This Saturday, April 27th, 2013, authors and book lovers are gathering from around the world to benefit a good gardening cause. I feel completely at ease sharing this information and the people involved with you because I've watched them in action on the internet for years.
The project is sponsored by Bea Kunz of Sage Hill Farms, and funds generated by book sales benefit a gardening project for students at Curry Middle School.
It is an ongoing project that encourages children through hands on experience to enjoy better foods for better health.
For a Press Release with details and contact information about this event, please visit this link--> "Top Authors Give Proceeds to Middle School Gardening Project".
To view the books being offered, you can visit this link.
To join the event, visit this "Authors Giving for Healthy Living" Facebook event page.
Kudos to Kim Mutch Emerson of Master Koda Select Publishing, LLC for her part in putting this event together.
I have wanted to share information about a series of books that I've been enjoying for a while now, but a computer crash and other events have been keeping me from getting here as quickly as I'd like.
I have a little time on my husbands computer, and want to quickly invite you to take a look at a couple of titles. Each is a collection of true stories shared by women who have gone through challenging experiences, and how they have managed to work their way through these experiences.
Though none of us want to have negative experiences in life, we will face them, and how we respond to them will shape us positively or negatively. Take a look at how other women have managed...please click through and read the reviews for these books, they alone are an encouragement.
Titles are available in traditional book form and for Kindle and other eReader devices.
Wise Woman Collection - Courage of the Soul: Inspiring Stories of Overcoming Life's Everyday Challenges
Wise Woman Collection - The No-Regrets Bucket List: Living the Life You Were Meant to Live
If you have a moment, please stop by and visit the website/blog of the author, Marion Witte.
I wish I had more time to share, but this is all I can manage right
now. Pray that I will have a solution to my computer situation soon.
Are you looking to improve your business or lifestyle skills, and do so in a concise manner? Then you will be fascinated by a site owned by the author of a best seller, "The Essentials of Negotiating Effectively", Judy Weintraub. Weintraub is also a Lawyer. Having been a Legal Secretary a number of years ago, I know how detail oriented Lawyers can be. This is a very good thing, especially when you are considering improving the above mentioned skills through resources on a website.
Lets use improving your skills as an author promoting your book as an example. I am using the skillbites.net site as a springboard for the following ideas, a site which provides short and concise lessons in the skills that you might want to build, for example:
- Business Communication - Even though you are an author, if you want to promote your own publication, you are going to have to master some business skills, including communication.
- Business Writing - You may know how to write...but are you skilled enough to write from a business perspective?
- Language Arts - These skills need to be developed by any author.
- ...and the list goes on
When visiting the site mentioned above these and many more business skill resources were available for you to review.
And what about lifestyle skills? Do you need to improve your view of yourself, how you present yourself, your confidence in yourself and more? Help is available...and the beauty is that you can learn in less time than it would take to read an entire book, or take a class. If you take time to explore this, please do let us know how you are benefited by the programs offered.
This post contains sponsored information to help authors who are promoting their own publications
Many are quite familiar with Twitter, and probably don't need much of an introduction, but just in case it's new to you, Twitter can be a great way to find people talking about just about anything you're interested in. It can also be a way for you to share your latest book or publication with others.
After you've joined Twitter, which is easy to do, search "author" in the search box, and you will see results like those at this link to search results for author.
You can search for anything, then start "following" people that seem to share the same interests as you, and reply to what they are saying using the "reply" feature. Before you know it people will be following you if you actively participate, set aside a little time each day to send out a few "tweets". It doesn't have to take a lot of your time, and is another way to promote yourself and connect with like-minded people.
Here are some more tips on how to begin with Twitter:
- 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.
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
Updated 3/4/13
Marion Elizabeth Witte takes us on a very personal journey into her past as an abused child growing up in a farmhouse in the prairies of North Dakota. Her childhood was not only cold and harsh on a physical level because of the cold winters in a home that didn't have adequate heat, plumbing and more, but cold and harsh because of the upbringing that she had to endure.
When you open the book, and see the picture of her as an innocent, beautiful, little child, and then read the story of hardship and abuse, you can't help but want to protect the little child in the picture...and any little child...so tender, so innocent, who may be in the same situation...and this is Marion's goal. Her story details her abuses, the history of abuse in the family in previous generations, and how she compensated for her needs in her adult life. But compensation is not healing. Marion shares the various places of healing that took place in her journey. It is a very detailed journey, and I imagine that writing the book must have played a role in the healing process itself.
The most wonderful thing that can come from our challenges is the opportunity to turn around and help someone else who may be facing the same thing...and this is what Marion does as an advocate for abused children.
You can find out more about Marion Elizabeth Witte, and her book when you visit "Little Madhouse on the Prairie
" where the book is available in paperback or for Kindle.
Read this book, and may I suggest another that I found helpful when going through some healing of my own on a spiritual level...maybe Marion will see this and add it to her journey...maybe she already has...but a wonderful book and study by Beth Moore called Breaking Free
".
I am updating this page on 3/14/13 because it was lost during the move of my blog from one server to another. Since this was first posted, many have given the book positive reviews, it has a 5 star rating on Amazon.
If you are an author promoting your book through a blog, or a person like myself who blogs on a regular basis, information on the timing of your posts will be of interest to you. I am not a morning person, but apparently, posting at about 8 AM EST can be a prime time to post, as you'll see in the information that follows.
I am not doing this myself yet, as you can see by the timing of this post, but am planning on experimenting and changing my strategy. Blog platforms usually allow you to write your posts at any time, and schedule when they will post to your blog, so there is no excuse for not getting a post done during the day or evening before, and setting it to post by 8 AM EST. Here is the information that I received by email that inspired this post...it includes a link to the site owned by the author of the post:
"When it comes to blogging, timing is everything. We often see this in the popularity of blogs based on what time they are posted. But how can you be sure you're posting at the right time? There's a rule of thumb that says post early by EST standards. Around 8 am EST is generally a good time, that tends to be peak time for surfers reading blogs. But your site may have an entirely different demographic. So why would you care about timing your blogs? Well first off, you want to be sure and maximize the traffic and pull more readers into your blog. Also, in order to maximize the viral aspect of your posts, you want to capture as much attention for them as you can. Posting them when traffic peaks on your site will always be your best bet.
"In order to start your research, I recommend getting your web site stats and reviewing when the bulk of traffic visits your site. Studies show that traffic peaks during early hours and mostly weekdays, but you might find an entirely different perspective. For the Author Marketing Experts site I found that traffic tends to increase over the weekends when weekend-warrior writers are knuckling down to finish and publish their books.
Also, if you're looking to capture some noontime traffic, I've read a few blogs that say putting up a YouTube video just before noon when many folks go a-surfin' is a great way to pull in additional traffic.
"Timing your posts to match traffic might seem like a small thing, but the benefits to your site and the viral-ness of your message can be huge!"
This post is part of the "Red Flower Blog Hop"...it may be a bit of a stretch, but it does contain the word flower, it is somewhat romantic though in an 1800's kind of way, which many do enjoy, and it has red in the cover. Best of all, it is completely FREE!
The book is about the romance between King Henry the VIII's sister, Mary Tudor, and Charles Brandon. Brandon was not of the same class and status as the sister of a King, and this is the theme of this historical romance.
Here is a link to the FREE ebook When Knighthood Was in Flower or, the Love Story of Charles Brandon and Mary Tudor (King Henry the VIII's Sister)
. Elegantly written, and perhaps a perfect and sophisticated read for Valentines Day!
Oh yes, it is part of our "Red Flower Blog Hop"...to go to the preceding post, visit this Heart Shaped Flowers link, or hop on over to the next stop to read about how gardening brings back memories of Mom. Wishing you a pleasant Valentines Day!
There is a long list of ways that you can use Twitter for promoting your book online. Social networking has made book promotion to thousands possible. Some of, but not all, of the suggestions that follow for promoting you book on Twitter can be used on Facebook as well, but you have to know how to use these tools to your best advantage.
Over a year ago, the Book Marketing Expert Newsletter contained a list of 50 ways to use twitter to promote yourself and your book in a balanced way. The producers of the newsletter allow me to offer this list to you. Even if you are already quite familiar with using Twitter and Facebook, the 2 top social networking sites, you'll find something in this list of 50 tips to help you:
"...Most of your tweets should be about helping others, but you also need to inject some personality, to put the "social" into social networking and help people get to know you. Here are 50 ideas for tweeting or promoting:
1. Teach stuff - teach a little mini-lesson on Twitter. Delve into your area of expertise or just talk about book publishing and how to get published.
2. Share sites or blogs that your followers would be interested in. Be their "filter" to new and exciting information.
3. Use SocialOomph.com to schedule tweets to your account for later posting so you don't have to be sitting on top of Twitter every minute of the day.
4. Use Twitter as a news source: you can easily announce news both from your world (as long as it relates to your topic) and from the world of your expertise. For example, I've done tweets on book industry stuff, breaking news, etc.
5. Widen your network - follow other Twitter folk, this will not only give you some ideas for your own "tweets" but it's a great way to network with other writers or professionals.
6. Offer advice: use Tweetdeck.com or Twitter Search (search.twitter.com) to see who's asking for info on your area of expertise and then offer them some help/insight. This is a great way to build relationships.
7. It's ok to market yourself but be careful about pimping your stuff too much.
8. Be original, useful and helpful.
9. If you're on tour with your book or doing an event, tweet on that and invite your local followers to attend.
10. Tweet any good reviews your book gets, it's always fun to share the good stuff!
11. Every Tweet counts (don't tell people you're washing your cat); don't just tweet on useless stuff or you'll lose followers.
12. It's not all about you (again, back to the cat) people want to know useful stuff, I know, it's getting repetitive but there's a reason: it's important.
13. Promote your Twitter account in your email signature line and on your blog.
14. Network: don't expect your followers to grow if you're not following other people. Network, search for others in your area and follow them.
15. Personal is ok. Even though I said not to post useless information it's still not a bad idea to (from time to time) post a personal Tweet or two. Provide value and twitter-followers will beat a path to your door.
16. Follow everyone who follows you. You can use sites like Socialtoo.com and SocialOomph to autofollow everyone who follows you. These services can also send a nice welcome message to your new followers.
17. There is a lot of noise on Twitter, and the sooner you get comfortable with that the better. It's like being at one massive cocktail party; you have to find ways to filter out the noise. Sites like SocialOomph can help you do that.
18. Embed a link or some other sign-up in your welcome message; this is another great way to capture emails for your newsletter (assuming you have one).
19. Use sites like SocialOomph or Twitter Search to see who's talking about you and then follow them, too, or comment on their tweet.
20. It's ok to repeat your tweets. With the volume of messages people get your followers will often miss some of your posts.
21. Feed your blog through Twitter using Twitterfeed.com.
22. Join Help a Reporter Out: @petershankman for tweets on media leads (it's a great service!).
23. Don't feel like you have to respond to every tweet, but I generally try to respond to all tweets that are replies to mine (you can find these under @replies on your Twitter home page).
24. Want to stay on top of your market and find stuff to Tweet about? Then go to Alltop.com and search for your category. There are thousands of them up there. Here are a few to consider: socialmedia.alltop.com, twitter.alltop.com and publishing.alltop.com.
25. Review a product or book on Twitter.
26. Follow big names in your market on Twitter: this will often bring in their followers too, and you want to see what the "big guys" are up to.
27. Get a good picture: don't leave your avatar blank. Personalize your page if you can, but a good Twitter picture is a must.
28. Tweetbeep.com is a lot like Google alerts. You can plug in your keywords and you're pinged each time they are used.
29. Are you ready to add pictures to your Tweets? Then head on over to Twitpic.com, this site will let you upload pictures and tweet to them.
30. Use YouTube to share helpful videos you think your followers will love.
31. Music on Twitter is also possible thanks to TwittyTunes (http://www.foxytunes.com/twittytunes/). This site is great for sharing music and it has a simple Firefox add-on that lets you Twitter on music you're currently listening to!
32. Invite people to subscribe to your ezine and offer an incentive.
33. Introduce other authors or experts to each other or to your Twitter followers (they should also be on Twitter).
34. Participate in Follow Fridays #FF and Writer Wednesdays #WW. Recommend your favorite tweeters by using the #followfriday or #FF hashtag along with their user names.
35. Link to your own articles and blog posts. Shorten the URL using bit.ly so you can track the number of clicks you get.
36. Link to great videos.
37. Ask for advice or ask questions that encourage responses.
38. Comment on someone's interesting Twitter background or clever bio.
39. Offer a free downloadable ebook or sample chapter, with no strings attached.
40. Thank others for mentioning you on Twitter.
41. Link to an interesting Wikipedia entry on your topic or specialty.
42. Link to a transcript from an interesting Twitter chat.
43. Post an inspirational quote or message.
44. Link to other blogs, helpful articles.
45. Reply to someone else's Twitter post.
46. Run a contest.
47. Promote a special offer exclusively to your Twitter tribe.
48. Retweet (RT) someone else's posts, it's a great way to network!
49. Thank someone for RTing your post; it's always great to acknowledge someone for doing that!
50. Talk about the latest trends in your industry.
(Reprinted from "The Book Marketing Expert newsletter," a free ezine offering book promotion and publicity tips and techniques. http://www.amarketingexpert.com)
Isn't that an excellent list of tips for promoting on Twitter? I found some new things that I should be doing more often on my Twitter account. If you aren't following me, click here to follow me on Twitter.
