Fun Fact Friday (#66)

 Fun Fact Friday is a meme hosted by Lettora at I’m Booked! If you’d like to join and do your own Fun Fact Friday, just ask! At I’m Booked! Every week we’ll give you five new, fun facts. This week’s five facts:

1.  Elephant brains can weigh as much as 5 KG (11 LB), more than the brain of any other land animal.

2.  Every year about 98% of atoms in your body are replaced.

3.  A ball of glass will bounce higher than a ball of rubber. A ball of solid steel will bounce higher than one made entirely of glass.

4.  Sloths take two weeks to digest their food.

5.  Slugs have 4 noses.

Fun Fact Friday (#65)

Fun Fact Friday is a meme hosted by Lettora at I’m Booked! If you’d like to join and do your own Fun Fact Friday, just ask! At I’m Booked! Every week we’ll give you five new, fun facts. This week’s five facts:

1. The weird bright dots you see floating when you look at the sky are your white blood cells.

2. Almost a third of the world's languages are spoken only in Africa.

3. A koi fish named "Hanako" lived for 225 years.

4.  There's an Island in Brazil where civilians are forbidden to go: it has up to 5 snakes per square meter.

5.  1.3 million Earths could fit into the Sun.

Want to know what speed you read?

I've been meaining to repost this for a while. Have you ever wanted to know what speed you read? Maybe you already know but want to retest yourself or beat your record. I came across this little test after visiting Goodreads and basically it gives you a general idea of how quickly you read and tells you, based on your score, how long it would take you to read various novels  and how many novels you could get through on your e-reader before it needs recharging.

Have fun:

Source: Staples eReader Department

Let me know your score in the comments!

Fun Fact Friday (#64)

Fun Fact Friday is a meme hosted by Lettora at I’m Booked! If you’d like to join and do your own Fun Fact Friday, just ask! At I’m Booked! Every week we’ll give you five new, fun facts. This week’s five facts:

1. Dogs are as smart as a 2-year-old baby. They can learn and understand over 150 words.

2.  At rest, your brain uses one fifth of a calorie per minute.

3.  Between 10 and 20 volcanoes are erupting somewhere on Earth every day.

4.  Cats sweat through their paws.

5.  A newly-discovered species of rust-eating bacteria will have consumed the wreck of the Titanic within 20 years.

Discussion: How Important is your Follower Count?

As I’ve been blogging over the years my views on followers and following back have changed slightly. When I started off I made it my job to get as many followers as possible and to follow as many bloggers as I could find. I was fixated on numbers and had the idea that the more followers I had the better my blog was. I followed other blogs whether I liked them or not because I wanted to integrate myself into the blogosphere. This worked to an extent. I gained followers quickly and I found other bloggers to follow but I found that the number of followers I had didn’t correlate the number of comments I got or how many page views I received. I was also completely focused on Google Friend Connect and I thought that the only way I’d get more readers was to have hundreds, maybe even thousands of followers.

That’s all changed, I no longer do follows-for-follows and I only follow blogs that I find interesting. Most of the comments I receive come from those that don’t follow me on GFC or any platform but they still regularly comment when they see something that interests them. If people do follow me they’re more likely to use Bloglovin’, Twitter or even send me a friend request on Goodreads. Because there are so many different ways to find other blogs and read their content, I’m not too fussed about how many people follow me directly or even indirectly.

I suppose it depends on how you measure your blogs success. Some people write special posts for every milestone. Some people hold a giveaway for every hundred followers they get. At the same time, some people don’t even have the option to follow or subscribe on their blog. I personally like to bookmark my favourite blogs because it’s an easy way to keep track of my favourite article.

How important are followers to you?

May Giveaway: Get organised with a Notebook [INT Ends: 31/5/15]

It's the start of the month which means it's time to kick start a new (international) giveaway! Since you guys liked the journal giveaway so much last time, this month I'll be giving away notebook in case you missed out last time and still want an opportunity to get organized. If you want to be in with a chance of winning then enter below.

a Rafflecopter giveaway


Good luck!

Fun Fact Friday (#63)

Fun Fact Friday is a meme hosted by Lettora at I’m Booked! If you’d like to join and do your own Fun Fact Friday, just ask! At I’m Booked! Every week we’ll give you five new, fun facts. This week’s five facts:

1.  A quarter of all ice-free land in the world is used for grazing livestock.

2.  The gastric-brooding frog gives birth through its mouth.

3.  Oceans cover 71% of the Earth's surface.

4.  63 Earths can fit inside Uranus.

5.  43% of the world's olive oil production is done in Spain.

Discussion: How Important is my Blog Design?

Okay, so you find a new blog and you like the content. The writer has a really good style and sense of humour. They post regularly about interesting things and they always respond to their comments. Perfect right? Except their blog design is giving you a headache. They have blue text on a green background and their sidebar is cramped with badges and widgets and links (oh my!) that seem to go on for miles down the page. Not only that but it takes five minutes to load one page.

Now tell me, if my content is really good, does it matter if my design is really bad? Maybe my design isn’t bad exactly. Maybe it’s just a little bland. Maybe it doesn’t run completely perfectly but it works efficiently enough to not give you a migraine.  Is that better?

Personally, I wouldn’t normally follow a blog for its fancy design. I’ll admit that when a blog is well built it will make me more inclined to check it out. The main thing for me is that the homepage is clean and easy to navigate. Obviously it would also help if the pages loaded quickly and if the text was easy to read. The most important thing is the content of course. That’s the reason I keep coming back. That said, my first impression is based on what I see. If I can’t find your other articles easily or if your posts are hard to read, then I probably won’t return unless your content is ah-mazing.

Does anyone feel (a little bit) influenced by a blog’s interface?

Cover Reveal Sign-Up: Wild Blue Yonder by Megan Tayte

This event will run on 25th May 12PM (UK Time). Sign up here.

Synopsis:

IN A WARPED HEAVEN, SHE MUST CHOOSE HER FATE: OBEDIENCE OR REBELLION

When Scarlett Blake chose life-after-death as a Cerulean, she expected to grieve for all she left behind: her boyfriend, her best friend, her mother, her home. But at least Cerulea, her heaven, would be… well, heavenly. Right?

Wrong.

The world in which Scarlett awakens is very far from her idea of a utopia. Picturesque, sure, and serene. But there can be no paradise within the unforgiving walls of a prison, be they of cold, hard stone or beautifully blue water.

Now Scarlett faces her hardest decision yet: be a good, dutiful Cerulean, or be true to herself and fight for freedom.

And if she can find a way to escape, what then? Can she finally reunite with her lost sister? Can she save Sienna from the murderous Fallen? Can she evade her destiny with the Ceruleans?

Can Scarlett Blake ever reclaim her life-before-death… or must she let go of all she loves?

Author Bio:

Once upon a time a little girl told her grandmother that when she grew up she wanted to be a writer. Or a lollipop lady. Or a fairy princess fireman. 'Write, Megan,' her grandmother advised. So that's what she did. Thirty-odd years later, Megan writes the kinds of books she loves to read: young-adult paranormal romance fiction. Young adult, because it's the time of life that most embodies freedom and discovery and first love. Paranormal, because she's always believed that there are more things in heaven and on earth than are dreamt of in our philosophy. And romance, because she's a misty-eyed dreamer who lives for those 'life is so breathtakingly beautiful' moments. Megan grew up in the Royal County, a hop, skip and a (very long) jump from Windsor Castle, but these days she makes her home in Robin Hood's county, Nottingham. She lives with her husband, a proud Scot who occasionally kicks back in a kilt; her son, a budding artist with the soul of a paleontologist; and her baby daughter, a keen pan-and-spoon drummer who sings in her sleep. When she's not writing, you'll find her walking someplace green, reading by the fire, or creating carnage in the kitchen as she pursues her impossible dream: of baking something edible.

Website:

http://megantayte.com/

Guest Post: The Good and the Bad of Book-to-Movie Adaptations

 

 

Hi, I'm Skye Clover from A Geek with Books. I've been noticing recently that there are a lot of pros and cons that go with making books into movies, so I thought I would share the ones I came up with!

Pros:

1. It gets people into reading.

A lot of people like to read a book BEFORE they see a movie (I am one of those people, except I must), so more people begin to have a love of books. Which is awesome (because books)!!

2. You get to fangirl/boy out.

You can show your love for a certain book or series that would look weird if people didn't know what it was (i.e. dressing up like Tris before the movie came out).

3. The book comes to life on screen.

Seeing a book on a screen could help you notice what you've never noticed before, and really just bring your favorite book to life, and who doesn't love their favorite actors playing their favorite characters?

4. Watching your friends or family find out what happens when you already know.

THIS IS SO MUCH FUN. I know what's coming up next, and they don't. Then, I can watch their oh so hilarious reactions!

Cons:

1. The movie (usually) isn't as good as the book (to most people).

Book lovers always complain that the book was better (though, in my opinion, the Catching Fire was WAY better), yet they see them all

anyway?

2. When actors don't look like the characters.

This happens SOOOO often. We get all on the actor for being brunette instead of blonde, and can't seem to pay attention to anything else! Even though, in reality, it's most likely not all that important.

3. The genre is EVERYWHERE if the movie does well.

Twilight, Twilight, and Twilight. There were SO MANY VAMPIRES. It was like authors forgot other genres existed! Same thing with dystopia, it's dying down now, but for awhile, it was everything in bookstores.

4. They change things......

This might just be the worst one. Now everyone know the story! Yay! Except....it isn't the book. At all. I wish they could have just made Percy Jackson 12....!!! Or at least have the same plot as the book......

What's your opinion? Should books be made into movies? Any of pros you find bad, or cons you find good? Tell me in the comments!