Many movies that we view were inspired by books, and I am sure for an author, having a book become a movie is one of the greatest compliments you can receive.  I think of such titles as “The Chronicles of Narnia” series, “The Lord of the Rings” series (oh that the writers of those series could be alive to see what has become of their titles!), “The DiVinci Code”, “Twilight”, the list is endless.  Writers are involved in the process whether the movie is taken from a book or not, so movies very much fit in with the theme of this blog.

Memorial Day weekend is upon us, and one of my traditional things I do is to view a movie that is in some way related to our military and veterans and their service to our country.  It may be a documentary, or a movie such as “Saving Private Ryan”, or some of the old classic World War II films.  Anything to remind myself of the sacrifice that was made for our wonderful country, the United States of America.

On a lighter side, it is also the start of the summer season.  If the weather is good, time is spent outside, if not so good and when the sun goes down, people may spend time going to theaters to take in the latest movie.  We haven’t seen the new “Star Trek” movie yet, and hear it’s great, but are still trying to decide whether to see it on the big screen, or wait to rent the movie.  Usually we wait, unless the movie is enhanced by seeing it on the big screen for the first time, and if it is great, we always rent it to see again later.

BLOCKBUSTER offers the ability to rent from home, and while there are other services that do the same, I’m definitely going to sign up for the free trial Blockbuster is offering….it’s so inexpensive to rent movies through them, and have them delivered to your mailbox, that I’m sure we’ll go beyond the free trial. The fact that they also allow you to return your movies to a local Blockbuster store which saves some time in waiting for the delivery of your next movie is also unique to similar services.

Actually, soon after I finish this post, I’m headed over to this BLOCKBUSTER link to sign up…we have a lot of movies to catch up on!

Have a wonderful Memorial Day weekend…don’t forget to pray for and remember our men in the military, and thank God for those who have sacrificed so much to keep us safe.

I love Google Alerts and have been using this tool for a number of purposes. For those of you who don’t know, with Google Alerts, you enter a word or phrase, whether you want to track information from every source (”comprehensive”) or just blogs, news sites, video sites, etc., and you choose how often you would like to receive alerts by email, providing an email address.

I have many alerts set up, an alert for each of my blogs, for example, the phrase “ebook & book reviews and news”, and each day I receive an email showing any site on the web that happens to mention my blog. I also set up alerts for things that interest me, or for ideas to help me when I have a bit of “writer’s block” when it comes to what to post about on my blogs, or my website.  I don’t copy other’s information at all, but sometimes just reading what others have written will inspire a thought of my own.

How do I manage my many alerts?  Since I can’t read each of them every day, and they fill up my inbox quickly, I’ve set of folders for them and filters so that they sort into the folders rather than my main inbox.  All email programs have some type of sorting feature so that you can do this.

As an author, you may want to see who is talking about your book, article or a post you have done; you may want to track a your own name, you may want to track phrases from your book that you would not want to be plagiarized, you may want to track words that are important to your genre of writing to help you with ideas as you are writing a book, the possibilities are endless.

I do appreciate this helpful tool offered by Google and think that you will too.

Other Posts about Book Promotion:

Using Twitter to Promote Your Book

Using Craigslist to Promote Your Book or Event

Doing Virtual Book Tours or Author Tours

Publishing Tips and Myths

Many are concerned about hackers breaking into their computer systems, causing damage in any number of ways, stealing valuable information, and doing all sorts of unusual things. I have a story of something that happened to my daughter when she was using our computer quite a few years ago.  She was always chatting online, and had a guy come on and tell her that he could hack into our computer, which it seems he proceeded to do…somehow he was able to make the “drawer” that opens when you play a CD open and close, and other bizarre things as we all sat and watched (we kept the computer in the main part of the house when our children were growing up and using it).  It was quite an eye-opening and frightening occurrence.  Things are more secure now than they were then, but not completely secure.

I’ve been introduced to a site that presents the concept of Ethical Hacking. At first this seemed a little far-fetched to me. It’s introduces a training program that teaches how hackers do their work, so in a sense you are learning how to hack so that you can prevent hackers from harming your computer, you are getting into the mind of the hacker.  Then you will be able to help others to prevent the problem in their businesses or homes.

IT Security is extremely important to all of us, if you are curious, visit the sponsor of this post through any of the links. Learn about the study program, and how they do their best to make sure that those they instruct aren’t going to take the information and use it in a harmful way, but for your benefit.

I love Twitter, in fact I love it so much that it’s one of those things that I have to make sure to keep in balance with the other things that have to be done to bring income into our home.

If you are not using it to make contact with people, you may want to give it a try as soon as possible, and if you are using it, I’d love to see how it is helping you in a comment.

It’s hard to imagine that there are some who may not know what Twitter is, but I’m sure there are, so here’s how to begin:

• Go to http://twitter.com and sign up for an account, use a username that fits with your “brand”.  For an author, it may be your name, or it may be the title of your latest book.
• Be sure, if possible, to use a picture of yourself, I like to see pictures of people, or their pets, or people with their pets, but that’s just a personal preference.  Your latest book cover may be another idea for a picture.
• Rather than my going on here, may I invite you to visit this link to a couple of posts I did on another blog about using Twitter with some tips.

After you get used to Twitter on the web, you may want to download an easy-to-use-and-install software called TweetDeck to manage your tweets…but first get used to what Twitter is all about, then TweetDeck will be a welcome tool, it really opened up Twitter to me in a new way, as you can see your tweets, replies, etc., in columns all at once…you’ll see what I mean when you get to that point in the journey.

To visit my Twitter page, visit http://twitter.com/happynutrition

Every author should have a website, a place where people can get to know you, the author, the person behind the book.  This can also be a place where you might want to introduce a chapter or two of your book, so people can get a taste.

You may prefer to do a blog, so that you can update it regularly with your events, and what is happening in the process of writing and publishing your book.  To do this, obviously you need a good web hosting service. Most of you may know that this is what they call services that you pay to host your website or blog…many services allow you to host a few different sites or blogs for one monthly or yearly fee. You have to determine which service will provide you with the best value, and the best service for what you are paying.

Since your book or publication is yours alone, and you don’t want people plagiarizing your information, you’re going to want to learn how to keep you site secure, there is some information provided that will help you at this link, and other good articles at the blog the link will lead you to devoted to helping people learn more about building websites.

This isn’t a book, but it’s a report that is valuable for the protection of you and your family.  Because there is a chance that a sex offender will act again after being released from prison, or after they have done whatever it is required for them for their offense, this is an important tool for everyone to have.  The news headlines are enough to prove that this is true.  To find out more visit this sex offender search site now.