I have not written a book yet, sticking with the short bits of information I can post to my blogs is enough writing for me at present, and sharing information I find about writing so I can learn and be ready when the time comes to write my first book.  Time goes by so quickly, though, that I’m realizing I’d better get to it.  Thought I’d just have a little fun with this post.

I often hear of a condition among writers called “writer’s block”, and I have a solution (don’t take this TOO seriously, it’s really all in fun.)…doodling.  When I have a piece of paper that I’m taking notes on while I’m listening to someone speak, or deep in thought, I’m often doodling.  I’m posting my most common doodle, I did this right online at a website I was invited to look at that offered a Medieval Building set.

One thing lead to another…I went to “Roseart”, then I went to “108 piece art set” then to the “try it” tab…I found fun-to-do things like this all over the site. I love line drawing, maybe that’s why at my age I still have one of my now-grown children’s “etch-a-sketch” toys sitting nearby my favorite place to sit in the living room. So take a little break from writing, and become a child again.  Or if you have a child sitting or standing nearby who is the cause of your writers block…a bit of a distraction…and you’ve already given lots of love and attention and they are still begging for more, send them to this site to play…they’ll love looking at the things there, and playing in the “Family Fun” section.  Your children may be taken with MagNext toys at the site…toys really have changed since we were young! Then maybe, just maybe, you can get back to your writing.

Vicki Taylor is starting out the year with a fun opportunity for you, a writing contest!

The contest runs for the full month of January, 2009.

It’s free to be part of the contest, and you have a chance to win a nice prize…for all the details, please visit this link which will lead you to all you need to know at Vickie’s website, vickimtaylor.com.

Unless you are someone who only listens audio books, or reads eBooks on the screen of your computer, you love paper. In fact, I would venture to guess that even though you may use these electronic media approaches to reading or listening, your love affair with reading began with books, paper books with paper pages, paper dust jackets, where would we be without the wonderful invention of paper?

There are so many uses for paper…I just spent some time doing something that is becoming somewhat of a lost art with the advent of eCards and eMail, I hand-wrote a few letters! My children have enjoyed using colorful pieces of paper to do little origami figures when they were growing up. I recently came across a box of letters that I had retrieved from my grandparents home when we were cleaning it out after they passed away…they had saved all the letters I had written to them when I was a child, and there were a lot of them, I loved my grandparents…all written on pretty stationary, and what fun it was to read and remember things I had long forgotten.

Letter writing doesn’t have to be a lost art, and if you have a source for a large and beautiful selection of paper for your writing needs like paper-paper.com, you might just find yourself inspired!

Happy writing to you!

I was looking at my favorite article site (mine :-)) and came across an article done by someone I refer to a lot in the blog because of her newsletter for authors and writers.  I hope you’ll enjoy the article, and the helpful information of how to do a book tour or author tour.  As you can see in earlier posts, I’ve taken part in a few blog tours.

Here’s the article, by Penny Sansevieri.

After years of working with authors on Internet tours, talking about blogging, podcasting, social networking, and all other assorted online promotional tools, the basic questions still remain: How the heck do I promote myself on the Internet? Broken down in simple steps, this article is designed to give you a good starting point to kick your Internet promotion into high gear. It s not difficult but you have to start somewhere. Let s start with your web site.

Web site: Why would someone visit it? Why would anyone care? Before you start marketing yourself online, ask these basic questions. You can get anyone to a web site once, but getting them back a second, or third time is where authors often lose momentum. Studies have shown that less than 14 of web site visitors will buy the first time they visit. It s only on the second or third visit that they decide to make a purchase. Anyone can drive traffic to your site, it s getting them back that counts.

The point of your tour: getting incoming links

Here s the thing: anyone can get incoming links, the point is, you want GOOD and quality incoming links from sites that can actually send you traffic and readers that will buy your book. We get numerous calls from authors who have bought into inexpensive programs that do nothing more than drive unqualified, tire kicking traffic to their web site. This kind of traffic is not going to do you any good; in fact, if you re not careful, getting a bunch of errant links from sites that Google doesn’t feel are right for your topic or market can get you downgraded online instead of a better ranking. So how do you beat this?

First, you’ll want to download the Google toolbar. This toolbar comes with a Page Ranking piece (in some cases you may have to download this separately). This Page Rank is important because it s an indicator of how important Google thinks a particular site is. Ideally sites you target will have a Page Rank of 4 or above. We like to target sites that have a ranking between 4-6. Then look at the nature of the sites you re pitching. Are they related to your topic? Do the sites have lots of great content? Would they consider reviewing your book, maybe interviewing you or excerpting your book? Regardless of what they re willing to do, the idea is to use these sites to help spread the message about your book and give them great content. All sites are looking for great content and if you can offer it to them, it s a win win. Here s what not to do: don’t just link swap with your friends. I know writers who belong to writer s groups and just swap links with other writers. This isn’t good for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is that the site you might be linking to (or getting a link from) has nothing to do with your topic.

Slow and steady wins the race: The idea of touring or promoting yourself online is about building traffic, links, and authority status within search engines. I tend to reference Google a lot since most of us default search there. People ask me how long they should promote themselves online, I tell them for as long as they need to. As long as there are sites you can pitch yourself to you can continue promoting. Our web site, Author Marketing Experts, has never been promoting in an aggressive fashion. Yes, we use new promotional techniques and cutting edge Web 2.0 trends but it s never been about a fast push; it s always been about slow and steady growth. Because of this we have great ranking, linking, and placement on Google. I ve never paid for a single ad word placement or fancy traffic program that leverages links only.

Using blogs, podcasts, and article syndication: the Internet is full of tools to use. Blogs are a great way to promote to but consider this: why not comment on blogs in your market that are getting a lot of traffic? You may not be able to get a review but you can always comment and, you ll get a link back to your site in the process.

Podcasting is another great tool, there are a ton of podcasts out there that you can promote yourself to. Check out iTunes and Podcast Alley to find some that might suit your topic and market.

Article syndication: another powerful but often overlooked market. Write a piece between 500 and 2,000 words and send it out into cyberspace via sites like Isnare, Ezine Articles and Article City and watch the links start building to your site.

If the idea of social networking, social bookmarking, video and the like are overwhelming then I recommend that you start simple: begin by pitching yourself online and see what you can grow from there. Most of the time the main reason an author abandons any thought of an online campaign is because they are overwhelmed by their choices. Start small and build from there, this is how we did it and how we grew our market. You can too. Then, when you’ve gotten your sea legs when it comes to Internet promotion, you can branch out into other areas.

Good luck, here’s to your Red Hot success!
Author Resource:-> Penny C. Sansevieri, CEO and founder of Author Marketing Experts, Inc., is a book marketing and media relations expert whose company has developed some of the most cutting-edge book marketing campaigns. Visit http://www.amarketingexpert.com.

Article From Selling With Articles

I am not sure that this is something that would be useful to a book author or writer, but it may be. It will definitely be of interest to those who are in a business that wants to preserve documents, especially in the day and age in which we live when all those in business are under such close scrutiny.

When I was working in an accounting office a while back, we had a huge stack of items that were waiting for someone to find the time to scan (pdf in this case) them for archiving…I’m not there any more, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the pile still is.

If you are in a business like this, or any business, large or small, where how well you have kept your records may determine the future of your business, or verify your integrity, you may be interested in a service that provides document scanning.

The ins and outs of document scanning are not complicated, but a lot to present in this post, so visit the links provided to learn more. As you consider the importance of preserving your documents, think about things like this:

• What would you do if there was a natural disaster, or a fire and all your in-house documents were destroyed?
• What will you do when you run out of room for storage?
• What if you want to be able to use your time to focus on your business and leave document scanning to someone else?
• What kind of help is available when you no longer need to save documents?

Those are just a few things to consider as you look into ways to improve your business in 2009.

Best wishes for a prosperous New Year this last day of 2008.

Here is some information that the new (or experienced) writer will find helpful that I received in an author’s newsletter that I receive regularly and enjoy, full credit given at the end of the post, I encourage you to sign up for the newsletter if you aren’t receiving it already.

In the following, the writer shares a list of common things that she believes are myths that are told to new writers, and some promotional tips, I hope you find this list to be helpful:

1) If someone writes a review I don’t like, can I get them to rewrite it? No, this will never happen, nor should you ask for this. Doing this will show you are a novice. If you get back a bad review, try to learn from it and move on. It happens to everyone at least once, it’s disheartening but unfortunately, it’s part of the business.

2) Radio is all I need to sell books. Not true. For some authors radio is golden, but that’s few and far between. Doing a lot of radio may be great for your exposure, but it may not sell books. The best type of radio are interviews that are done to promote an event or workshop, that way you can at least drive people to something, rather than hoping they’ll click on your site.

3) I’m going to take my independent title and get it on Oprah. Some years back, Oprah decided to be “unique” when selecting her books and she picked a title that came from a very small publisher. Because a mention on the Oprah show can produce a high demand, the publisher could not keep up with the orders, nor did they have enough in stock or stocked in a bookstore. The result? A lot of viewers called into the show when they couldn’t find the book and Oprah vowed never to feature a small press title again. The challenge here is always availability. If you have a book from a small press but it has significant bookstore placement and availability, be sure to let the producers know this when you’re pitching the book. It could go a long way to helping you gain consideration for the show!

4) I’m going to get my book on the New York Times Bestseller list. Bestseller lists are funny things, many of them, (like the New York Times list) are not based on sales but rather on exposure and popularity. Meaning that if your book is gaining huge popularity, it might not be selling a ton of copies but bookstores are buzzing about it. The New York Times has around thirty or so bookstores around the country that report to them on what’s hot and what’s not. None of this is based on sales, just on what people are asking for. Regardless of the sales quota, in order to attain this level of exposure your book needs to have a significant print run of at least 50,000 or more. This also means that there needs to be placement of the book in bookstores. Yes, there are always exceptions to this rule, we saw that recently with the success of The Shack, but if someone is promising you bestseller status, take your marketing dollars and run.

5) If I get into Amazon does that mean my distribution is handled? No, Amazon is not a distributor, they are an online portal. Distribution means that there is a distributor actively involved in selling your book into bookstores. While it’s great to be listed on all the online sites, having this as your only access point could hamper your book’s success. If at all possible, get someone to distribute your title. Distribution can be tricky but it’s often the one missing piece to a book’s success.

6) How can I prevent my review copies from being sold? Unfortunately you can’t, nor should you waste your time and energy on trying to get them back. Review copies are sold, it happens all the time and spending your time chasing used copies isn’t a good use of your promotional efforts.

7) When I schedule a book signing the store will do all the promotion, right? Wrong. The bookstore may do some of the promotion, but not all of it. You will handle the lion’s share of promotion for your event - this includes but is not limited to: notifying the media, printing up flyers and taking them to the store (if they’ll let you provide bag stuffers to notify patrons prior to the event), getting a calendar listing in your local paper(s), getting posters done with your book cover on them, printing up and inviting every single one of your local contacts.

8 ) Will major media outlets review my book? Possibly, it depends. There’s a lot of competition out there for review space, and review space is shrinking. While aspiring to a review in the New York Times is nice, it’s important to be realistic. If your book is print-on-demand, major media may be less inclined to review it. Instead, take a look at trade or local (regional) media. And if your regional media says they won’t review your book, try getting them to do a story on you.

9) Your book will be judged by its cover: This means unless your grandson is Rembrandt he or she may not contribute her finger paintings to your cover design. Period. End of story. There is a rare exception to this but it’s important to note that it’s rare. Having a professional cover is like trying to decide whether to use hot pink paper for your resume or stock white. Unless the job you’re applying for welcomes a wildly creative bent, it’s likely that an off-beat approach to your resume will turn off any future employer. Your book is the same way. Your book is your resume, your book cover is your cover letter. If you want to get them to read on you’d better be careful about the first thing you put in front of them. Don’t take chances with your cover. Do your research, know what sells and what doesn’t, and know what will get your reader to pick up the book and what won’t.

10) All of my friends will buy my book! Your friends may not buy your book; the truth is, strangers tend to buy books faster than friends do so don’t be discouraged if your pals aren’t snapping up your book.

11) How many copies should I plan to give away to promote my book? As many as it takes. Don’t give copies to family and friends. I know this might sound mean but fair is fair, the only people who get a free copy are Mom and Dad. Friends and family need to pony up the money and buy their own copies. The rest (promotional copies) you’ll buy and give away like candy.

12) How long will it take for me to be successful? I don’t know, no one does. I wish I had the answer to that question. We’ve worked with authors who are rising successes after six months, and others who are still plugging away two and three years after their book came out. The key is to have passion for what you’re doing. Passion and commitment will keep you going through the good times and the dark days which will most certainly happen. Passion and commitment will remind you why you’re in this and why you need to stay dedicated to your work. If you’re not passionately committed to what you’re doing, how do you expect anyone else to be?

To subscribe to the newsletter “Book Marketing Experts” email the following address: subscribe@amarketingexpert.com
The visit the Book Marketing Experts Website: http://www.amarketingexpert.com

As I sit here in my living room with my laptop writing emails, browsing the web, blogging, or reading a book, I enjoy having one of our classical local radio stations playing in the background. I love almost all types of music, but classical music is peaceful, and not distracting. If I’m busy working around the house, or making dinner, then I go for something a lot more lively, like classic rock (being the baby boomer that I am), or contemporary Christian music.

I am familiar with, but do not have, satellite radio, but have just learned that you can get clear, high quality sound from a DIGITAL version of AM and FM Radio. You can enjoy this type of quality by upgrading to a Jensen JiMS 525i, which also has a docking station for your iPod.

But there is something about this radio that is REALLY unique….lets say a song comes on that you love, and your to busy to take time to write the song down, with a push of a button through song tagging, you can save the song title and information to refer back to should you want to find the music to purchase at a later date. I know my husband would like something like that, he’s always saying “why don’t they tell me who sang that”, or “if only I could write that down right now” when it could be as easy as pushing a button to store the information. So now that I’m discovering this after Christmas, I’m going to put it down on my calendar as something to remember to look into for his birthday.

Do you need a nice little printable eBook of traditional Christmas Carols so that your family can do a sing-along on Christmas Day, or to use at a gathering, or for some Christmas Caroling?

I have a pretty little eBook with lyrics to many of the well-known Christmas Carols for you, and it’s free! You can print 1, 10, 100 copies, as many as you like, or you can attach the eBook once you have saved it to your computer to an email, and send it along to a friend or friends.

Please click here to “open” the eBook in pdf form.  Once it is opened, you can “save” it on your computer.  You may also be able to “right click” on the link and save it.

Most computers have Adobe readers, which are required to read pdf files.  If yours does not, you can download one here, and there is a free version.

If you have any trouble getting the file to open so that you can save it, please click here and send me an email, I will reply with the ebook attached to my response.