The Tales Compendium is now on Instagram!

Hello lovely readers!

I just wanted to take moment to let you all know that The Tales Compendium now has an Instagram account!

I'd been thinking about making one for a while and finally decided to just go ahead and do it. I'm having so much fun creating posts and revisiting some of my favourite books. It also means I'm able to share things daily as opposed to the one review or less per week I've been managing on the blog of late. Don't worry, the blog is here to stay! The Instagram is just another way to share the love on a more regular basis.

So if you're interested, you can find me at 

@thetalescompendium

And if you have your own bookstagram, please leave it in the comments below and I'll check it out!

The Times, They Are A Changing...

So, like everyone, I am somewhat confused about what is going to be happening with Blogger come July 1st.

I know that Google Reader is going bye-bye. I've had a look around at some of the other platforms we can use to follow our favourite blogs and after testing out Bloglovin over the last 2 weeks, I've decided that I'm really happy with it. So, now I am recommending it to all of you! You can really easily import all the blogs you currently follow on Google Reader into your (free) Bloglovin account. They have buttons that you can add to your blog for people to follow you and if someone doesn't have a button, you can still add the blog easily. And, they have a great phone app. I'm seriously loving it. So without further ado, please go and sign up for an account if you haven't already got one and sign up to follow my blog. Pretty please...

But if you don't want to, I have other options!

I haven't been able to figure out if Google Friend Connect is also disappearing or if it is staying (does anyone know for sure?) but I'm assuming it is also leaving us since it is connected to the Google Reader. For the time being I still have the option to follow via GFC (see the little blogger book button over on the sidebar?) but at the risk of it disappearing, I would appreciate it if you could now follow using a different method. I've got email subscription and RSS, plus of course Bloglovin, but if they really don't work for you, or if it's just easier, then I've got Facebook, Twitter and Goodreads. Or you could just follow all the different ways (I often post extra stuff on Facebook)! See those nifty little follow buttons? Over there on the right? I'm really loving them right now too.

That's right, keep up. You don't wanna lose me

I hope everyone enjoyed my Aussie Author Month that I ran throughout March. I had some hilarious interviews and discovered some excellent Aussie YA fiction. And all the signed give-aways are still open internationally until the end of April so make sure you go and check out all the awesome.

October Housekeeping

So...

You may have noticed I've been a bit absent the last few weeks. Fear not, I'm back! I've just handed in my last uni assignments for the year and I now have five glorious months off to spend however I want.

First off, I'm still yet to email the winners of my Melina Marchetta Giveaway which finished two weeks ago. I HAVE NOT FORGOTTEN YOU. You are on my list of things to do today so keep an eye on your inbox (and junk too).

 

Meanwhile, Aussie authors Ursula Dubosarsky, Jackie French, Morris Gleitzman and Melina Marchetta have been nominated for the 2013 Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award, which is the world’s largest prize for children’s and young adult literature. They are four of 207 candidates from 67 countries around the world who have been nominated for this prestigious award. The winner will be announced 26 March 2013.

Coming up on The Tales Compendium...

I will be reviewing a heap of really cool books which have been my motivation to get my assignments finished. Having all these books staring down at you is a great reminder to hurry up!

  On  26th October I'll be guest posting over at Following the Reader for Amy's Halloween Spooktacular and on 30th October I'll be participating in Kate Evangelista's blog tour for Reaping Me Softly. 

Also, while I was busy studying, my page views surpassed 100 000 so a big thankyou to everyone who continues to visit The Tales Compendium.

Thanks for hanging around and I look forward to appearing in your news feeds once again :)

Winners, Blog News, Publishing Announcements and Author Events

I would like to share with everyone my new feature here at The Tales Compendium. I was thinking how awesome it would be to be able to look up what state in Australia you are in and be able to see what author events are happening in your area. So, low and behold, I have created one myself!

What's On Where

I am very excited because I have also just found out that Maggie Stiefvater will be making a fleeting visit to Perth on her Australian tour, not just over east! Did anyone else in Perth know about this?! You can find the details at What's On Where.

Also to share with you are the winners of my Winter 'Spring Cleaning' Giveaway.

1st - Tara from Agrippina Legit
2nd - Karen Hounsham
3rd - Evk
4th - Cheyenne from The Hollow Cupboards

Congratulations to all the winners and thankyou for getting back to me so promptly! Your books are on the way.

And finally, Pan Macmillan has recently announced the launch of Momentum, their new digital-only imprint which will go live in February 2012.

Momentum will publish an exciting and vibrant list of new works from established and emerging authors, as well as partnering with agents and individual copyright holders to digitally republish titles that are currently unavailable in print. Publishing ebooks and utilising print‐on‐demand (POD) technology, Momentum aims to make new and old books more accessible than ever before.

- Momentum Press Release

The Twitter Bird Has Landed

I tried to avoid it for so long, but The Tales Compendium now has a twitter account!

Come and follow!

Heads Up! - Changes Coming!

Hello loyal Tales Compendium followers!

You may have noticed that last month I had a poll on the sidebar asking your opinion on what I could do to make The Tales Compendium better. So along with some of my simmering ideas, I actually listened to what you had to say.

More author interviews and give-aways seemed to be the big things people were interested in and I'm pleased to say that both of these are getting a boost. You may have noticed I've had both Rachel Caine and Steven Herrick featured in the last few weeks and I have more exciting interviews from Amy Plum and Antony John (to name a couple) on the way in the coming weeks. I'm also planning some cool give-aways.

I've been thinking about my ratings system for a while now and have decided that the time has come to change it. For over a year now I've been rating books out of ten but I've decided that it gives me to many different options and I think it needs to be easier to know exactly how I feel about a book. So from now on my ratings will be out of five. All previously reviewed books, for the time being, will stay with their current out of ten ratings but I hope to change them all over to my new system over the next few weeks.

1/5 - I didn't like it
2/5 - It was ok
3/5 - I liked it
4/5 - I really liked it
5/5 - OMG words can not express my love for this!

And, as you may have noticed, as I have, that my reviews have been getting longer and longer and I'm not sure if this is a good or bad thing. I have so much to say on books these days and they might just be getting a bit too long for some of you. So, I've decided to add a little "In A Nutshell" spot before my full review so you can get a quick opinion on the book before I go into why I love it so much. It will essentially just be a little snippet of what the longer review says.

I hope everyone likes the changes and continues to read The Tales Compendium. Thanks for sticking with me!

Jess xxx

Bits and Pieces

Firstly, The Tales Compendium has reached 100 followers! Thankyou to everyone old and new who checks in here, and an extra big thankyou to those who leave comments. Your interest is much appreciated and I hope I continue to keep you wanting to come back in the future.


If you haven't already become acquainted with Inside A Dog, I suggest you do. It is a website where teenagers (or people in general) can create a profile, post their reviews, participate in a book club and keep up to date with what is going in YA via the Inside A Dog blog. Each month there is a different 'Writer In Residence' who posts three times a week about whatever they feel like. March was Brian Falkner, April will be Gayle Forman! The site is run by the Centre for Youth Literature at the State Library of Victoria and is being taken care of by Adele, who you may know from her blog Persnickety Snark, who is the new program coordinator.


I would like to say a massive CONGRATULATIONS to Aussie Shaun Tan! He has just won the biggest children's literature prize in the world, the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award, in Sweden. As most of you probably know, he also won an Academy Award last month in the category of Best Animated Short Film for The Lost Thing, his picture book released in 2000. He is also known for his picture books The Red Tree, The Arrival, The Rabbits and Tales From Outer Suburbia. Looks like 2011 is his year!



For those of you who missed my post the other day, I will be interviewing Rachel Caine when she comes to Perth next month. So I ask you, what would you like to ask Rachel? Send me your questions via email (found on my About Me page) or leave a comment.



Don't forget this is your last chance to enter the signed Bernard Beckett give-away, which I will draw on April 1st. Visit this post to enter.

The Tales Compendium on Facebook!

The Tales Compendium is now on Facebook!

Head over to the page and 'like' us for all new posts to appear in your news feed!

Be updated immediately of new reviews, author interviews and events.

Love for The Tales Compendium

It has been a good week for The Tales Compendium!

First off, Kate over at Reads, Reviews and Recommends has posted an interview with me for her Blogger Interview section. Check it out here. Thanks Kate! Alternatively you can read my Author Focus featuring Kate here.

Secondly, Anne over at Head Full of Books has awarded me my first Versatile Blogger award! Thank you so much Anne!

Here are the rules for this award:

1. Thank and link back to the person who gave you this award.
2. Share 7 things about yourself.
3. Pass the award along to 15 bloggers who you have recently discovered and who you think are fantastic for whatever reason! (In no particular order...)
4. Contact the bloggers you've picked and let them know about the award.

Seven things about me:

1. I love travelling. I spent 3 months backpacking through Europe a couple of years ago and am about to head of to America for 3 months. My next trip will probably be New Zealand or back to Europe.
2. I love going to see bands live. My dream is to see The Rolling Stones but until then I can be found at every Angus and Julia Stone concert.
3. I love Disney movies. My favourite is Aladdin but I also love Cinderella, Balto and Robin Hood.
4. My favourite TV shows are Gilmore Girls, Veronica Mars, NCIS, Bones, Lie To Me, Buffy, House and Supernatural. Ok I have a lot of favourites!
5. I have a collection of snow globes from all the places I have visited around the world.
6. My all-time favourite movies are Love Actually and Still Crazy.
7. I love winter.

I pass this award along to:
1. So Much To Tell You
2. inkcrush
3. I Live In a Fictional World
4. Book Harbinger
5. Books and the Bees
6. Lost in Stories
7. So Many Books, So Little Time
8. The Good, The Bad and The Ugly
9. Wondrous Reads
10. The Bookette
11. A Flight of Minds
12. Dead Book Darling
13. The Book Owl
14. Narratively Speaking
15. I Was A Teenage Book Geek