New job = new books!

I finally have a new job!

It is pretty scary, because I'll be looking after an office of 80-90 people - my previous office had less than 20. Also, I had to by a suit. I guess I am finally an adult! The Stanton Library is just down the road (I have yet to assertain if it is in walking distance for my lunch hour) and there is a well stocked book exchange across the street! There is a Dymocks too, but that doesn't count. I've realised that my last four years my spending on books was pretty extreme, and I will have to curb that if I want to have any savings. It is kind of scary how much I was spending on books per fortnight. This time I need to be sensible. I not only need to set a sensible budget, but I need to stick with it! And ebooks need to be included in that budget *le sigh* I don't know how good my self control will be, but I have done a lot of evaluation in the last 6 months and realised I need to make some big changes in my life. And those changes need to be funded. I am cutting my dvd budget out completely, and making my cd budget to stretch a month, not a fortnight (I am addicted to music too). I don't like being an adult *sigh*

Having a new job also means I'll be able to start blogging again. Not only has my computer been fixed (although it is still in Toowoomba until my folks visit me), but I have eventual plans to buy a small laptop or netbook and at lunch I'll be able to go to a local food court that has free wifi. So I'll have less spare time, but you will see more of me!

I'm not sure if anyone is interested, but I have a second goodreads account created just to collate the books I actually own. I am slowly adding to it, and plan to keep it as a current reflection of my bookshelves. The url is http://www.goodreads.com/zjanoirhttp://www.goodreads.com/zjanoir

My other big news is about a writing project I am taking a part of. It is an online writers' festival called the Writers' Tea Party. We had a soft launch last month, but will be relaunching with a new vision shortly. If you are an author (traditional pub, epub, apps), publisher, editor, illustrator or in some other way a part of the book industry, drop me a line! We are looking for more professionals to interview, guest blog, and offer tips and suggestions to writers. The schedule is filling up, but send me an email if you are interested and I'll forward it on to the editor for consideration. Elle has offered to guest blog about the project soon, so I'll have more information then.

And lastly, I'm going through an online branding change. I'll be using my real world nickname (Zja) and writing alias (Zja Noir) for all of my non-professional networking and interests online. My professional personality is greatly different to my non-professional self, and I feel I need to make that distinction quite visible. Most of my friends know me as Zja, and all of my professional contacts know me as Jacq. I really like that distinction, and I think changing my branding online will cause less confusion at functions and conferences in the geek world. So, from now on, I'll be signing off as Zja :) I just wanted to verbally let you know why I am changing this on Book Bites so there wasn't any confusion. Anyone who follows me on twitter, is facebook friends or knows me in real life already knew of the changes of course, but I am aware that not everyone is a twitter addict like I am. The only problem is apparently this library computer has limited software so my new sig is fairly basic from now. I'll update it when I have access to better resources :)

So how has everyone been? What have you been up to? Read any good books? Discovered any new authors? Attended any events? I'd love to hear about your adventures while I have been away!