Whether you are promoting a book or a business, a blog is a great way to do it…a companion to your website.  The main reason for this is because you are regularly posting new information…while there is a tendency to let a website stay as it is for extended periods of time.  This isn’t bad if the website has gained some recognition as one of mine has…but this takes regularly updating the website itself.  With a blog, you are inclined toward doing that naturally because you should be posting to the blog on a regular basis.  Using proper SEO (search engine optimization) and keywords will bring people to your blog, and will help it appear in the search engines.  The constant adding of information signals the world wide web that action is happening on your blog, and leads to more visits (I’m not technical enough to know the terms for all of this).

A good sample of a blog that is active and promotional is web hosting news, a place where you may even learn a little bit more about what I’ve been trying to explain in not-so-technical terms.

Personally, I have this and several other blogs, some use free hosting services, others are on a paid hosting service, and all have domain names that I pay for. So do blog about your books and writing experiences.

Somewhere along the line I’ve been informed that this is “get caught reading” month…what would you get caught reading if someone showed up unexpectedly?  I must admit that I’m more likely to be caught reading on my laptop, or writing, but have always loved books.

In fact, a small group of us is planning to gather over the summer to read a book and talk about it…sounds like it will be and enjoyable experience, and the book I’ll be reading this summer.

How about you?  Do you have summer reading plans?  Summer reading isn’t just for children who are in school, it’s something we can enjoy along with your children.  So do get caught reading!

Sometimes we get so caught up in sending emails to promote our business or book, that we forget the personal touch that can be held and felt in the form of a greeting card.  When was the last time you sent something with a personal touch by mail to sell your book or publication?

An idea that seems to make sense to me is to find a service that will allow you to put, if appropriate, the cover picture of your book on the card, and write your greeting inside.  Some will do the mailing for you, others allow you do set up the card just the way you like it online, whether they be a christmas cards online service or similar, then have the cards sent to you so you can personalize them with your own signature and a brief note if time allows.  This is something tangible that a person can enjoy…not done in the hasty less personal way of a mass emailing.  Oh, I’m not saying you shouldn’t send an email too, maybe a follow-up, but don’t forget the power of the personal touch…and be sincere.

Do you understand what the home buyer tax credit is all about? I can’t say that I have a book for you, or an eBook, but the link above leads to a learning center about the program, and below I’ll provide a video for you to listen to.

This opportunity to receive an $8000 tax credit if you purchase a home for the first time may be running out at the end of this month, if the dates given don’t change…which doesn’t appear likely. This is a benefit to sellers who are anxious to make a sale because more buyers are interested in buying when they will receive a rebate, and it is obviously beneficial to buyers because they receive a credit of $8000.

My daughter and son-in-law are a prime examples of the benefit of this program. They purchased their home before the extension of the tax credit was given, and they were able to borrow money to help with their down payment that they will repay when they receive their $8000 credit.

You will also learn that if you have lived in your home for 5 consecutive years you can qualify for a $6,500 credit on the purchase of a new home.

In each case, whether a first time buyer, or selling and buying, your contract has to be in place by the end of April, closing must take place by June 30th.

Please visit the educational link above, and listen to the following video closely for information I may have missed.

A nice resource for poetry books is Google Books, a resource that offers books or parts of books in many categories for you to read online.

In keeping with National Poetry Month, here is a link to some poetry offerings on google books.   When you arrive, you’ll notice a long list of book categories along the left margin, and ways to search for a title you may be interested in.

If you are my age, or have any type of vision problem, aside from listening to audio books, the only way you can read is with a good pair of eyeglasses. Our vision is gift and a miracle when you really think about it, and something that we take for granted until it begins to fade, or worse, we for some reason loose our sight. I like to look at every ability that the body has that way, something special, something extra-ordinary…something that not everyone has, but we do, and we should be thankful for each ability we have.

My husband has purchased eyeglasses online, he did so with little knowledge about what he was doing, just me telling him that I had found this really inexpensive site to shop online called Zenni Optical. Like so many, we have less money coming in than we used to, and need to save wherever we can, and this is one way to do it. I wish we had read some helpful posts like the one written at RefundCents. It shares how to go about getting a prescription then buying online. The only thing it doesn’t mention that you should know is, if you get bifocals, make sure that you have all the necessary measurements…there is information about that at the eyeglass site.

I could not read this computer screen I’m looking at right now, or a book, or see very well for that matter, if it weren’t for my glasses…and to be able to get them for as little as about $9 in some cases is amazing!

This post contains both personal and sponsored information. See my site-wide disclosure.

This month is National Poetry Month. If you were to play “what’s the first thing that comes to mind when you hear….” and fill the blank with “poetry”, the poem I heard when attending school as a child would come to mind immediately, it always does. It’s not the first poem that I heard, it just means more because of the context.

The poem is “Trees” and the poet was Joyce Kilmer.  Do you know that it is only in recent years that I discoveed that Joyce was not a woman?  I’m a bit embarrassed to admit that.  I went to a private school from 2nd through 8th grade. First we met in a church, then they purchased some of the barracks at Camp Kilmer in central New Jersey, and moved the school there. This former army base was named after Joyce Kilmer, which is why the poem had special meaning when first hearing it at that school and being told a bit about the history of the area.

There are many resources for the school teachers online, whether you teach at home or in the classroom, to use when preparing for this month.  Some of them that I enjoyed are at the following links:

• Read Write Think 
• Eduplace
• Family Education
• A to Z Teacher’s Stuff
• poetry.about.com
• scholastic.com

There are many more, feel free to use the search box and search “National Poetry Month”.

This is a Sponsored Post written by me on behalf of Charter. All opinions are 100% mine.

The next best thing to reading a great adventure, or romance, or a historical novel, or just about any story in book or eBook form is watching a good movie. A movie sometimes leaves out the details that you find in a good book, but it’s great entertainment most of the time…and for those who don’t have time to read a good book, or for whatever reason can’t read, it’s a way for them to enjoy a story that they might miss out on otherwise, whether it be for fun or educational.

Charter is a service that offers you entertainment like this in digital form, and when you want it…”on demand”.  Access to the service is free. There are thousands of movies, and even television shows to watch. Let’s say that you are a big fan of the show “The Office”, if you miss an episode, you can watch it the day after the show has aired on television, and the best part is that it’s free.

And if you are like us, and prefer to wait until a movie comes out on DVD, you can access movies when they come out from the comfort of your home without driving to the store to rent it, or waiting for it to arrive by mail. Yes, we do live in an “instant society”, don’t we? It seems like we can’t wait for anything, but sometimes this isn’t such a bad thing, and this could be one of those times depending upon what you are choosing to watch.

Parents, you can select programs that you think are appropriate for you children, so they aren’t just watching whatever happens to be on the television at the moment. Here’s an idea…maybe after your child has read a good book, if it’s available in movie form, you can get it through Charter, then spend some time discussing the difference between the book and the movie with your child. You can click here to learn more at charter.net/ondemand, I’m going to go back and take another look as soon as I’m finished typing this.

High Definition (HD) viewing has become almost the norm, though I admit we don’t have a HD television yet. But for those of you who do, there are hundreds of movies and shows available in HD.

Another thing I’m going to do after I’m finished typing this is get updates and fun extras on Charter’s Facebook page since I check in on Facebook a couple of times a day now.

I’ve known about Amazon’s Kindle for quite a long time, but the fact that they had a download so that you can read books on your PC screen was a recent discovery.  So I went ahead and downloaded it, and then was able to find quite a few free books to download. It is available for Window’s 7, Vista and Windows XP, is still Beta, and eventually will be available for your MAC.

Not every book is available to purchase on Kindle for PC yet, but there is enough available, even free, to enjoy.  I found the download at this link, and it’s working well on my laptop.

This is NOT a sponsored post

If you love books, you probably have a fairly large area of your home devoted to books.  If you live in a large enough home, you may even have a room devoted to reading, with shelves of books lining the room.  If you are like us, in a smaller home, you have a good-sized shelf filled with books.  Though books are relatively easy to pack because they are flat, and similar in shape, the thought of moving them can seem overwhelming…it’s easy to want to sacrifice them, but this shouldn’t be necessary.  Next thing you want to consider, especially in the present economy, is how to save money when you move.  You may want to consider truck rentals that allow you to pack your books yourself so you can give them the tender loving care they need. Usually these services save you money if you are able to do the packing, or able to get help doing the packing, into containers that can hold the contents of a room or an apartment. There are companies that will just charge you for the space you use on the truck as opposed to charging you for the use of a whole truck even if you only need a small part of the truck. Do your research, and dream about how nice it’s going to be to bring your books, which have become like old friends, along with you to your new home, where they will bring warmth and a comfort in your new location that only a lover of books can understand.

This post is a mix of personal and sponsored information.