I have decided that it is time to clean this dump up. While my book reviews number in the 1000’s (currently just under 3000), they aren’t all nicely posted one book to a post. From 2000 until 2009 I did monthly posts where I just lumped them all together. It makes searching here on WordPress a nightmare and linking to previous reads or mentions of older books? Forget about it!!! Matt’s Post about him working on his blog inspired me to get my backside in gear and to begin making this place workable.
I’ve got two main phases of construction that need to happen.
First, posts from Mid-2012 through the present need to be cleaned of all links to my old GR account that no longer exists or has covers & links to Booklikes, which I can’t count on staying alive much longer. I then need to add updated data. This includes covers, series information, maybe links and appropriate tags. This is the easiest as each book is still its own post. For the most part, this level of work won’t affect what you see here at all, even if you are email subscribed, unless I come across a discrepancy between wordpress and Calibre. I’m hoping this should be all taken care of by the end of this year.
The second phase is going to be the most intensive and will affect anyone who subscribes to “new” posts by email. I’ll have to go through each monthly post from 2000 through 2012 and write a separate post for each entry in the monthly post. So anywhere from 10-20+ new posts for each month. That is a phracking lot of writing. I’m guessing this phase of construction is going to take years. I won’t be bothering with adding covers to those posts, but there will still be all the prerequisite data that needs to be entered. So once again, series, rating, tags, links, etc. This is the main reason for this post. Any of you who subscribe by email will be getting inundated with emails once this starts up. Obviously, that time is a ways off, but if you have it in the back of your mind, it won’t come as a complete surprise.
I’ve been working on Phase 1 for about 2 weeks now. I can do a couple of months worth of the Phase 1 work each weekend. I pushed it last weekend and did almost 9 months worth of data. That caused me to just be completely “worded” out. This weekend I’m limiting myself to a month each evening, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Seems to be working out ok without burning me out.
Bookstooge's Reviews on the Road 
Oh wow! Good luck with that ‘project’ 🙂 I was already annoyed after adding star ratings to my reviews. I don’t have as many as you have.. by far! Kinda makes me regret not writing reviews years ago 😦
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Well, right about now, I’m really regretting not putting the effort into separate posts. Of course, I have no idea what I’ll regret in another 10 years, so I just shrug
😀 😀 😀
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Great project to work on. The blog is definitely a nice platform that’s worth investing in after all. A virtual diary that needs to be treated right! 😀 Really hope it won’t burn you out though.
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Yep, going to be taking it nice and slow 🙂
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I’ve been thinking along the same lines. I haven’t done it before because the amount of work is daunting. I even have reviews from eons ago on paper…
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Daunting. That’s a good word for it
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Wow, that’s a huge undertaking. Good luck! Fortunately I’m obsessed with shelves and tagging, so all my posts – including those with multiple reviews featured in them – are labeled with author, title, series so they can still be easily searched.
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Yeah, this is what happens when you’ve done something for so long. Goals and purposes change. And honestly, I never thought I’d want to do the things I want to do now 🙂
I just started using series info as a tag as well as putting it into the review. I thought about doing the same for authors’ names, but it just seems too much. Watch, in another 10 years I’ll wish I HAD. Sigh…
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Good luck man! Hope it goes well
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Thanks. I figure if I work at it a little bit at a time, I won’t get discouraged 🙂
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Thousands of reviews!? You sir are amazing.
Good luck sorting it all.
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Comes from starting my reading journal back in 2000. Given, hundreds of those early reviews are simply what genre it is, but still, I count it 😀
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I occasionally do “short review” posts, mostly just to clear out unpublished reviews that have been building up but for which I don’t want to write long reviews. I still list each book separately on my ‘Book Reviews’ page, so you can find them that way.
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Long review, short review, yeah, that’s all good. Some of my reviews consist of nothing more than title, author and genre. But it’s the getting each one into a separate post that is what is really necessary…
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That is going to be a lot of work for you and I feel your pain! I really need to go back through my blog and remove dead links and graphics and make those early posts a bit nicer to look at. I’m putting if off right now as I’ve got other tasks to do like my Goodreads shelves and clearing unwanted files off the computer. Ugh!
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Goodreads, schmoodreads. Let that pile of poo go.
Just in case you can’t tell, I’m not the sites biggest fan 😀
My biggest issue is having so much data compressed into monthly posts. It makes searching a real pain 🙂
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Good luck! 🙂
It’s a lot of work but you’ll probably like the blog more once you accomplished the changes.
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I think the biggest thing will be that I should be appearing in a lot more search engine results and I’m hoping that will result in more page views.
😀
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I can understand cleaning up dead links, and maybe adding more categories and tags, but I’m not sure that each book needs its own post. If someone lands on a multi-book post, they can just hit ctrl-F to jump to the part they’re looking for. Trying to save you some time….
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See, that whole ctrl-F is what I’ve been using. However, I find it clunky, unwieldy and a real pain in the butt when trying to link to re-read posts.
And I think that is the main impetus of this whole thing. Re-reading, I want to be able to compare what I thought from before and now, easily. One click. Not a click and then fumbling around.
Also, from personal experience, when I click on a google link and I end up on some page that doesn’t have the immediate info I was clicking for, I just close the page. So I assume anyone clicking onto one of my monthly or yearly posts would do the same.
Thank you though. I appreciate the kind thought 🙂
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You certainly are looking at a MASSIVE mountain of work, and while I admire your resolve I feel sorry for all the effort you will have to pour into this. On the other hand, this sounds like the proverbial labor of love, so that might lighten your burden a little. Hopefully…
Good luck! 🙂
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It’s definitely something I “want” to do. That definitely helps, But like most other “projects” that I want to do, it just saps me to even think about it 🙂
I’ve still got all my magic the gathering cards to go through and sort and put in binders. I’m more afraid of this blog going into the “I’ll get to it sometime” zone than anything, you know?
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Well, at the end of the day, it’s the thought that counts… 😉
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That is what I keep telling my magic cards every time I look at them and ignore them to read a book instead 😀 😀 😀
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Cool idea! I’m so particular about so many things, but for some reason once a post has gone off the current list I rarely think about it again. It would be really nice to go back and beautify/perfect all of the things. As I’ve only been following for the more recent posts, being on the backlist reviews!
And good luck. 🙂
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*bring
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Once I get them how I want them now, I’ll probably be satisfied for at least another decade. And who knows what I’ll be doing in 10 years. Maybe give up reading and become witch doctor or something 😉
On the number of emails, what would you find to be just overwhelming enough that you simply deleted them as you got them?
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Lol, yeah too hard to plan that far ahead. ;P
It depends on if they’re staggered. And how often I’d check my email. In either instance, I’d probably keep an eye out for books I’m interested in and read just those (out of 10+ a day). Although volume smaller than that would probably take you forever to get through your project haha.
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If I can do a month an evening on the weekends, I can get through it in a year. That would be 10-30 posts Saturday and Sundays. 2 years tops if I take it easy, which is probably what will end up happening, ha!
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That’s not too bad. I don’t think you’ll have issue if people know to expect it from this post. Maybe it will feel like a bookstooge weekend newsletter like what TOR does haha.
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I’m hoping people won’t be surprised when it starts. I’ll probably do a Phase 2 post when I’m ready to start…
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That witch doctor thing could be a smart move. Might be the best healthcare available in ten years.
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Ha!
Well, better start collecting those chicken bones then! Goodness, our place is going to stink…
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I’m not 100% sure but I think if you play with the post dates and set them in the past, they don’t show up as new posts for your subscribers. (I’m all for one post/book btw, makes indexing/reference easier.)
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Unfortunately, I thought that too, but it isn’t he case.
I’m subscribed to my blog using another email so I can test this kind of thing. I’ve had a few discrepancies between my blog and calibre, which has my completed reviews and so I’ve had to backdate a few posts and sure enough, I do get an email. I also know some other subscribers get the email because they’ve liked the old post within 10min of me putting it up.
I’ve looked through the various posting options and I can’t see anything to stop it either…
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Oh wow- good luck with all of this!
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Yeah, I’m going to need it 😀
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Wow. I’m in awe. 🙂 The very best of luck to you.
(Also, tidying! Squeee!) 😀
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While I’m not “really” ocd, I definitely have tendencies that way. So lists and organization, that’s the way I roll 🙂
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