Bloggiesta Starting Line!

IT'S TIME TO FIESTA!

Welcome to the starting line for Bloggiesta... the blogging party led by our fearless mascot PEDRO (Plan. Edit. Develop. Review. Organize.) and created several years ago by Natasha from Maw Books Blog (who is enjoying a brand new baby girl at her house!) The idea behind Bloggiesta is to keep Pedro happy by spending these next three days working on perfecting your blog and connecting with other bloggers doing the same thing.

HOW TO PARTY

• Bloggiesta begins now and runs through Sunday night... wherever you are. We don't have specific starting and ending times.... just Friday March 30 through Sunday April 1... wherever and whenever you are in the world!

• Plan to spend as much time as you can working on your to do list and completing mini challenges. Don't worry about having the entire three days to devout to this, but do challenge yourself to put in some good hours to the project.

• To let us know you are here and officially participating please sign the Mr. Linky below with a link to your BLOGGIESTA TO DO LIST which you should post on your blog. If you have already done this post... just link to it now. If you have yet to write up your list... do it today and link to it. Please, do not use a link to your blog in general... but to your specific TO DO LIST post! We want people to be able to easily find your Bloggiesta plans.

• We would also like it if you would add your Twitter handle to your link so we can all easily find you there!

• We have two grand prize packs from Walden Pond Press and Candlwick Press which you will be eligible for by just participating. We will pick random winners from the wrap up/summary links once the weekend is over.

Prizes:

Candlewick Judy Moody Prize Pack (Includes all of the following):

An extra-large Judy Moody T-shirt

A pink boa

Pink sunglasses

1 copy of Judy Moody: Twice as Moody (which includes book 1 & 2 in the Judy Moody series) 

1 copy of book #9: Judy Moody Detective

Candlewick on Twitter, Facebook and Website

Walden Pond Press prize pack (Includes all of the following):

Neversink by Barry Wolverton hardcover

The Fourth Stall by Chris Rylander hardcover

The Fourth Stall, Part II by Chris Rylander hardcover

Juniper Berry by M.P. Kozlowsky hardcover

Breadcrumbs by Anne Ursu hardcover

The Hero’s Guide to Saving Your Kingdom by Christopher Healy ARC

Walden Pond Press on Twitter, Facebook, Blog

• Late comers are welcome to join in the fun! Just sign up below with your Bloggiesta post!

• Feel free to update your progress any way you see fit. You can just cross things off your list, or write a couple of update posts. We will have a Finish Line Post link up here on Sunday for anyone wishing to link up their summary posts (or crossed off lists.) We will pick two random winners from this list for the above mentioned prizes.

HOW TO CONNECT

• Much of our connection with each other will be happening on Twitter. Be sure to follow @Bloggiesta and the hashtag #bloggiesta.

• For fellow participants who are on Twitter, we've created this Twitter list. If you are participating but aren't on here... that means I was unable to find your Twitter handle on your blog! So let us know by commenting here, or sending me (@SueySays ) or @Bloggiesta or @the1stdaughter a message and we'll get you on the list. If you subscribe to the list, you'll easily be able to see what all the participants are tweeting.

• Also, plan to do lots of blog hopping by clicking on participants links found below on the Mr. Linky. Send lots of encouragement everyone's way and help out with your expertise on all bloggish things!

• A new addition this year will be three different scheduled Twitter parties! Be sure to attend a least one of them... but better yet, come to all three! Use TweetChat.com to follow the conversation (and it puts the hashtag in for you automatically!) and see what everyone is up to. Those times are:

Friday night at 9:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m. Eastern time (EDT)

Saturday afternoon at 4:00 to 6:00 p.m. Eastern time (EDT)

Sunday morning at 11:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. Eastern time (EDT)

• Be sure to participate in as many mini challenges as you can! The new ones are listed on this post here on my blog, and the flashback challenges are listed on this post over at There's a Book. Give our awesome challenge hosts lots of link love and ask them lots of questions!

I think that's it! It's time to go ahead and link up your starting Bloggiesta posts below like this:

"Your Name" from "Your Blog Name" (your Twitter name)

For example, mine would look like: Suey from It's All About Books (@SueySays). And remember, plug in the URL that links up to your to do list, whether you've already posted it, or are just posting it today.

Now... GET TO WORK!!! (And don't forget to break out the salsa and blast some music!)