Most Creative Voting

VOTING CLOSED. Most Creative goes to...

ENSCONCED IN YA

Welcome to the voting for Most Creative! Voting will last until July 27, 12:00 AM EST, to August 3, 11:59 PM EST. Please only vote once, and do not cheat! Scroll up if you would like to see the Best Design voting rounds.

YA Sisterhood

Ensconced in YA

So here's the deal about Ensconced in YA. Yes, it's hard to type right. And some of you might not even know what the word ensconced means. And it's true, Christina doesn't have a ginormous multi-colored header with animated rainbow and puppies. But the blog is GOOD, people.

For one, Christina has amassed 2000 followers in just over a year. That's crazy, yo! I can still count all my blog followers on the toes of my cats, and I have multiple Big Six publishing deals. Clearly, she is doing something right. Here's a rundown of some of the creative things she does:

• twitter parties that utilize various contest formats
• sections on her blog that appeal specifically to writers, readers, and bloggers
• story prompts for writers
• snippets of her own writing. Look! She's creating! That's creative, no?
• rants--sometimes by her, sometimes by guest bloggers, about things that really grind our gears #FamilyGuyReference
• author and character interviews that don't just ask the same 5 questions that have been answered all over the interwebs
• FB question prompts like "How would you define the trope of Instalove?" (I bet THAT was an animated discussion!)
• a high degree of support for indie and self-pub'd authors, which isn't common on big 2000 follower blogs

In addition to all of this, her blog is easy-to-read, informative, and professional. As an author, I don't have a lot of time to read blogs, so I always enjoy a blog like Ensconced in YA that is lighter on graphics (and thus loads quickly) but heavy on information. Vote for Christina as Most Creative Blogger because clearly she rocks or I would not have taken the time to write her this rather lengthy endorsement while on deadline :) FIONA SAYS VOTE ENSCONCED IN YA FOR MOST CREATIVE!
-Fiona Paul, author of Venom, Belladonna, and Starling

Media Links:
Facebook | Twitter | Amazon | Goodreads | Bloglovin
Cabin Goddess

Below are three testimonials and my responses to these that give a broader example of what I do for each author and person I have had on my blog. My biggest thing is making the author or guest I have on my blog shine. I want them to go “WOW, I feel special!” I want them to feel like when they show up they are on stage. I make 3D books for each author, always post EVERY link for buying, goodreads add, social media links, bios, and author images. I even enhance their images if it is not high quality, in fact Erica now uses the one I have created and so does Pavarti K. Tyler for some of her stops. I use customized colors, graphics, stock images, and take hours sometimes for interviews to make sure they are amazing. In fact Interviews sometimes take me almost 6 hours to make look right because I need to find images that I can use with common copyrights or that I buy at Stockphoto for their dreamcast and if they did not make their recipes and supply images (I do Interviews and a Recipe) I either make the food and photograph it or I buy an image for it. I want it perfect, I let my OCD play out to their favor. I think it shows in each post.

Keira Michelle Telford author of – The Silver Series (10 books series) & The Prisonworld Trilogy Fourth-Wall Friday*** is one of my favorite guest spots EVER. It gives authors an opportunity to offer readers a more intimate glimpse into the dark recesses of their minds. Nowhere else can a writer interact that completely with their characters, and that dynamic between creator and creation can be both fascinating and revealing. It's the only place where the author and the characters exist in the same realm, for a brief moment of time, and it's precious. Not only that, but Kriss devotes a lot of time to putting features like this together, and it shows. She's incredibly detailed (when she interviewed me for her blog, she sourced pictures and a recipe for fried rats (who else does this?!?), and I feel like every time I guest on her blog it's a completely unique experience. It feels fresh and exciting, and is by far one of my favorite blogs to visit.
–Keira Michelle Telford - @MyLostAndDamned - http://www.ellacross.com/

(Kriss here -- here is the rat recipe, I pinned it a while ago but I could not find it so I pinned it earlier tonight for the purpose of this)

Keira And I met at the beginning of my book blogging career and she was just publishing the first of her series. It was not much later than I finally was able to get her on the blog and she dove straight into Fourth-Wall Friday***. She has been on Fourth-Wall Friday twice and is signed up for a third time she loves it so much. I have had this particular feature 52 weeks now, there have been some missed ones, but it has been steady for at least 11 months. This has ever Fourth-Wall Friday pinned. Each interview I do from a template that I change up for the author and have a chance for them to even put flash fiction. I do Weekly Shorts where I feature Short stories and my reviews I try to personalize and bring light, shine and sparkle. I am highly visual and I use CSS short code to bring color and interactive posts to the blog and also tweak author images and other images to blend and fit with my blogs style.

Silver:Acheron(A River of Pain) a balls to the wall experience (review)
Interview& a Recipe: Keira Michelle Telford (#giveaway)
“TheRight Direction” with Keira Michelle Teleford- (Fourth-Wall Friday)
Me and My Old Tart - Keira Michelle Telford (Fourth-Wall Friday)

But I have two other authors and guests who wanted to share some stuff with you too.

My name is Erica Lucke Dean and I'm a published author and blogger. I've been lucky enough to be featured on Kriss's Cabin Goddess website on numerous occasions. Kriss was kind enough to review my book, interview me, and she did several wonderful preview posts for my book as well. Her 4th Wall Friday*** feature was the highlight of my blog tour, and in fact, after being featured on her website, I was approached by several other reviewers to read and review my book as well. I consider Kriss and her Cabin Goddess blog to be one of the best, most creative outlets for authors and readers alike.
--Erica Lucke Dean, author of To Katie with Love

Erica was on my blog over five times for the course of the release of her first book. I did my featured To Katie with Love - Review and a Recipe, an Interview – Interviewing @ericaluckedean, an author sometimes caught with her underwear inside-out where I used special images, incorporate flash fiction, recipes and even create a special tweet button just for them! I put a lot of time to make their posts shine. She also signed up months prior in anticipation to her release for Fourth-Wall Friday*** (which btw authors are booked through December for right now)


Erica Lucke Deane -- Katie with Love - Review and a Recipe

Her Interview & a Recipe – Interviewing @ericaluckedean, an author sometimes caught with her underwear inside-out

Margarita Senoritas & Karaoke with Katie – Erica Lucke Dean (Fourth-Wall Friday). 

Erica’s series of posts is a great example of the time and creativity I put for into what could just be a simple review or interview and instead I took it a step further. I don’t like boring!

I first met Kriss Morton/Cabin Goddess by being invited to become a part of a writing group. I was new to social media and needed to be shepherded into how an online group of writers and bloggers would interact. I couldn't be happier with the results, and a major reason is because I met Kriss Morton, and began to read her blog. At this time the blog was going through some growing pains. In early form, there was a heavy emphasis on cooking, and on bacon in particular; I knew I could find comfort there, and after a certain post on the benefit of maple bacon donuts, I was hooked. First and foremost though, I am a writer who had dreams of publishing my stories, and finding publication is something that I did accomplish. Kriss and the other friends and bloggers were there pursuing their own writing and blogging dreams. We cheered each other on, and, guess what? We all climbed higher and pushed each other. Kriss's Cabin Goddess blog expanded to take on a heavy and enlightening book review presence. Her kindheartedness towards authors began to reach more and more readers. This kindheartedness did not get in the way of her being honest if an author's work did not meet a good level of competence; her critiques could be trusted because they embodied honesty. Authors soon came knocking on her door in droves, panting to be reviewed. I was one of those early authors. One of the most original ways Kriss used her blog to become a top book review site was because she combined her love of recipes and good cooking with her love of good books. She compared my first collection of short fiction, Sandcastle and Other Stories, to a spicy paella. The Cabin Goddess website and blog offers so much to any writer or reader in the field, and, most importantly, her slow cooker chili is not to be missed.
—Justin Bog, author of Sandcastle and Other Stories and The Conversationalist

Justin and I have known each other since I had 128 twitter followers and was brand new to Triberr back in the fall of 2011. Though I was not new to social media, I was new to what roll it was now playing in the world. I had dreams of being a foodie blog and when I wrote a review for an indie book on my blog right after I wrote a recipe for Maple Bacon Donuts Justin kept retweeting my recipes and my blog! It just morphed into Review and a Recipe, then Fourth-Wall Friday and now I have a special interview that I have authors fill out a complex interview and have them create themed recipes and drinks to go with their book! Because of Justin I was able to keep my dream to have my blog become a foodie blog when it grew up to be a very popular book blog that has more than just reviews, and generic blurbs and guest posts and common interviews etc. Referenced review and Weekly Shorts special.

REVIEW | WEEKLY SHORTS

***From my signup form for Fourth-Wall Friday Feature -- Fourth-Wall is a theatre reference, It is the front of the stage, where an actor does not cross, when they do it is called breaching the fourth-wall. Those movies where actors all of a sudden are talking to us and breaking the stride of the story? That is breaching fourth wall. This is kind of flipping it, instead of breaking the fourth-wall in the novel, which would be a character breaking out of the story and doing a typical character interview or guest post that some authors do, you are breaking into their world, breaking bread with them, or having a drink, or whatever the tale is within their world or meeting in-between. Or you can bring your muse aboard and include her. There are lots of tools to doing this, I try to tell the author, treat it like a flash fiction exercise, they can set a timer and go or just write! **I want to add that this can be for more than just authors** Authors, Bards.. story tellers, slip the hat on, the one that wakes up the muse (at least one can hope) and become one with everything; book, character, that bottle of whiskey at the table in a bar in your main characters home town.. Let Cabin Goddesses readers eavesdrop with her and become peeping Toms with all of those living amongst the pages.

Media Links:  Twitter | Facebook | Goodreads | Pinterest | Folllowgram | Feedburner | Google+ | BlogLovin'
Feed Me Books Now 

Hey everyone! I'm extremely honoured and humbled to be nominated for the Most Creative blog, especially seeing as Feed Me Books Now!!! is so small compared to some of the other big names in this category. Creativity is something I really aspire towards and I'm so grateful that it has paid off enough for me to be nominated. I mean, if you can't tell already, I'm super happy about this nomination!

I've always been bad with praising and talking about myself, so I've got Zoe and Jack to tell y'all why my blog is creative! So, without further ado, take it away Zoe...

How can I possibly sum up how creative Ruby is in a single paragraph? When seeing this category, Ruby's blog immediately burst to mind. It's just so vibrant, unique and artistic. I love going to her blog and whenever I see a new post on by Ruby on my dashboard, I give a big grin! (Seriously, I think my parents are scared of me since I smile so much when reading Ruby's posts). And I'm not the only one, Ruby has so many followers and dedicated fans of her blog! She gets tons of comments and I wouldn't be surprised at all if she wins this award. Go, Ruby! :)

To prove how awesomely creative this girl is, she runs a few features on her blog. One of my favourites is Character Wars which is where fictional characters are put against each other and debated which one the person prefers. She also creates a Monthly Round Up which is so much fun to read! It includes the book she has read, various pieces of news and recommended posts. To add to the infinite list of how creative Ruby is - her reviews = wow! Instead of the usual rating system, she wraps the book up in one word, explains why and also shares her favourite quote.

In a nutshell, Ruby is one of the most imaginative and inspiring bloggers I know! As a great lover of GIFs, I simply have to share one which describes Ruby the most:
—Zoe from Bookhi

So that was Zoe from Bookhi saying why I should win this award *awkward grin* and now for Jack from The Book Stop – take it away Jack!

When I first met Ruby and came across Feed Me Books Now, I was astounded at how original, welcoming, and creative her blog was! Not only does it have a warm and completely unique design, but her posts and writing has to be the most creative I've ever seen in the blogosphere. Ruby puts a twist on typical posts, discussions, and reviews, and makes them her own. Her rating system is eye-catching and definitely a creative idea! I love how her reviews are enthusiastic and friendly, yet very professional. I am always excited to see what Ruby's next blog post will be, because I know it will be a creative and that it won't disappoint!

Instead of overloading her blog with memes and tags and unoriginal blog post ideas, Ruby likes to add a creative twist and make them her own. Every blog post is a surprise, and it feels like a treat every time I visit Feed Me Books Now. Even the blog name is fantastically creative! Ruby definitely deserves to win the Bloggy Award for Most Creative Blog, because of how hard she works to make her blog original and how dedicated she is to blogging. All I can say is thank you so much Ruby, for providing the blogosphere with a creative and fun place for book lovers! :)
—Jack from The Book Stop

Once again, I'm SO grateful to be nominated for this award and I hope that I'll gain a couple of votes..! Thanks to all who took the time to nominate me, and thanks to Jack and Zoe for sharing their thoughts about my blog's creativity. :)

Media Links:

Twitter | Goodreads | Bloglovin

The Perpetual Page Turner

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Remember, voting will last a week until August 3, 11:59 PM EST. Please only vote once, and do not cheat. Scroll up for the Best Design category, and good luck to all! :)

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