Welcome to the thirteenth instalment of Ramblings from my pages… I posted last Sunday, again today, I think I might finally be getting the hang of this weekly thing!
This post was inspired by It’s Book Talk’s “5 on Friday: Things I’m Loving Lately” – it differs slightly, similar in that it will feature bookish and non-bookish topics, but different in that I will ramble about things I’m loving, hating, wishing for, links I’ve enjoyed, life updates – you name it, I may just ramble about it. The only staple feature of this post will be concluding it with a cool link I found around the web.
Today’s ramblings topics: Amazon Prime Reading, WordPress Troubleshooting, Bitly, and January Wrap Up. Whether you read the entire post or jump to the section(s) you’re interested in, I hope you enjoy my ramblings.
AMAZON PRIME READING
Do you have an Amazon Prime account? Have you been using prime reading? I haven’t, and realised I have been doing myself a disservice. If you have Amazon Prime, you automatically have access to Prime Reading – a service that allows you to borrow up to ten titles at a time, this can be Kindle books, magazines, short works, books with audible narration, comics and more. The content is periodically updated and titles are added and removed. If anyone knows how to get the audiobook please let me know, as when I go the list of prime books with narration, it doesn’t give me the option to ‘read and listen for free’. Even though I’m struggling with the audio, it’s still worth checking out the ebook prime library, I’ve found several titles to borrow. Visit the Prime Reading Library.
WORDPRESS TROUBLESHOOTING
These last three weeks, WordPress (WP) has been getting on my last nerve! Once a week, for the last three weeks, one of blog posts fails to show in the ‘Followed Sites’ reader, that means all you lovely people who access blog posts via that reader (which is most of us who have a WP account) will have no idea that I’ve posted. The only way to see the post is to search for it or visit my blog directly. This caused several of my posts to get significantly less exposure/views than normal, as you can imagine, this was very disheartening. Thank you to those who boosted my ‘lost’ posts!
WP did eventually get them back into the ‘Followed Sites’ reader, but they still suffered. When this first happened, I contacted WP and was informed that this was due to me exceeding the maximum amount of ‘tags’ and ‘categories’ attached to my post, as there is a limit of 15. That was a lie, there isn’t a limit of 15, I’ve seen posts in excess of 30 ‘tags’. The second time it happened, WP said there was a glitch and they had to refresh the reader from their end. The latest time it happened, they could offer no reason for why it happened, and they are currently ‘troubleshooting’ the problem.
I know a few other bloggers have experienced this problem, and I urge you to contact WP every time it happens, so that they take this seriously and know it is a larger issue than they may think it is.
BITLY
I’ve recently started using bitly to shorten URLs. I’ve often seen these shorten links used, but I didn’t realise it was as simple as pasting a URL into this website and it provides you with a shortened URL. I also didn’t realise it was free to use. This comes in particularly handy on platforms, such as Twitter, where you have a limited character count. Or when you want to make things look a bit neater, as you’ll see below in my wrap up section.
If we take a recent tweet of mine as an example, it looks much more neater to use the shortened URL.
It also works for blog posts, let’s use my latest book haul blog post as an example. The URL is: https://keeperofpages.com/2019/01/31/bookhaul-january-2019-part-two/ Once I enter it into bitly, it becomes: https://bit.ly/2G5sshr.
Whenever you need to shorten a URL visit bitly.com
JANUARY WRAP UP
Last month I read 11 books, and listened to two audiobooks. I’ve reviewed the first seven books pictured, and you can click on the bitly URLs to visit the reviews.
Book of the month
LINK AROUND THE WEB
This week’s link is from Wellcome Collection. I first saw this article on The Secret Library Book Blog, and I found it so interesting, I just has to feature it.
In the 19th century, slum housing posed a serious threat to the health of people living in Britain; authors, such as Charles Dickens and Jack London, used slums as settings in their novels. Find out more about how 19th century writers exposed the short, sickly lives of those who endured these appalling conditions in this article: How slums make people sick
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I hope you enjoyed reading this post as much as I enjoyed writing it, and you’ll join me next Sunday for some more ramblings.
If you missed my last rambling you can find it here – topics: Mary Shelley Movie, True Crime on Netflix, Audiobook Subscription Update, and 4th Estate Books.
Keeper of Pages 
Another fab post! Bitly looks really brilliant I’m definitely going to check it out. I’m not if this will help with your WP issue, but I never used to see my posts in the reader until I started following my own blog. Bizarre that I had to do that to make sure my posts were visible outside of social media.
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I do follow my own bog, as it’s a ‘Followed Sites’ reader, I guess it makes sense that you need to be following your own blog to see if your post has appeared. But it’s not that because no one can see the post, not just me.
Bitly is very handy, and easy to use. I can’t believe I’ve only just discovered it!
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Yeah I thought you probably did and I really hope they sort it out asap. xx
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I think it must be catching because my blog post wasn’t in the reader today either. I contacted them when they told me it was but I then explained it was in the followed sites part and they haven’t replied. Hopefully they will sort it all out for everyone.
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Oh no, sorry to hear it’s happening to you too. The first time it happened to me, it took me all day to get it resolved because they didn’t understand what I was saying. In the new year, I upgraded my account so now I have access to instant chat so I’m able to get my post back in the reader pretty quickly, providing I’m at home at the time.
They did say they’d leave my query open so they can find out why this is happening, but I haven’t heard back. I may send them an email asking for an update…
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I’ve noticed (when I get a notification email) that posts from certain blogs I follow don’t show up in the reader. I hadn’t thought of following my own blog but it’s a good idea. You can also get a short link from the edit page of your post.
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My own blog was the very first blog I followed 🤣 I always forget to copy the shorter link when I schedule my posts. Bitly comes in handy, mostly when I want to bring my Instagram posts to twitter 😊
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Ah yes, I see. I’m way behind the times 🤨 I can see how Bitly would be very useful. I’m following my blog now 😆
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I was using Bitly for ages because I like the neater URLs for my blog posts but then it became unreliable – sometimes the link would work and others not. When I was tweeting a blog tour post it was a nuisance when the link wouldn’t work so I stopped using it. If its ok now, I might start again.
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I also check the link as soon as I’ve posted it, just in case. So far I’ve had no issues with it, but will continue to check URLs as I go along. 🙂
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YES to Dirty Little Secrets being your book of the month! I LOVED IT!
WP has been a pain, not showing posts, playing up with my comments… I haven’t checked the new editor and I’m afraid of it!
I have cut back using Amazon, so I can’t help about the prime. It sounds good, though. I always shorten my links because Twitter doesn’t leave much choice!
Have a great February! x
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Wasn’t it brilliant! It was my first Spain book too, so now I get to go back and read her previous novels!
The new editor took a little getting used to but I actually prefer it. There’s still a few things I haven’t figured out yet, but I find it quicker to create posts. However these new reader issues are terrible and need to be sorted ASAP, especially as I’m paying to host my blog on WP.
Thanks lovely, have a fab February yourself 😊x
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Brilliant post Janel. It annoys me that there are several things included with prime membership that amazon don’t make obvious. I was several months into mine before I had a proper look to see the things that are available. And Bitly… Oh I love the simplicity of this site and have been using it for a while now.
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It’s silly they don’t make it more obvious, I was planning to cancel my prime subscription once my student membership expired but prime reading is incentive to stay, I just need to figure out how to borrow ebooks with audio narration 🤔.
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Woo hoo! Thank you for the info on Bitly. I know how to get the short url for my posts after they’ve posted but not before. This is much needed info.
I have Amazon Prime but haven’t tried to use the audiobook feature yet. If I figure it out, I’ll let you know.
Great post! Keep those ramblings coming💜
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When I schedule my posts, in the side bar, there’s a shortened link you can copy, but bitly can be used too, I use it a lot when I want to link my Instagram post on Twitter.
Oh, please do figure it out and let me know!! I was playing around with it last night but just can’t figure out how to activate the audio narration.
I’m so glad you’re enjoying these posts. 😃♥️
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I LOVE me some Bitly! I use it for all my links – especially Amazon links for Facebook!
I imagine that Prime Reading is similar to Kindle Unlimited? I love KU! ❤
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I can’t believe how late to the party I am on Bitly, I’ve seen the shortened links everywhere but just never knew how people generated them 😅.
Prime reading is very similar, just way less books available to borrow. Do you get audiobooks with KU too? How do you know when an ebook has audio narration available?
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Thanks for the info on Bitly, definitely going to try it out now :-). I don’t read fast enough for Amazon Prime 🙂 but l would definitely check it out otherwise.. maybe something for the list when I’m retired :-). Great post once again Janel!
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Thank you. I certainly haven’t been maximising Amazon Prime, but I’ll try to borrow at least one book a month. If you don’t have amazon prime it’s not worth getting it just for prime reading but its a nice perk. 🙂
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Great post Janel! Thank you for the tips!
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I’m glad you enjoyed the post, and found a tip or two 🙂
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Bitly is great, isn’t it?! It was like magic to me when I first discovered it, I’m still not entirely sure I understand how it works, but I’m still equally impressed! Would love to hear what you thought of Big Little Lies, it’s burning a hole in my TBR as we speak… 😉👍🏼
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I have no idea how Bitly works, it’s like magic, haha! I likely won’t review Big Little Lies on my blog, but I really enjoyed it, and would definitely recommend it. I’m looking forward to watch the tv series now 😊
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Prime Reading is cool! I used it a few times. Most books i want to read are not available on it, but every now and then i find some books to borrow, so i’m quite happy with it 🙂
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Same, since I didn’t get prime for the reading, it was a nice perk. Do you know how to active the audio narration on prime books?
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