In general, 2016 was a crappy year for me. It had some ups, but a lot of downs, in particular my grandmother’s passing, struggles with decisions I had to make in regards to my career, one of my publishers calling it quits, and a lot more. But in terms of writing, and this blog, 2016 was pretty okay.

Back in January, I wrote a post with my New Year’s Resolutions. Let’s take a look at how I did.

• Finish the reading challenges I signed up for. I signed up for 8 challenges, and I successfully finished 5 of them. Two I nearly completed, and one was a big fail, but overall, I’m happy with that progress.
• Add covers of the books I received for review on my Facebook page. I didn’t do this at all. Bad blogger!
• Put the latest reviews in the sidebar of my blog. I did this for a while, but then gave up on it halfway through the year.
• Set up more original posts. I didn’t do too good on this either.
• Update the review index. The review index is updated, and all reviews are on there. YAY!
• Keep more in touch with the book blogging community.  I did quite well on this goal. For a while, I posted on about 10 books a day (Monday-Friday), and did it pretty consistently. I’ve lapsed now with the holidays, but I plan to pick it up again in January.
• Use the mailing list, send out weekly email. I did send out a weekly email for almost all the weeks of the year (really, I only missed a few when I had an emergency or something else come up) but I didn’t really manage to expand the mailing list.
• Participate in more memes. I started out great, participating in memes almost daily, then lost track for a few months, then picked it up again. I think I’ll have to start scheduling these beforehand.
• Read over 200 books. I read 199 books this year! But I also read a bunch of books that I used in mini-reviews, so I do consider this a win.

Each year, I come up with some brand new goals, and this year is no different. I didn’t do too bad on my goals for last year, but I didn’t do amazing either. I did manage to read about 250 books, so not too savvy.

Here are my goals for 2016:

• Finish the reading challenges I signed up for. Last year, I successfully finished the five challenges I signed up for (after drastically limiting the number of challenges from the year before, when I signed up for about 20…oops). This year, I’m taking on a slightly higher number, seven.
• Add covers of the books I received for review on my Facebook page. Also, keep track of the books I reviewed on Facebook. I didn’t do this last year, although I had it on my goals list.
• Put the latest reviews in the sidebar of my blog. I’ll add the covers and then have them link to the review. Last year, I did this for about two months before I gave up, but it was a good way to show the latest books I reviewed, so I want to start doing it again.
• Set up more original posts. This could be discussion posts, tutorials, tricks, anything.  I haven’t written any of those in forever, and they’re so much fun.
• Update the review index. I think I last updated it around August 2014 or something, so not all my reviews are up there.
• Keep more in touch with the book blogging community. Another goal from last year. I did quite well…for about a month. Then I stopped doing this again, although I have no clue why. Interacting with others is so much more fun than feeling like you’re shouting nonsense into cyberspace.
• Use the mailing list, send out weekly email. I want to work on expanding and updating my mailing list, and sending out a weekly recap email, probably on Monday.
• Participate in more memes. I started out great last year, but lost track halfway through the year. I want to participate in It’s Monday, what are you reading?, Teaser Tuesday, Waiting on Wednesday, and maybe more memes if I find some that interest me.
• Read over 200 books. I read 300 in 2014 and 250 in 2015, but I don’t want to push myself, and frankly, I think 200 is more than enough for next year.