New Blog, New Link, Same Person...

Hey guys!
I know, it's been a loooong time! I have been working like crazy, both at work and on a new project.

Matter of fact, that is what this post is about.

First, been working, moving, helping my kids and grandkids out and just in general, busy.

Second, I'm working on a new project called Legacy Scribes Collaborative, and that has kept me extra busy!

Third, I'm moving my blog from here, over to our Legacy blog, here. I find it difficult to maintain two blogs. I've tried before and failed, even with the scheduling features. I focus better when there is one, so please, drop by and follow me there!

Legacy also has a website up now, which has a blog page, but I've decided to use the scheduling feature of Blogger and then update the website blog for those who don't use Blogger.

We're about to have another book signing event and all of those details are on the website, here.

I've also linked to Insecure Writer's Support Group and hope to get back into participating in that, because it's a resource I think all writer's should utilize! I love IWSG and have missed so much, I have to get caught up again.

I hope you all have a wonderful holiday coming up, for those that celebrate, and I hope to see you on my new page!

This Is Halloween...

Okay, it's not Halloween yet, BUT it is the month of Halloween.

Hey, if Christmas gets to take over Thanksgiving, Halloween gets its own month!

I'm going to be posting on Twitter the rest of this month until Halloween with three different flash fiction stories from David Rex Bonnewell (@WickedlyWritten), John H Howard (@JHHoward) and Midge Cline (@ClineMidge).

I have a flash fiction piece up as well, but it was something I wrote a few years ago on Writing Dot Com for a contest. So it may be familiar to you. But I am also taking pictures and artwork that I feel relates to The BREED, and writing flash fiction for that as well.

If you'd like to follow me on Twitter, I'm @MLChesley and I am currently posting on the Midian Entertainment @MidianEntertain. I'm still kind of geeking out about all of this. It's amazing to have a great group of people all working together, writing, and creating this world.

I hope you all drop by and see what's going on and get to know us if it is your kind of thing. If not, pass it on to people you know who might like it.

Have a great rest of your week!

Cover Reveal: Shadow Blades by Midge Cline...

Hey gang!

I have yet another cover reveal for another book coming out from Midian Entertainment as part of The BREED.

Before I get into the cover reveal, though, I want to let you all know that starting today, there will be some flash fiction tweets on Twitter. John H. Howard, Midge Cline and David Rex Bonnewell have all written some short pieces to be sent over the Twitter feed from today until Halloween!

If you'd like to follow the stories, follow @MidianEntertain on Twitter!

I will also be posting pictures that I feel represent The BREED with bits of flash fiction as well, so you can begin to get to know the world. I'm so very excited we can start telling people about what's happening!

Okay, so on to the cover reveal!

This is Shadow Blades, by Midge Cline, cover art by Noie.

Tada!

All right, hope you all have a great rest of your week and I will see you soon!

Using Twitter To Your Advantage...

Even though I've been "radio-silent", I'm still reading stuff out there that is writing related. The one thing I keep seeing is using Twitter. Lots of people want to use it to help promote their writing and they should! I've blogged about this before, but I offered up a lot of info and might have overwhelmed people. I'm going to attempt to break it down even further. But this post might run long, so bear with me.

Just to be clear, Twitter isn't about who you are following, or about who is following you. That is important, because people following you will see all your Tweets. But those who are NOT following, can see them as well. How? Well, read on!

The very first thing you have to do is compose your Tweet.

Composing: You are only allowed a maximum of 140 characters. Not words. Characters. This is each letter, space and punctuation! If you are just starting to use Twitter, you're probably thinking, "How the hell can I communicate about my book with so few characters????".

The answer is: Creativity!! Trust me. It'll be fine. "But I don't want to sound like a caveman, either.". 

Well, you won't.

Here's my Tweet Trick: I write out what I want. Then I figure out a way to shorten it and then figure out which words should have a Hashtag. Then I add my book link. So, for example, I wrote out this Tweet:

Readers and Fantasy fans are like Cheetos and Mt. Dew while playing Dungeons and Dragons. You don't ever want to be without them.

Okay, now first of all, that is close to 140 characters. Left me with 11 characters to spare. Seriously, it will get irritating, but it will also get easier. But at the end of that Tweet, is my book link. Which was too long and made Twitter spaz out. So, I played around with the Hashtags to see if I could shorten it somehow.

First of all, you can search just about any Hashtag. Up in the upper right corner of Twitter, you'll see a SEARCH box. Your Tweet you are composing, it won't go anywhere, so go ahead, type in a search for a Hashtag word and then click on HOME to get back to what you were doing. I typed in #Dungeons and Dragons and discovered it was there, but without spaces. So it ended up looking like this:

#DungeonsandDragons

Which got rid of two characters and shortened my post by two. Now I have 13 to spare! Woohoo! But I still had to add in my book link. Well, I shortened that, too. How? Go to Bitly.com. You can shorten just about any link there to work with Twitter.

Now, after you have composed your Tweet, checked for Hashtags, shortened your book link and Twitter says, "Okay! You can Tweet this, now!", your Tweet should look like this:

#Readers and #Fantasy fans are like Cheetos and Mt. Dew while playing #DungeonsandDragons, you don't ever want to be without them. http://amzn.to/1dwb0ef

 

Hashtags: Hashtags (These little guys: #) are very useful when you are about to use Twitter. Just about everything you can think of has a # (hashtag). Hashtags allow you to reach a LOT of people . Especially Trending hashtags, but I'll get to those in a second. Like I said before, searching for a hashtag is easy. Type it in the search box and see what happens. If you don't see a lot of other Tweets with your hashtag of choice, don't use it. You want ones that seem to have a lot of posts. People use these hashtags in different context, but that doesn't mean they won't see it. And these people don't have to follow you, or you them, to see it. Anyone else searching for that specific hashtag can see your post.

In my Tweet, I've got three. So I've reached "Readers", "Fantasy" and "DungeonsandDragons" people. What's even cooler? I've had people I don't follow, or who don't follow me, "favorite" my Tweet (which is similar to "Liking" on Facebook) and I got the notification. If they like your Tweet, they can "ReTweet" what you've Tweeted. Which reaches people who follow them. So by adding in hashtags, you're reaching thousands more than just your followers.

Trending Hashtags: Now, Trending Hashtags are even more awesome than just a regular hashtag. To the left of your scrolling main screen of Twitter, you have "Trends". Most of these will have a hashtag, some will not. But if you are clever, and you are, because you are a writer, you can work these into your Tweets.

Right at this moment, I have a trend of "#FiveWordsToRuinADate". If I really wanted to, I could Tweet something like this:

"I'm fluent in Tolkien's Elvish might be #FiveWordsToRuinADate, but let your geek show anyway! #Read #fantasy! (booklink)"

And I did. Ha!

This is the basics of Tweeting on Twitter. If you don't want to go through all that hassle all of the time, I do recommend making a list of your best posts and keeping them handy in a Word document. Something you can just open up and copy and paste from. The Trending Hashtags will always change, so you'll have to keep making up new ones, but that shouldn't be too much of a problem. You don't have to use the trending ones, but I highly suggest it, to reach more people.
 
So, now you know how to compose the Tweet, shorten the links, add hashtags and all that good fun stuff. Go forth and Tweet! Let me know how it works out for you. Also, let me know if this has helped you at all. I'd appreciate your feedback in the comments.

Got any advice? Any Tweet Tips? Leave a comment!

Tips & Tricks...

I've been looking into ways people promote their books these days. I'm gearing up and making notes for myself when the time comes. There are lots of good ideas out there.

Some of the things I notice, though, are lots of authors don't really know or understand how to use Twitter. I never really got into Twitter until recently and I find it fun. I'm learning as I go all the time.

For instance, I'm learning a bit of the lingo. Things like #FF, SO, #Amwriting and the like.

#FF = Follow Friday. This is where you list people you follow and feel like mentioning to help them get followers. I've been mentioned dozens of times and I'm close to reaching the 1,000 followers mark.

SO = Shout Out. I do this when I go under Connections to see who my new followers are. If I am already following them or choose to follow them at that point, I tweet a couple of shout out's to them, listing their user name. It helps a lot, especially when trying to build a follower base.

#Amwriting = just that. You're telling people you are currently writing. Share your word count. With the hashtag there, you're connecting with other people in this thread and more than just your followers can see this. There is also #amreading, #Amediting and similar things.

I've got lots of publishers, reviewers, editors and authors in my list of people who follow me and I follow back. I am just now finding people to follow who play Lord of the Rings Online. Even World of Warcraft. I've been trying to tweet every blog post I read, but sometimes forget. But I am trying to make it part of my routine. Oh, and if you don't know what a hashtag means on Twitter, Google it! I have found lists of definitions.

Other promotions I've seen are banners and book trailers. Two things I am currently gearing up to do. I have a couple of book trailers I've done for people (for free) simply because I'm learning and trying to get a feel of just how much to charge. Sorry, I don't have special equipment to make super spectacular, mini movie book trailers and so I feel $450 is just far too much. Yes, I know about the licensing needed, but again, I'm learning a LOT about this and still think that's too much money for some of the trailers I have watched. Seriously.

I also hear about bookmarks and postcards. I wonder, is this really something that is still a good promotional tool? Bookmarks, maybe. Postcards? Dunno. I would think, not so much. But I am going to do bookmarks and I already have my new author trading card from Word Weavers.

My Word Weavers Author Trading Card

At this stage, finding reviewers for my book is definitely not a problem. But what if you don't know reviewers? There are reviewers everywhere. There are review groups everywhere as well. If you are a reviewer, list where you are willing to post the reviews. When I review a book, I post it everywhere the author needs or wants me to post. The more exposure the better.

So what do you do? What do you think of Twitter? Do you do something out of the ordinary to promote your books?

Trying To Get On A Schedule...

Wow.

Since I've quit the paper route, things have been a bit hectic and I've been a bit more focused. However, not always on the things I need to focus on!

I've got to make a schedule for myself or I won't get anything done.

Here's what I've been doing:

~ Blogging, of course and reading blogs as well as trying to keep up with the comments.

~ Tweeting. I am trying to spend time on Twitter to keep up the decent presence I've worked hard to get. While this isn't exactly time consuming, I do have to do something daily or it gets overwhelming just like everything else.

~ Facebook. Well, this isn't really a big deal. I get on there, read my notifications, respond where I need to and all that. What tends to suck me in are those stupid games. So I have kept the browser open on that page specifically to keep up with responses to my posts and others.

~ Word Weavers. Even when my friend Jenna and I were working the networking of Word Weavers on MySpace, I don't think we were EVER this busy. We have the blog, the website and the group page on Facebook. We also have Twitter for WW as well. I don't get on there all that much, but it is shared time with Jenna. We have several people willing to volunteer some time, but it can be inconsistent. Plus, we're still trying to figure out where to put them.

~ Not only do I have all that going on, but I am gearing up to do some work from home. I'm getting ready to do critiques, proofreading and soon, editing. I'm learning from some very good teachers on how to edit. But I am also doing book trailers. Once I am able to provide samples of my work, I'll have a 'Services' section on my blog. Once I get up enough money to purchase PhotoShop, I'll most definitely be putting my art degree to good use and start doing book covers.

This all takes time. And it takes time away from my writing. Besides all of this, I'm still doing book reviews. Which, I love to read, so those aren't a big deal. I read every night before I go to bed and if I am lucky, I get a book done in a couple of days. Depending on the book. Some of them are so good I want to linger.

And on top of all of this, my daughter just informed me I'm going to be a Grandma. Phew!!!!

So now you see the need for a schedule. Lol! I've got my work cut out for me. Wish me luck!

How do you schedule your week? Do you work outside the home as well?

Marketing Medias...

So I've been on Twitter a lot more lately. I have to admit, while I was a little skeptical about it, it's become pretty fun.

I've actually been "re-tweeted" twice now. Just silly random things. But it was an odd feeling. You mean to tell me that something I said was funny enough or "cool" enough to be re-tweeted.

Nice.

I've been utilizing it much more, following more people and more are now following me. I even have a few new blog followers. Welcome! Especially if you came over from Twitter.

Facebook is another cool social media to use, but like everything else it takes a lot of work. I find I spend quite a bit of time tweeting and updating my status to keep things going on the web.

My blog gets lots of traffic, so does my FaceBook and now my twitter as well. What's next? My website. Hehe! It might be a free site at the moment, but someday I will be a Dot Com. Woot!

Okay so I extended the Giveaway for Elf Killers to Monday August 29, 2011. Details are simple. Leave a comment on the review if you want to be entered into the drawing for a copy of the eBook. I'll post the winners like that following Tuesday. Spread the word!