The blogging version of the comfort read. Apart from the busy-ness that was already going on, my family are going through a difficult time due to multiple issues (again – this year has been wretched) and I must admit that my inspiration for writing posts has disappeared. I have some posts that are complete and ready to publish, but they are ones I would like to publish when I’ve more time and mental energy – this is also the reason I’ve not commented on many blogs this week. So please excuse today being a random update.

Reading through the plans of those who have already signed up for next year’s What’s In A Name there have been some brilliant ideas for books. I love that people have been creative with the categories – in some cases so much so that I’ve read them, thought ‘does that fit?’ and then realised that yes, it does, and in a great way. The best two I’ve seen so far are from Margaret at BooksPlease who has found a book that fits the number category not just once but three times – Nineteen Eighty-Four – and Care from Care’s Online Bookclub who couldn’t find a book with a number in letters but did find the literal Think Of A Number, awesome!

At the last minute, if I can dramatise it as such, I have met my goal of reading Elizabeth Chadwick this year. I read The Summer Queen – it is long and very different to the books I’ve read by the author so far because it was about royalty, but liked it. It managed to be a comfort read for me even though it was 465 pages of history. Don’t get me wrong, you know I love history, but as reading the subject naturally summons the student in me I generally end up reading it a bit differently. Editing my ‘2014 goals’ a few days ago I was very glad to be able to strike my failure to read Chadwick off the list.

I am considering getting rid of the ‘review coming soon’ section on the sidebar. I love that it adds colour to what is otherwise a dull grey navigation bar, but so many of the books there linger for months before I post about them. Related to this is the fact that the section is almost completely romance orientated, sometimes completely completely, and I don’t want the blog to look like it is a romance blog when it isn’t (this is why I haven’t posted those reviews yet, I want to space them out). Lastly I don’t always end up adding books to it before posting about them anyway.

I think that right now I’m more thankful for blogging than I’ve ever been. My reading goals have, if not removed, limited the amount of time I’ve been in a blur, and I like that my schedule has also had a knock-on affect on my editing services, meaning that despite all the insert-swear-word-here that’s happening, so far I’ve managed to keep up.

Those of you who follow both Beth Fish and myself on Twitter may already know what this post is about due to the proliferation of tweets posted within a few hours of Friday evening and Saturday morning. It was a wish on Beth’s part and a sudden decision on mine.

From this November onwards (at least for the foreseeable future) I will be hosting the What’s In A Name challenge here on this blog. It’s a challenge that, as many of you may know, is due to begin its seventh run and lasts for the entirety of a year. Beth is unable to continue hosting it and asked if someone could take it on. When she spoke of it needing time I realised that I had that time to give. And so although I had never taken part in the challenge myself, I offered to be the one to carry it on. If there’s something that really saddens me about blogging, it’s the demise of long-time ‘traditions’ and blogs.

I’ve actually been wanting to host a challenge for sometime, but have also been aware that I don’t have the time available for one similar to a lot of the short-term, very busy, ones out there. It’s for this reason that my own challenge idea remains solely a concept and confined to my head. With What’s In A Name, it’s longer, there is less to do, and it’s popular enough that it would likely be missed.

The sign-up post for next year’s challenge will be posted here on 20th November as my post for the day. The remaining information, seven further posts, will be published as WordPress pages so that if you want to join in you can, but so that it won’t change the structure and subject of this blog. I also reckon it’ll look nicer in general if Pages are used.

As a brief introduction for those of you who aren’t familiar with What’s In A Name, the challenge is one for which you read five books, between January and the end of December, that fit the five categories provided. These categories are based on the words of book titles, for example one of the categories I’ve created for this upcoming instance is ‘a position of royalty’ – so you could choose a book such as Prince Caspian, The Last Empress, or The Curse Of The Pharaohs. It’s a fun and relatively undemanding challenge – the only major rules are that you have to read a different book per category and that your choices are used for this one challenge only. Both bloggers and non-bloggers can join in, as I’ll be opening the comments to let non-bloggers talk about their books on the Pages.

My hope is that I’ll be a good host and, as said above, this challenge will blend in well with the rest of the content here. I see no reason why it shouldn’t, given the plan.

What do you think of this idea, and will you join in?

I started this blog several months into my first very avid reading year, 2009. My boyfriend had university papers to write, and our time together often turned into companionable silence. I don’t mind quiet, but I needed something to do so I started reading again, ending the phase of two books a year I’d been in for a few years previously. I didn’t know about ARCs, I’d stopped posting book reviews to my failure of a personal blog, and I simply wanted a place to practise my writing.

I love how my blog has grown, and I like that I’ve been able to launch an editing service from the experience I’ve gained, but I never intended to monetise The Worm Hole itself. However at this present moment my boyfriend and I are in a situation where every penny counts and as I looked at my blog I realised there was a potential to monetise it in a way that wouldn’t be so intrusive as regular advertising or sponsored posts.

I’ve seen various blogs set up their own sponsorship rules, and I love it. Bloggers who set the price themselves, set an image size that will fit their blog, and only link to sites that are similar to their own or are sites they truly like. It’s a reader-first approach. I want to do the same here, in part because I know firsthand that it doesn’t change sites too much – they become part of the look and the set-up is more ‘if you like this…’ than outright selling.

So here is what I’m offering:

1. Eight available slots payable on a month-by-month basis.
2. Each slot is £3.50 per month and the payment will be conducted via Paypal.
3. Each sponsor is allowed up to two slots for different sites/products.
4. The offer is open to fellow bloggers – book or otherwise – as well as authors, publishers, and other members of the industry. Thus the advert can be for a blog, an author, a service, or a book.
5. The size of the image should be 150×150 pixels. File format jpg/png.
6. The images will replace the ‘genre list’ on the sidebar of this site – the ‘random review’ section will be placed underneath so that the images are higher up.
7. The payment must be made before the start of the month that the image is due to be displayed.

It’s important to me that the advert and sponsor are a good fit for the blog, but given the above unless your proposed site/product is wildly off the mark I’m going to accept it.

If you’re interested, please email me at books@carnelianvalley.com with details about the site/item you want to advertise and for how many months you’d like to be featured for. I am currently booking for 1st November onward assuming the payment for November can be sent by tomorrow night at 11:59pm Greenwich Mean Time.

This post is brought to you by a lack of time to write in full sentences due to impromptu visits to A&E. (I’m fine – the person who had to go to hospital is fine, too, a migraine.)

• I’m going to get rid of my list of genre links. I used to think it was a good idea, but it looks like link spam, few people use it, and I myself would likely never use such a feature anyway. Do those of you who use blogrolls find they are used by your visitors?
• I’ve had a fair few guest post requests recently. I am open to guest posting, but will only accept posts from fellow bloggers, authors, publishers, librarians, readers of this site, literature academics, people who are obviously book lovers, and history lovers. In addition to this, like the vast majority of bloggers, if your pitch isn’t well written I’m going to delete it.
• To any authors who read this blog and are looking for an editor, I currently have the last two weeks of October free. Incidentally, my latest advice post, on gobbledygook, has had a good response.
• I have emailed a few people about this but wondered if by asking here I might discover other interested people. The author of Deutschland, a book I reviewed a couple of weeks ago and highly recommend, is looking for more blogger reviews. If you’ve time and would be happy to feature it on your blog, please let me know in the comments.
• I will be taking part in the readathon this weekend so there will be one extra post this week (I tend to stick to one post and update it). Are you taking part?
• Lastly, could anyone tell me why hospitals have vending machines full of junk food? It’s rather like McDonalds sponsoring the Olympics…

Bad timing on my part means that I have to post this today rather than on a Friday.

I’m on the look out for guest posts again. As was the case last time I’m looking for at least three but will gladly accept more. The basic guidelines are as follows:

• Anything book or history related except book reviews.
• You can have up to two website links and a Twitter username in your biography, so send your biography with those details or, if you wish, I’ll write one for you.

Run the ideas past me first if you’re not sure, otherwise go ahead and email them directly. If you could send them in by Sunday that would be great but it’s not imperative. My email is on the contact page.