Promotion Strength

When you're promoting your new book online, you must gauge the strength of your promotions in a realistic way. Hoping that readers will notice you is not enough.

I may be repeating myself, but it bears repeating. You must have a good blog of your own on which you post relevant articles 2-3 times a week. You must then make noise about your new blog posts at social sites like Twitter and Facebook so you drive traffic to your blog. Your blog is then a good platform for launching a blog book tour or other online promotion. Check your statistics regularly - anything over 100 hits per day is okay. More is better.

I can hear you grumbling now. Stop that and just do the work.

Next, pick blog hosts for reviews or tour stops that mimic all that I've mentioned above. Even if a blog doesn't have a hit counter that you can see, there are clues to the popularity of the blog. Does the host post 2-3 times a week? How long has the blog been in existence? Is the host getting comments on a regular basis? Do they have Twitter and Facebook links, and when you go there, can you see they are promoting their own posts and driving traffic to the potential review of your book?

Finally, do all the blogs we're talking about have clear links and instructions to a sales point? It's astounding to me how many promotions don't have a buy button or a suggestion to the customer to purchase the title in review.

Next we'll talk about Twitter and Facebook and how to build your viewership at those sites. You need a serious fan club to sell your books, and you can't just sit around waiting for people to discover you. Following and (be)friending in a regular though non-aggressive way is the method you need to develop.

Royalty Statement Realities

Just picked up on Facebook and you'll likely see this post again. The author had the courage to talk real numbers about her NYTimes bestselling books. You can see the royalty statements and get a sense of the timeline in getting paid for book sales. It takes a long time for an author to get paid for sales, especially when there is little or no advance. I fully understand why authors have to write three books a year to make any kind of a living at writing. You'll also see why gauging the results of a blog book tour to actual sales is virtually impossible. Click here to read the article.

Bookmark the Genreality blog - there is lots of good writing information there. Today's post talks about the daily routine of writing.

The Numbers Game

It's all about numbers and how to read them - this is how you gauge the success of your book promotions. I'm not talking about your royalty statement and check, which is the final and ultimate success determiner. I'm talking about statistics. Here are a few you need to get to know:

Your blog's hit counter is important, because it measures who is visiting the very foundation of your blog book tour - your blog. There are several free counters you can use. I like Sitemeter, others use Statcounter, and still more swear by Google Analytics. Get into the habit of using your hit counter daily. Read the reports that each offers. Your first goal is to create a blog that gets at least 100 hits per day. Then you're set up to use your blog as a launching pad for your impending blog book tour. A hit counter is how you track your own progress when building your blog.

Also track your amazon rating, from the time the book is listed with them, throughout your tour, and for months after. The numbers are not accurate, but the change is what indicates whether your promotions are effective. For example, if your title rates in the top two million, but moves to a ranking of 57,000 during your blog book tour, clearly the tour is having an impact at least in the world of amazon. com. Try Title Z for an easy way to track your title's ranking.

Next, we'll talk about another statistic - the visitors at your host blogs, and why this is all-important to the success of your tour.

Will a Blog Book Tour Sell Books?

Authors often ask if a blog book tour will sell books. How will they know?

The short answer: you won't. In all fairness, how will you know if your live tour and any other promotion is selling your books? Yes, if you are present at a book signing and fans buy, you'll know about those immediate sales. You could set up the same scenario by buying some books at cost from your publisher, and being the sales point for your blog book tour. Then you'd know.

Still, the tangential sales won't be reflected. Maybe the reader will return to the bookstore after payday. Maybe the blog book tour stops were intriguing enough that a reader adds the title to their amazon.com wishlist. How will you know? Especially since your royalty check won't arrive many months down the road. You likely won't see amazon.com sales reflected for 18 months. So it's almost impossible to relate any of your promotions, online and live, to your cash flow when it finally arrives.

The bottom line: every bit of promotion you do raises your name profile and that's really the goal.

Next we'll talk about other statistics worth tracking to gauge success.

Bolstering Your Enthusiasm

If you need a little help with enthusiasm, whether tackling daily blogging or starting your NaNoWriMo adventure, take some hints from the newest editor at The Blood-Red Penci blog. Here is a list of affirmations that can keep you inspired from day-to-day. You just need to stay optimistic - that's half the battle!

You might also want to check Craig Lancaster's three posts from last week. Craig is on a blog book tour for his new release, 600 Hours of Edward, which was his first NaNoWriMo attempt in last year's contest. It's quite a story.

National Novel Writing Month and More

The first month of our blog book tours class is always a blog-a-day challenge, and when your blogging starts to flag, a contest is often the way to get the juices flowing again. It doesn't have to be anything formal. I challenge you to blog daily during the month of November!

This month is also National Novel Writing Month, and so it's a good time to make a daily blogging commitment to prime the pump for your daily NaNo writing. Why not join me in a quick morning blog post before you start on that new novel? It's amazing how quickly a good habit is rejuvenated.

For those of you who want a little more support, we have a nice group of blog book tour alums gathering over at the BBT Cafe. Join us over there for discussions, brainstorming, promotion, or any of a number of group projects. You don't have to be a seasoned blog book tour vet to benefit from the camaraderie.

The Easiest Blog Improvement Tip Ever

Collapse your archive. It's as simple as that.

Blog Power

Literary agent, Nathan Bransford, asks his blog readers where they heard about the book they are currently reading. Read the comments if you want to know the power of blogging! Click here to leave your own comment.

Blog book tours vs. live book tours

Both are good. But don't plan on scheduling a blog book tour the same time you are traveling for a live tour. Complete one tour, rest up for a week or so, and then embark on your second tour.

Authors who think they can do a good job scheduling live and virtual tours at the same time, have no clue how much work is involved with a blog book tour. No clue at all. One of the tours won't get the attention it needs to succeed, probably the blog tour, and then the author will complain that the silly idea didn't work for them at all. Gee, I wonder why...

One tour at a time and give each of them 100% of your energy. Easy peasy if you pay attention and follow directions.

At the Blog Book Tours class, the next assignments for the month focus on the social marketing groups we all know... and maybe hate. These include Facebook, MySpace, Goodreads, and Twitter.

We're starting with Twitter because it's the fastest, easiest, and most powerful for marketing your other websites. It's also less of a time-suck than the more complex social forums. There are other added benefits about Twitter networking that I'll point out later.

In a nutshell, Twitter is a micro-blogging site that allows snappy posts of 140 characters. To participate, you follow other Twitter users and this allows you to see their updates.

You, in turn, are followed by others and those people can read what you have to say. Keep this scenario in mind, because it's the key to how Twitter works, or how it doesn't if you don't "get it". Believe me, many people don't, and consequently feel it's a waste of time.

Let me repeat:

You must follow people to see their updates.
Only your followers can see your updates.

It's crucial you understand this. If you are enthusiastically following thousands of people, but only a fraction are following you back, then only that small fraction sees what you write. Therefore, it's important you spend your efforts offering information that is of value to others, so they will want to follow and read you.

Now, to get started, and before the following and socializing begins, you need a few things upfront:

1. An email account that is acceptable on Twitter like yahoo or hotmail


2. A name that coordinates with your other website efforts if possible - I use blogbooktours everywhere I can
   
3. A small photo for your homepage and post icon


4. A well-written short bio


5. The website link you will send readers to for more information
   

Now you're ready to set up your Twitter account. Go to http://twitter.com/ and follow the directions, plugging in the information above.

Once you've gotten this far, you're ready to practice entering some updates. Introduce yourself in one, leave a blog link in another, tell us what you're doing today in a third. Do this several times more, perhaps throughout the day, to get Twitter into your conciousness and just to practice writing concise but meaningful messages. Be sure to bookmark your Twitter page to make it one of your regular stops several times during the day, much like checking your email.

Now you're ready to start following people and have them follow you back. We'll talk about how to do that in the next post.

And then you can follow me @twitter!

Tomorrow I'll also post helpful links picked up at Twitter to help you even more. One of my favorites is TwiTip for ongoing updates and tips.

Making room for better things

There are better things to put on your blog than a long archive list. Why show each post in the current month? Your readers can scroll through your actual posts quite easily. Collapse that thing now!

Then add the new Follow Me widget on Blogger or something similar on other blogging platforms. This is a great way to spark blog popularity. Place it quite high in your sidebar as demonstrated right here. Your widget will look something like this:

Everyone in the B.A.D. Challenge, as you visit each other, look for a way to follow and add yourself to this list. On Blogger blogs, you'll see that all the blogs you follow now appear at the bottom of your dashboards. It's a fast and handy way to see if anyone has posted something new. How many of you knew that?

And they're off

In the right column, you'll see some of our current class members - these folks are courageous enough to participate in the Blog-A-Day Challenge otherwise known as the B.A.D. Challenge. There will be days toward the end of the month when that acronym will have truth seeping from its pores.

Blogging daily is hard work, and maybe not even a good idea over the long haul. But to get a blog pumped up fast, it's a good tactic to post day after day, to have pals visiting your blog and commenting, and to politely and appropriately promote on your other social networks like Twitter and FaceBook.

Two tricks can really help an aspiring blogger succeed:

1. Plan your blogs so that one long and related post is split over several days. This maximizes your writing efforts and is appreciated by readers who want to stop by your blog for a quick look, but don't want to wade through a long treatise

2. Write the above-mentioned essay(s), and then use the prescheduling feature on your blog to post ahead for the week

To demonstrate, look at my post above, and notice how this essay could easily have been split into two blog posts. Because I write my blogs in a Word file ahead of time, it's easy for me to see these natural breaks.

Extra tip: If you're drafting in a formatted word processing program, copy and paste into the Edit Html window (in Blogger) rather than the Compose window. You'll avoid formatting issues when your blog publishes.

Do you draft your blog posts in a word processing program and then move them to your blog? What are some other reasons this might be a good idea?

Time for another class

We've been quiet here as our last blog book tours class put together their tours. We've been following them as they travel to host blogs for most of April, and we'll interview a few of them to get feedback about their experiences through the entire process.

Tomorrow starts our new class and we'll be trying out a few new tactics. This course will last only two months, and we'll be following a few authors from the last class as they launch their tours in May. We'll get to experience this whole process from beginning to end, and that gives us much to learn.

We can squeeze a few more authors in who have book releases in the next few months. Join the Blog Book Tours class today and be sure to give us your name and book title. It's starts in crazy earnestness tomorrow with a Blog-A-Day Challenge.

Yes, it's still free. Yes, we're still relentless drill sergeants. Hup-2-3-4. Where's today's blog post, corporal?

Welcome to the YA Book Blog Directory!

The YA Book Blog Directory is a reference site for YA book blogs; The Reader’s Guide To The Young Adult Blogosphere, if you will. There are numerous book blogs, all with unique styles and preferences. This site can be utilized by authors looking to publicize their books, publishers looking for reviewers, book bloggers looking to network and teenage readers or the teen at heart readers.

This site is a work in progress, and its existence would be impossible without the many fantastic book bloggers and authors. Thank you.

Want to join the blogosphere? It's simple– fill out the following form to have your blog added to the directory:

YABBD Submission Form

While the YA Book Blog directory is open to any blogger for a submission, there are a few regulations:

• must be a YA book blog (this is a young adult book directory--large majority of content HAVE to be YA)
• must be a YA book review blog (NO author blogs, NO blogs about writing a YA book, NO blogs from YA characters, etc.)
• the blog must have content (content is not 10 memes to 1 book review).
• the blog must be active.
  

Also note that it may take three to four weeks or more for your blog to be added to the directory. I have a long list of other obligations and currently YABBD is at the bottom.... sorry for the inconvenience. For Young Adult Book Blog Directory tips, check out the #YABBD hashtag on Twitter.

The Perfect Book Promotion Webpage

Below is an example of an ideal book promotion website. Featuring Dr. Eric Maisel's newest release, The Atheist's Way, the website to promote the book demonstrates all the elements required to inform the reading public, the media, and anyone else interested in the book. It also provides details about the author and his other works, as well as offering a book trailer and contact information.

First, make note of the strong visual connection via color and design of the book cover and the webpage.


Viewed up close you'll see the various categories that direct to added pages of interest to the viewer. In the left column are links to learn about the author, talks & appearances, invitations to speak, a sampling of other books, information about becoming a "meaning coach", his blogs, his podcasts, and a link to his main website.

In the right column, the reader can find information about this latest book, what readers are saying, the first chapter of the book to sample, book group & study questions, free group telechats, a link to join the virtual book review tour, a telesummit, and a discussion forum.

If you've decided to join the virtual book review tour (which eliminates author participation in the usual aspects of a blog book tour, such as interviews and guest blogs), you'll find the page below with links to a biography, photos, questions, and an appearance schedule, all in one handy spot.

When you link to the author bio above, you get the page below which gives you loads of information about Dr. Maisel, as well as enough information about the book to discern its focus, and embedded are links to various points on the site that offer more information.

It's hard to imagine a more well-designed and informative web page for a new book, and no doubt saves the author as well as book reviewers an enormous amount of time tracking down or supplying information. Use it as a guide for your next book promotion. I might make one small improvement and that is to put a Buy-the-Book link in a very obvious place on the main page. Other than that, this website about covers it all in an attractive and concise way.


Still to come, our review of the book - watch here for links and times of broadcast.

GoodReads Book Promotion

This week, our Blog Book Tours class explored the social forum called GoodReads which attracts anyone with an interest in reading and books. Beth Groundwater gives these tips for using the forum to book promotion advantage:

I'm in a number of groups on Goodreads related to my genre: mystery lovers, Cozy Mysteries, Chick Lit, and some general groups such as BOOK-A-HOLICS, Constant Reader, and Book Buying Addicts Anonymous. But, I'm much more active on the site.

I often go "trolling" in my groups for friends. If anyone joins mystery lovers or Cozy Mysteries and has books like mine in their books list, they get a friend request. Same goes for anyone who makes a comment about cozy mysteries in any of the groups. I now have over 1000 friends. Many of those friends have put my book on their to-read list or even actually read it and reviewed it.

A REAL BASKET CASE is now on the books lists of 162 members, has 18 reviews, 35 ratings, and has an average rating of 4.3. If someone who is not a friend puts the book on their to-read list (which I can see when I go to the book profile), they get a thank-you note and a friend request from me. The book had nowhere near as much activity on its profile before I joined Goodreads and started making friendships and commenting in group discussions. After HinH is published, I plan to do a book giveaway.

Also, for personal pleasure, I keep track of my reading list there, take recommendations and add them to my to-read list, research books that my book club is considering by reading reviews of them, etc.

I enjoy the Goodreads community more than general ones like Facebook, because it is focused on books and reading. Here's my link there, if anyone wants to befriend me:

http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/471598.Beth_Groundwater
------------------------------
Beth Groundwater, http://bethgroundwater.com/
A REAL BASKET CASE, Five Star, 3/2007, Best First Novel Agatha Nominee
TO HELL IN A HANDBASKET, Five Star, May 2009

Book Place

This week, the current blog book tours class at our yahoogroup is exploring a virtual community at Ning created by our member, Morgan Mandel. It's called Book Place and has about 1,600 members. The set-up is a little different than Facebook and MySpace - to me a bit more user-friendly - so head on over there if you're an author or a reader. Click here to join and try it out. Tell us what you think by commenting here.

The Daily Facebook

I asked our current blog book tours class just how they handle their time commitments over at Facebook, and Joan De La Haye left this helpful comment:

My daily routine on Facebook is this.

I first check my Friend requests (I usually have about 2 to 3 a day) after I've accepted them as friends, I leave a thanks for the request message on their walls.

Then I ignore all the annoying application invites.

Then I check to see who's birthday is on that day and leave a Happy Birthday message on their walls.

Then I check my messages - reply to any questions, etc.

Then I respond to the people who accepted my Friend requests and leave thank you messages on their walls.

And then I go trawling through my groups - which I've specifically chosen for the fact that they have to do with the genre I write in. So in my case I belong to a lot of horror groups.

I send about 5 or 6 Friend requests a day.

So that's my morning Facebook routine.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Thanks, Joan. We're all looking for good methods to minimize our non-writing chores, and this is enormously useful. You can visit Joan for more information here:

Website
Blog

Facebook Week

The group is now working on Facebook, and I admit, I could use some tips myself to maneuver around over there. My first big stumbler was the Facebook link, and I learned today how to convert my ugly Facebook url to something memorable. Here's how:

Go to http://tinyurl.com/ and instead of converting to a tinyurl, create an alias. My new one to Facebook is http://tinyurl.com/Daniatblogbooktours thanks to Blog Book Tours class participant, Bob Sanchez. So much easier to remember, and I highly recommend you all convert your Facebook links to something nicer and much easier to remember.

Next challenge - how to get around that miserable word verification issue?
Then - how to get and use the Twitter apps?
Finally - how to get friends without overdoing it and getting in trouble?

Is it just me who feels like Facebook is a tad too complicated to maneuver?

Twitter Tools

One of the built-in tools in Twitter is the ability to text message to your Twitter account from your phone, and many Twitter users do this. There is a page in Settings that allows you to create this ability. I don't use it because I can barely see well enough to make a phone call on my cell, much less text message. That doesn't mean it's unpopular with other tweeple. Many updates are sent to Twitter in this way.

There are other third party applications to organize Twitter, which is in itself a fairly simple and straightforward arrangement. Some of those more sophisticated applications like Friendfeed are mentioned at this blog.

As your Twitter following grows, you might want to try some of these tools to see if they help keep your Twitter account more organized. Me? I tweet on my computer, monitor the account daily, and find that this works fine so why mess with success? You, however, might find some of these applications very useful, so by all means try something new and then tell us what works for you and why.

DM on Twitter

DM stands for Direct Message, and allows people on Twitter to "talk" to each other without their messages appearing in the timelines. Most of the time this privacy feature actually works, but not always, so be cautious of what you say in a DM.

The DM feature should be used much like you use a telegram - for very important messages. Don't DM everyone on your list to tell them you just blogged. That's what the regular timeline is for, after all. Many times, the DMs land in tweeples mailboxes and your message will be viewed as spam. It's just too invasive, and risks loss of followers.

Here's an example of an appropriate DM:

My doctor has given me ten days to live. Thank you for sharing time with me on Twitter. You've made my life much better. Goodbye!

Okay, that might be a little extreme. The point is that DMs are meant for important and private information. Keep that in mind before you use this feature on Twitter. If this guideline doesn't fit your post, just update in the usual way so everyone following you can read your post.

Twitter Confusion

We are in Day 4 of Twitter practice in our Blog Book Tours class. A few folks are getting themselves very confused. That's not uncommon, and the only suggestion I have is to keep plugging away, and eventually you will "get it" by rote. Post and read three times a day as described in previous lessons. Get a sense of the interaction for a few days and it will sink in. Twitter is deceptively simple, and this sometimes adds to the confusion. Don't make it more complicated than it really is.

One important point. When you go to Twitter, make sure you are signed in. You should get a sign-up window if you are not. Obviously, until you are signed into your account with your password, you cannot read your timeline, which means all the updates of the people you are following and your own posts.

And start reading http://www.twitip.com on a regular basis. Think of it as Twitter Berlitz. The more you immerse yourself in this foreign language, the more quickly you will understand what everyone is talking about.

Follow me, where I go

You've set up your Twitter account and are now ready to figure out how it works. So here's how you do it: Follow me. Or more accurately, go to my Twitter account @BlogBookTours , and look at who I'm following in that little icon section at right. Click on View All and you'll get my entire list from the most recent added all the way back to the first. Scroll through and click on any name that interests you. Try to follow a few hundred people very quickly. Ten pages is plenty for one sitting. You'll immediately start seeing updates for those people each time they post. Continue this for a few days until you are following about 500. Then follow people from other sources, too, including Twitter widgets that you'll start seeing on blogs and websites.

Over the next few days, people will start following you back, and can then see your postings on Twitter. So it's important to post several times a day as I described in the previous post, to keep your followers interested in you. Remember, it is only your Followers who will see what you write, so it is important that you have followers. I repeat, only your followers can read your messages. Many people follow thousands, but this just gives you more to read! Those people can't read you until they follow you back. You must understand this, as it's key to making Twitter work for you.

Twitter is difficult to search, so if you are looking for areas of interest, click on the categories at this site. Just Tweetit is by no means complete (@BlogBookTours isn't listed, after all), but, again, it's a good way to get started with connections that interest you.

Next we'll talk more about proactive and beneficial updates. Tell them more than just what you're doing, especially if it's ho-hum. Give them added content and links to visit. That's how you make Twitter work for you.

A Very Social February

February is all about love because of Valentines Day, but at the Blog Book Tours Yahoo!Group, the assignments for the month focus on the social marketing groups we all know... and maybe hate. These include Facebook, MySpace, Goodreads, and Twitter.

We're starting with Twitter because it's the fastest, easiest, and most powerful for marketing your other websites. It's also less of a time-suck than the more complex social forums. There are other added benefits about Twitter networking that I'll point out later.

In a nutshell, Twitter is a micro-blogging site that allows snappy posts of 140 characters. To participate, you follow other Twitter users and this allows you to see their updates. You in turn, are followed, and those people can read what you have to say. Keep this scenario in mind, because it's the key to how Twitter works, or how it doesn't if you don't "get it". Believe me, many people don't, and consequently feel it's a waste of time.

Now, to get started, and before the following and socializing begins, you need a few things upfront:

1. An email account that is acceptable on Twitter like yahoo or hotmail



2. A name that coordinates with your other website efforts if possible - I use blogbooktours everywhere I can



3. A small photo for your homepage and post icon



4. A well-written short bio



5. The website link you will send readers to for more information
   

Now you're ready to set up your Twitter account. Go to http://twitter.com/ and follow the directions, plugging in the information above.

Once you've gotten this far, you're ready to practice entering some updates. Introduce yourself in one, leave a blog link in another, tell us what you're doing today in a third. Do this several times more, perhaps throughout the day, to get Twitter into your conciousness and just to practice writing concise but meaningful messages. Be sure to bookmark your Twitter page to make it one of your regular stops several times during the day, much like checking your email.

Now you're ready to start following people and have them follow you back. We'll talk about how to do that in the next post.

And then you can follow me @twitter!

Buy Buttons

About thirty of our students have spiffied up their blogs in preparation for their blog book tours, and are now suffering through peer critiques. Actually, it's not that bad. Most of the blogs look really good (you can visit them by clicking on the links at right), and the tweaking is only minor. Here's one little addition to your blog that is enormously important - the buy button. Some of our class members haven't paid quite enough attention to it, and it's a common flaw.

What is a buy button? It's the live link on your website or blog that shoots the reader to a sales point for your book. That could be your own shopping cart, your specific amazon.com book page, the book page at your publisher's site, or all the sales locations for your book. The more options your reader has, the more chances you'll have a seamless sale. Do you have easy-to-find links and buying prompts on your sites? Do you include a link in every post that mentions your book? Make it easy on your reader.

It's that "seamless sale" aspect that is vitally important. If you have a sales point that isn't operating smoothly, you will lose sales and possibly even irritate your fan. Don't do it. No excuses here. Find a way to solve the problem, no matter what it takes. You get one chance to make a good impression. It's an old adage, but it's true. Strangers have no sympathy for sob stories - they want perfection and are thinking of their own convenience. You have to supply that before you sell one book. Service sells your book before great writing.

So to recap: Have a sales link - a buy button - at your websites and blogs, and make sure it works without a hitch each and every time. Give your readers every opportunity to buy that book. Selling, and selling lots, should be part of your personal success equation. Is it part of your motivation? Then set it up so your fans can help you achieve that goal.

A Blogger Design Tip

See that funny strip at the top of your Blogger blog that has your email and links at the right? What color is it? Look at the rest of your blog, and I'll bet some of you can change that so it matches the overall look of your design better.

You only get four choices - black, white, tan, or blue - but one of them is probably a better choice for your color scheme than any other. Go to Layout, click on that banner's edit link, and change for the better. It's a little thing, I know, but why not be the best you can be?

And don't forget to collapse your archive - that's on the same Layout page.

Ebook Week

Coming up soon in March, so if you have an ebook to promote, check out their fantastic website and jump on this combined effort. Also grab one of these neat banners they've designed for free use on your blog and website:

There are more for various genres and various styles. Very cool idea.

Tag, you're it, ladies!

I've bumped this post up for the current class, and for anyone who doesn't know what a meme is.

Meme: Any unit of cultural information, such as a practice or idea, that is transmitted verbally or by repeated action from one mind to another. Examples include thoughts, ideas, theories, practices, habits, songs, dances and moods and terms such as race, culture, and ethnicity.

Also, an easy peasy blog post that's fun for writer and reader.
_________________________________________

Here's a modifed writers meme for members of the August Blog Challenge, three of whom got tagged at the end. These are my answers:

1) Computer, longhand, or other?
Computer or Alphasmart. Only longhand when mindmapping. That might change as I get good with speech recognition software which I'm loving so far. Jeez, my mouth can type fast!

2) Coffee or tea?
Coffee and tea although I'm cutting down on both. Coffee in the morning, and 4PM tea when the weather gets cooler.

3) Day or night?
Mostly day, unless I'm on deadline. I usually read at night.

4) Favorite genre to write?
Non-fiction although Penny Dreadful is getting more of my attention! Cozy mysteries are a daily part of my life, too.

5) Pencil or pen to edit?
Pencil. Not necessarily red.

6) Unusual writing quirk or trait?
I mindmap everything including my grocery list.

7) Writing from home or writing in a cozy café?
Home! I cannot write in public - mostly because of the noise.

8) Music or silence while your write?
Definitely silence. See #7. Unless a neighbor's dog is barking and then a Baroque adagio helps tune them out.

9) Favorite motivational writing quote?
Write first. Clean later. Thanks, l.j. Sellers!

10) Favorite bookmark?
I love those lovely book thongs.... like jewelry for books. Copper book darts are cool, too, although I keep losing them to the library.

11) Favorite fictional character of all time?
Merlin in the Mary Stewart Arthurian series.

12) Most admired living writer today?
Tough question. This week, it's Nora Roberts for all those books, and they're actually decent novels. Okay, they're indecent in parts, but she consistently weaves a pretty good tale for having written 150+. Anyone who writes two or more good books a year is most admired. I stand in awe.

~~~~~~~

If you like memes, writing pal, Moe, has put together a bunch more at her super-fantastic Squidoo lens called 50 Memes.

And don't underestimate the power of a meme. It's really all about linking which boosts the popularity of your blog.

The Happy Tag

Helen Ginger at Straight From Hel just tagged me. I’m supposed to tell six things that make me happy. So here goes:

• Flaming hot Thai green curry with shrimp


• Chocolate ice cubes


• Hand-knit wool socks


• Zipoli's Adagio for Oboe, Cello, and Strings


• Fresh flowers in a crystal vase


• Warm blueberry muffins


• Cats and kittens everywhere

So what makes you happy? Let's ask these dear people, who have been known to make me happy on more than one occasion:

• Jacquelyn Sylvan


• Karen Syed


• LJ Sellers


• Marv Wilson


• Ann Parker


• Faith Darling

Now if that doesn't make your day, I don't know what does. Go do the Happy Dance and enjoy another round of tag! Hehe.

Time to collapse

No, not from the efforts of daily blogging. What I mean is collapse your archive. Look at that long mess in your blog sidebar. Is anyone really going to click on your daily posts from this month? Not likely when they can just scroll down the page.

First go to Layout in Blogger, and click on edit in the archive gadget. Then choose either Flat List or Drop-down Menu. Immediately, you will see a nice short list or a nice little box. That frees up column space for much more important information that your reader might actually use and enjoy.

Do it. Right now. Collapse your archive.

Blogs we love to follow

To follow up on yesterday's post, some blogs are just more fun to follow and make it a treat to leave a comment. An example is today's post at Double M where Morgan Mandel asks us to share an embarassing moment from grammar school. Don't we all remember those like they happened last week?

I share just a few including the time I lost a dime up my nose in 4th grade.

Another fun blog post to comment on is Chris Verstraete's post about miniatures at Teen Seen. Go find out more if you don't know what I'm talking about. This is the author blog for members of Quake Publishing which is my newest gig. Run over and check out our titles which also are available in affordable ebook and downloadable formats.

Bookmarks and RSS Feeds

If you're unclear about what they are and how to use them, click here for a pretty good article that explains both.

Blog Talk Radio

Don't miss our interview on Sunday at 1 PM EST when we talk with host, Chris Hamilton, about the ins and outs of planning a blog book tour. Click here to listen to the conversation. Then click on the link to "your default reader" and the interview will quickly download to your computer. I promise it will be worth your time.

FWA is the radio program for the Florida Writers Assn. and what a nice added feature not only for the members, but for writers everywhere. This was my first experience with Blog Talk Radio, and I'd do it again in a minute. I might even toy with the idea of hosting my own show. Hehe.

Any Comments?

Professional bloggers are saying more and more that comments on a blog post are as viral a search engine optimization tool as linking and any number of other tricks. I don't know if that's true or not, but I really like that the Blog Book Tours blog-a-day challenge has resulted in lots of conversations between the participants on their respective blogs. We're also getting commenters from Twitter. Comments seem to make the post live longer than without.

Blogs like The Lipstick Chronicles become favorites as much for the comments as for the original posts, so it's a worthy goal. I've lately been analyzing why blogs get commentary. Personable writers, controversial themes, pertinent questions, great information, good writing, and even contests are all techniques for inspiring reader participation. What's your favorite technique to inspire interaction? Have you developed a technique yet? Think about what might work for you.

Headline Bloopers

Head over to The Blood Red Pencil where Marv Wilson has us all rolling in the aisles over real headline bloopers. While you're laughing, take a look at your own blog titles. Do some of them sound a little funny? They made so much sense when you wrote that blog post, but maybe they're a little off when you see them with a fresh look.

It never hurts to go back and look at your old writing. While you're there, edit the bloopers out of the post itself. We all have typos, grammatical goofs, and punctuation errors that we overlook. As a writer, you need to correct your mistakes, even after-the-fact. It's never too late to put your best foot forward.

Be sure to bookmark and follow The Blood Red Pencil where you'll get ongoing advice not only about revising and editing your book manuscript, but other writing and publishing tips as well.

Fast Blogs

How to make your blog load faster. Just one of many great Blogger Help articles. Click here to read more and do try that Stopwatch test.

Sidebar Clutter

You've spiffied up your blog and now have all kinds of helpful and attractive gadgets in your sidebar. This is a good thing. Unless your sidebars are now so cluttered that your readerss can't find what they're looking for.

Visual clutter quickly happens, especially as your blog hosts add all kinds of fancy new gadgets for you to try. It doesn't mean you have to use them all, or that they are even good for you blog. For example, preview posts from other blogs sometimes simply don't support your mission. Think about whether you really need that information to make your blog better.

What about your label list? Do you have a nice, concise group of categories you shovel each post into, or is your list a mile long with one post in each unique category? Get rid of it, if so. Those post labels mean nothing to your or your readers.

Also look at your archive gadget. Is it showing daily post titles for the current month? Collapse it, so that only the months are listed. Much neater and will free up column room for a more important addition.

In Blogger, you will make these changes in the Layout section. Go now and tweak a bit, so that your blog is more attractive and easier to maneuver.

Connections

Our Blog Book Tours yahoogroup is now fully in session, and the current group of challengers is working hard at the post-a-day Blog Challenge. They are doing a marvelous job, and you can visit their sites via the blog links at right. Go help them out by leaving a comment!

The challengers are also tweaking their blogs with improvements like bookmarking, even more good links for you to explore, follow me options, and other add-ons to make your visit exceptional. How often have you visited a blog that didn't have an RSS feed, or a connection to the related website, or a way to follow on Twitter, or even an email link to contact the blogger?

So challengers, if you're on Facebook, or Twitter, or any of a number of other sites, make sure each location in inter-connected to the others. Make it easy for your fans. Sometimes this means you must simply type an email address like this:

Me at internethost dot com

This prevents robots from harvesting your address when typed in the usual manner.

So take a look at your blog and make sure that all your connections flow to locations that support and enhance your purpose.

How do you ensure your fans will come back to visit your blog?

Correcting Your Errors

The Blood Red Pencil recently had a good entry about editing blog posts. There's a traditional school of thought that, once the blog publishes, it lives as is - correct or riddled with errors. I completely disagree, and the reasons mentioned here are valid. Be sure to read the dozen or so comments for how other writers feel about the subject.

Now go read through your own blog posts for the past week, correct any grammatical errors, and while you're at it, check the flow of your posts from day-to-day. Bottoms up, of course.

Ping Alert

I make it a point to ping at least once a week. Try one of these multi-pinging services to notify servers about a recent update to your blog:

BlogFlux Pinger
BlogPingR.de
King Ping
Ping
Pingoat
Ping-o-matic
Poll-n-Ping!

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ping_(blogging)" - a must read if you don't quite understand what pinging is all about.

More Better Lies

Paperback Writer came up with Ten Reasons that prevent you from updating your blog - regularly. Funny reasons. Questionable reasons. Go read them.

What's your excuse? Since January Uno, who in the Blog Book Tours blogging challenge has not posted every day? What are your excuses? Come on! Get creative and come up with a really good list of better lies, and post them on your blog. That's your writing prompt for the day. Everyone can play.

Enjoying our posts so far? Be sure to follow us by clicking the Follow Me link at right.

Title Z

Do you know about Title Z? It's a fast and simple site that gives your book's amazon.com rating. You can get a rating for your title, your name, and for your publisher in one clear and easy-to-read list. Fun, isn't it?

But, it's more than that. If you're planning a blog book tour, or any book promotion, you want to get a rating before you start as a benchmark, and then for every day of your tour. You also want to watch your rating after promotion to see what it's popularity is doing. This is a good measure of whether your efforts are helping sell your book. It's a numbers game, and this is only part of the equation.

So what's your book's rating today?

The Blogroll

What is that? It's a group of links in the right or left columns of your blog, with links to other blogs. Why would you want one? Well, for several reasons. It makes your blog more noticeable to search engines for one thing.

You can use your blogrolls to connect to blogs that offer your readers added content that might interest them. My links would probably embellish on the theme of blog book tours. I also have a blogroll for members of the current blog challenge, and use these links list to visit the blogs. This is part of what we call "cyber-schmoozing" and it's a good thing to do in preparation for your own blog book tour down the road.

Finally, it's a good idea to have a separate blogroll of your favorite blogs that you think might make good hosts for your future tour. Scoping out those blogs takes a lot of time, so it's best to do a little work each day. It's so much easier to look at your own list of favorite blogs, and then invite those friends to host you, than to be left scrambling just weeks before your blog book tour is scheduled to begin.

Here's a starting point for you thanks to My Friend Amy's Blog - a list of book review blogs, lots of them. Click on the button at right, and then explore a few of them every day. Add your favorites to a blogroll on your site. It won't take any time to accumulate a list of fabulous blogs to host you. We'll also cover other techniques for finding great and unusual blogs at a later time.

How do you go about finding blog hosts for a tour? Leave us a comment.

Learning to blog

One of the toughest parts of a post-a-day challenge is that some of our members are entirely new to blogging, and a bit confused by it all. Blogging isn't rocket science, but it's still a foreign language that takes a bit of time to learn. Sometimes, the best way is in a classroom and with a good teacher at the helm.

The Story Circle Network, a lifewriting organization for women, has added online classes and one teaches blogging, as well as the opportunity to learn something about different blogging platforms like Blogger, WordPress, and TypePad. All have advantages depending upon the goals of the blogger. Go here for more information about this class:

http://www.storycircleonlineclasses.org/classes/misegades.shtml

Be sure to bookmark the site for future online classes as well. Don't just blog - blog brilliantly! A class might help if you're particularly intimidated by this online medium.

Did any of you take a formal blogging class? What blogging platform do you use and why do you like it as compared to others? Leave us a comment.

Getting fans to visit you

All good blogs depend on repeat customers, so it behooves you to make it easy for your fans to read your posts. Be sure to install an RSS feed button on your blog. You can read more about them here. Some blogging platforms automatically include them, and others like Blogger, require that you manually choose and place this gadget on your blog.

Another considerate addition for your readers is bookmarking buttons, placed high up on your blog. I prefer the Add This button, as it's clean and efficient and doesn't clutter up the page with endless bookmarks.

You might not understand the mechanics if you're new to blogging, but trust me, your readers will and they'll appreciate you for it. It makes your blog very visitor-friendly.

If you have a Blogger blog like this one, be sure to add the Follow Me gadget so others can see who reads your blog. All these add-ons are demonstrated in the right column.

Tracking your visitors

In our current blog book tours session, we're talking about the importance of adding a hit counter to your blog. You must be able to track your visitors. Popular and free counters include Sitemeter and Statcounter, and they are relatively easy to install on your blog, even if you're a novice blogger. Just follow the directions. Morgan Mandel has a good post about it at her blog.

What kind of hit counter do you use on your blog, and why do you favor it? Please leave a comment.

Marketing trends

It's no surprise with the economic downturn that blog book tours will be embraced by authors as a great way to promote their new titles in 2009. There are lots of things to keep in mind and this list of trends and predictions from Author Marketing Experts, Inc. is well worth reading. Click here.

If you're an author reading this and are interested in a blog book tour, but don't quite know how to go about it, you can join our session-in-process at the Blog Book Tours yahoogroup. We'll spend all of January with a post-a-day blogging challenge, and improve our blogs in other ways as well. The planning session continues through March covering various areas. Join us if you need help and encouragement! This is a free peer support group and you must give your name and book title to join.

What should I write about?

Oh, gee, what am I going to write about for thirty days in a row?

That's what many of our Blog-a-Day challengers are asking themselves. It's one of the reasons they don't blog every day to begin with. Some don't even blog once a week for lack of something to say. Yes, I am talking about writers here! A dearth of words and blogging seem to go hand-in-hand for many authors. So, the first step is to determine the primary focus of your blog, which should be to promote your book. List the focus and topics of the book itself and write about various aspects of your main themes.

All fans love added information about their favorite authors so feel free to include a few personal tidbits on your blog. If you don't to share too much information, you can still create added content about writing your book, research, writing tips, inspiration, and those sorts of topic.

Think of a blog as a way to give a little more to your fans. Generosity is one of the best ways to build readership. You can read more about that at Copyblogger, a site I suggest you bookmark and return to often. I'll share a few more professional blogging sites over the rest of the month for more tips on how to make your blog the best it can be.

Now don't forget to copy edit your post! There's nothing worse than a writing blog riddled with typos and grammatical errors. Put your best foot forward. Yes, you can even check back a few days and correct prior posts, it's okay. You have my permission. That's why the Blogger editing function exists and don't let the blogging purists convince you otherwise.

Easing into the blogging habit

A post-a-day blogging challenge is probably one of the best ways to develop your blogging habit. That doesn't mean a daily blog post is necessarily a good thing, or that you'll want to keep up that pace for the rest of your life. But to instill the habit, a daily effort is key. Just do it.

It's true that a certain frenetic energy develops during a blogging challenge. There's nothing relaxing about it, and once the newness wears off, the grind begins. Why, it's just like work! That's really the point, too. To blog successfully, you need to do it when you least want to, and you'll be rewarded somewhere down the road for your efforts. Hopefully, that reward will come when you are launching your own blog book tour.

That said, read this article about slow blogging to put things in perspective. Then think about how you can create quality and enjoyment in your daily blogging experience, without too much attachment to Google ranking or search engine optimization. After all, there's nothing better than loving your work, and in this case, it's just another writing venue, authors. Love of blogging is a good thing, so find a balance that works for you and be committed to creating the blog that will serve you on many levels.