over to thecozyreader.com starting on Monday. So, please bookmark, subscribe via RSS or email to this new address so you don't miss out! Links to these are on the right hand side of the new blog. I hope to not lose any followers!

New Blog Coming!

The new blog is up and I’m working on getting it finalized!

To do so I have to suspend all comments for a while. Please be patient.

Once everything is finalized I will post a new entry here with all the lovely details!

Can’t wait to show you the shiny!

Hugs!

Giveaway: Designer (Birdie) Stacking Mugs

My new blog is still underway and the lovely designer, Gisele, just happens to be having a giveaway of some adorable stacking mugs with her too cute Birdie design!

She has quite a few designs available too.

You can enter too. Just post about this giveaway. Visit her lovely blog for more information and an extra entry. Enter by April 16th, midnight in Norway (+1 / CET time).

You might want to follow her because she sometimes has design giveaways! She’s  super busy chica so winners of those are lucky.

I can’t wait to show off her skills on my new blog.

Let her know I referred you! (Maybe she’ll give me a discount!)  ;)

New Facebook Page!

Hello my lovely followers!

Upon the advice of a dear friend, LJ, I have created a Book Reviews by Jess Facebook page.

I was reluctant to do so because I’m in the process of reimaging my blog and my blog name. One day soon I hope to have a new look (above pic is a hint to the new look) and a new name and I didn’t want to make too many more things that would need to be changed after that is done.

But Facebook and Twitter are huge networking tools that I really can’t ignore them too much.

I’m keeping my “personal” Twitter feed for the blog because, really, that’s all I ever used it for anyway. If you aren’t following me on Twitter here’s a link so you can!

But there’s a new Facebook page for the blog. So, please, if you have a Facebook profile become a fan of my page!

If you have a page too and you don’t think I’m a fan let me know in the comments! I’m always up to adding some pages to my list as well as my “page” list.

 

New Layout – TOU WTFery

I was forced to pick a new layout design. Why?

Because I received a comment from a follower letting me know that they just couldn’t let it go anymore, that the spelling of Santa Claus in the Believe template was spelled incorrectly as “Santa Clause”.

I thought that was great to let me know so I passed on the information to both the layout coder and the graphic owner. Thinking that they could both work together to correct the spelling.

I contacted them both: Butterflygirlms Blog Design, who wrote the code for the layout and Candace Duffy Jones, who created the graphics that were used in the Believe template.

Candace states that Butterflygirlms is violating her Terms of Use (TOU).

Spammers!

I’m so upset to do this but I’m putting all comments comments on posts older than 3 days on moderation. I’ve already implemented the word verification hoping that would prevent spammers from commenting, but this morning there was a very nasty link in a new comment.
I just will not tolerate it.
And what makes me so mad was that this wasn’t an anonymous comment. They actually made a blogger account!
I apologize to my faithful readers and commentators. Hopefully I can remove it soon.

Drugs, Sex and Dead Bitches – Blog Rating

Wow. So there’s a handy tool that will rate your blog.
I saw this on Fantasy Dreamer’s Ramblings blog, she saw it on The Fiction Vixen. Seems we are shocked to see our ratings. I’m sure mine wouldn’t be so bad but I just reviewed Karma for Beginners and the words drugs and sex were numerous in that post.
I had:

Drugs (11x)
Sex (8x)
Dead (3x)
Bitches (1x)

I’m surprised Bitches was only there once. I talk about Smart Bitches, Trashy Books quite a bit. Hmmm…
Anyhow, I kinda agree with this rating. Some of the books I read really shouldn’t be around teens. But I also read a lot of Young Adult books, but even some of them are risqué.

NOTE:
This rating system only rates based on the number of posts published on your main page. So if you have it set to 10 days or 20 posts that's what it will rate it on. I'd recommend increasing your post number for a more accurate rating and then switching it back when done!
What are you rated? Click on the rating pic above and give it a try!

New Layout

So I took most of the day today updating my blog with a new layout theme. I picked out the layout last night and planned to do the conversion today. It was a LOT of work but I’m very pleased with the outcome.

The header is super cute! The girl even resembles me nearly perfectly, except for maybe the eyes, mine are more round, and I wear glasses 95% of the time. And the laptop is just too perfect because that’s what I have in front of me 90% of the time, if it’s not a book.

I’m happy with the color combination. I’m a pretty girly girl and the mauve seems nice.

I love the slick nav bar menu under the header. I’m still playing around with that so you’ll be seeing the “Coming Soon”s for a while until I perfect it.

I also love the Twitter follow me icon on the top right of the header and the automatic last Tweet above it.

I know that everybody uses something different to access the internet, ie browsers are numerous these days, so if you could please take a moment to look around and let me know if anything is amiss I would greatly appreciate it.

Well I hope you like it as much as I do!

ETA:

Thanks for all the responses!

I found this layout on the web! It's actually designed by the same designer as my previous layout. I am in the process of getting a layout personalized for me but the designer is moving and having other issues so it'll be a while before she even gets to start on it.

The pictures on the main page that show a snippet of my blog posts will look scrunched. It's just what it does with the first image of the post. I don't mind it because I know that's just meant to be a "preview" of what's inside.

I adjusted the font type and size on some of the text. Thanks Christine!

I made the text on the banner a dark brown instead of white or light mauve. Thanks La Coccinelle for that suggestion.

I found a super cool website that does palette matching. Color Hunter is so cool. Check it out! You can upload a picture and it will give you a palette. Awesomeness.