I have a busy couple of weekends coming up – and I figured it was time to fill you in on what’s going on and what I’ll be doing!

First up is Vloggerfair, a fun little YouTube convention happening here in Seattle this weekend – August 22-23. I will be there Saturday the 20th, on both the “Women of YouTube” panel (happening at 3:15pm) as well as hosting another little book swap (happening at 12:30pm) with the lovely Mallory. Are you going? You should go! It’s going to be a lot of fun, and the more people we have there swapping books, the better it will be for everyone!

If you find yourself with a free day on Saturday, swing on by and bring a wrapped book! You can get a discount on your ticket price if you use the code “SPACE NEEDLE”.

Next up will be PAX Prime! That’s happening over August 28-31 and I seriously can’t wait. It’s a jam-packed weekend for me, as I will be doing things for work, cosplaying, and I’m on a number of panels. If you’ll be attending, I’d love to meet you!

Here are the panels I’ll be speaking on:

I just spent a lot of time writing a long blog post with my thoughts on VidCon, but then when I hit “publish” – rather than, you know, my blog post going live… WordPress decided instead to delete it! Isn’t that cute? Isn’t WordPress so quirky and fun tonight?

I really can’t bring myself to re-gather all of those thoughts, so I guess that’s just gone to the ether, then. Here are the videos I made:

This first one is a video I filmed over the course of the entire trip. Basically any time I was talking to another YouTuber, I asked them what they were reading. I was very pleased with how it came together, and even more pleased to see literally every person I talked to was reading a different book. Can you believe it?

This second video is my more all encompassing “VidCon vlog”, and it contains a bit of footage from the panel I moderated (The Growing Community of Booktube), the Team Hypercube “Ultimate Werewolf” gaming meetup, and of course, the first annual VidCon Book Swap.

Okay. It’s been 2 days since “the great blog post crash” and I think I am finally ready to retype this stuff. I’m going to talk about the Book Swap for a second.

It was incredible.

There were things I would change. I would have a megaphone, for one. Or we’d not be doing it in the middle of a construction zone. I’d love to have music playing to signify when we’re just looking at the books and when we’re actually picking them, a la musical chairs. I’d love for it to be indoors, and potentially even on the VidCon schedule. I’d love to work with a sponsor in the future to donate books for those who might not have known about it beforehand, and I’d love an opportunity for participates to donate an additional book to a charity.

But even without all of these changes/things I learned this year, it was still really incredible. I loved seeing so many people gather in the name of books, get to know new people and share which books they ended up getting. I loved to see books getting new homes, seeing people walking away excited, knowing they could read a book its old owner maybe never read.

I was such a beautiful meetup and I can’t wait to do it again.

Regarding my VidCon video — if nothing else, you should watch it to see Joe and I duke it out in giant inflatable balls. You won’t regret it. VidCon was great. I can’t wait for next year.

I have been excited for this ALL YEAR LONG and now it’s finally here… BOOKTUBEATHON!

Above is my TBR video. This is the video that explains the reading challenges and which books I’ve decided to read for each one. The overarching goal is to read 7 books over the course of the week, and due to my extremist tendencies (coughNaNoWriMocough) I obviously take this one the most seriously.

Here’s a photo of the books I’m reading. Aren’t they pretty? The phone represents the Jenny Han book, since I am audiobookin’ it:

Here’s my progress so far:

The Last Girlfriend on Earth by Simon Rich: 50% done
I Am Princess X by Cherie Priest: 50% done
To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before by Jenny Han: 15% done

I have successfully started 3 of my books (1 is an audiobook, 1 is a compilation of short stories and 1 is straight fiction, so I’ve been juggling all three pretty easily) and I’m feeling pretty good for my first day. At least on the reading front – as far as video and instagram challenges go, I’m failing miserably. I’ll start doing those tomorrow. Today I was too excited for the actual reading, and also having a day job AND a dentist appointment were not conducive to day one of a readathon the way it is.

I’m loving this week already. Stay tuned to my blog/twitter/youtube channel/instagram/basically everywhere for my reading updates. Also, don’t know what #BookTubeAThon is? Check out the YouTube channel!