Here are some ways to step up your ‘About’ page. Good advice. Thanks!
Pin Crazy!
Love Pinterest!
Editing Backwards
Sarah has given some great editing tips and ways to organize edits. Thanks, Sarah!
The 8 most annoying ways to loose you tweeps
Twitter tips. Things to think about when you are setting up your Twitter account. And remember, play nice!
Editorial Tips: What If You Really Mess Up?
This is exactly true. You need a fresh set of eyes to look at your work. I just did this with a manuscript, two people who had not seen it before went through it with a fine comb. Lots of red marks and questions. It was perfect to help me polish my work.
Just this weekend I posted a blog with a misspelled word in the heading–“dos” instead of “does”. Well, my Spanish isn’t good enough to pawn it off as the number two, which didn’t make sense anyway, so there I was with the only line showing on the link broadcasting my error. A delightful friend immediately sent me a comment on Facebook, “Is this an editor’s test? lol” Why didn’t I just go with it and say, “Yes!”? I caught it and fixed it right after I hit “Publish” on WordPress, but since I have automatic share for Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Google, it was out there for all to see. In my haste to remedy this, I sent the whole post to trash. It was a rather lengthy poem with visually descriptive words, now lost and gone forever, except for the heading postings everywhere which now link to nothing.
A Magic…
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The Makings of a Good Author Interview
For those of you who love to do author interviews, here are some great tips! Happy interviewing! Thanks!
When I posted my interview with Sarah Solmonson earlier this morning, it reminded me that a couple of people have asked me to put up a post on the finer points of doing an author interview. I’m not sure I would call me an expert on this topic, but I try to answer those who ask me a question, so this post is for them.
I will share my opinion here, not saying that anyone should take my words as gold, but here is what I think:
A successful author interview begins with an interesting author. I am not pointing fingers and calling anyone boring, but if you want your interview to shine, choose authors that have something to bring to the party. I like it very much when the authors I interview have a very personal interest in their story. This doesn’t mean it can’t be fiction, just…
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Read My Book: How to Find Readers on Twitter
Excellent tips to find those readers. Thanks!
The Simple Method for Finding New Readers on Social Media
All authors, whether self-published or traditionally published, are in search of new readers for their books. But if you’ve been marketing your book for any length of time, you know that sourcing new readers isn’t easy. In a saturated market, writers and publishers are competing for readers’ attention, and simply blasting a link to your book on Twitter or other social media isn’t necessarily your best option. How do you know who you’re reaching? How do you find readers who will actually be interested in your book?
Target Readers Who are Already Interested in Your Book
By using Twitter’s search tool, you can easily find readers who are already interested in your book – even if they don’t know it yet! Specifically, the search function allows authors to pinpoint readers who are interested in the same type of book as…
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What To Do AFTER a Writer’s Conference
Last week I spent four days at the Pacific Northwest Writers Association annual conference. It was truly a time of learning and making connections. Not only did writers attend a variety of sessions, we were also able to pitch (picture speed dating, except the conversation is about writing projects and the two parties are author and agent or editor) potential projects to many agents and editors that were present. Let’s not forget the special evening events with guest panels (how about J.A. Jance? Robert Dugoni? and more), dinners, desserts, and an award ceremony.
To put it bluntly, we ran from sun up to sun down. Exhaustion was my traveling companion on the way home. But it was worth every single second.
What does one do after such a fantastic outing?
~ Zucchini and yellow squash. Yes, you read that correctly. Dear old hubby did not eat a single one. Or so appearances would seem. He had harvested 3 super huge squash and I found an additional 13. Thirteen could be a good number, but not when considering what to do with that many squash. New house rule: If you visit, you take at least one squash when you leave.
~ Raspberries. Again, an attempt was made to pick the laden canes. The full bowl rested untouched in the fridge. After my attack on the killer canes, I added another colander full – all to be washed, picked over, and put in the freezer.
~ Laundry. Even one person can make a huge mess in a week. I did. I am still unable to find certain undergarments. I hope they did not stay for a longer visit at the hotel.
~ Green beans. Can you tell the garden needed me while I was gone? Tomorrow I will tackle the wax and green beans.
~ Unpacking. Again, how much mess can a single traveler make? Plenty.
~ Paperwork. This is a very important step following a conference of any type. I made so many great connections with other writers. I need to sort out all of the business cards and make contact on social media with my colleagues. I also need to check out information that I collected about businesses that provide assistance to writers.
~ Synopsis and query. At the conference, I pitched one of my picture books. The agent I spoke with was interested in reading my manuscript, so now I need to write a synopsis. And a query letter. And then I need to submit my work to her. Praying this has a great ending!
~ See my grandbabies. What? You didn’t think I had forgotten them, did you? Only a week, and all of them have shot up taller.
Yawn. I am slowly catching up with jobs, even sleep. I missed you!
I’m off to write a synopsis and query letter.
Author Tweet Groups
If I could figure this out, it would be very helpful!
Each of your tweets only reaches a fraction of your followers. One way to reach a wider audience on twitter is the re-tweeting culture. People re-tweet tweets whose contents are related to their own, a favour that often is returned by the other party. I’ve been amazed at the kindness and curtesy you can find on twitter.
Many authors have started doing this in more organised (and less time consuming) ways by uniting with other authors on Facebook in tweet groups where they share each other’s tweets in daily reciprocal threads.
In reality it works something like this:
Someone creates a post in a particular FB tweet group. That post becomes the thread for that day and is open for 24 hours. Each author leaves a comment with a link to a tweet
e.g. https://twitter.com/CFFBooks/status/620927821502877696
Each participatant will retweet all the tweets in those comments on that day in exchange for their tweet being tweeted by everyone else.
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Topics in Early Childhood Education: Activities to Promote Interest and Engagement
Get those kids moving and doing. Thanks for sharing!
One of the challenges of being a parent or a grandparent in 2015 is keeping children from becoming couch vegetables. With all of the electronic gadgets available now, this task has become even more difficult. I watch children all the time whose only interest is playing on electronic toys. Having said that, I don’t want to give the impression that electronics are all bad. Technology may be the future for some of our children and their occupations. What I worry about, however, is that children will lose all passion for anything else in the world. Technology has a tendency to pull children in so that they don’t engage with the rest of the world. This is one of my fears and a challenge I see when parents try to get their children interested in something else. The key is to begin early.
Early childhood developmental stages in children are the…
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Love, Laughter, and Life 