Month: August 2014

Personally Yours: Personalizing Your Inscriptions

Image by Melissa Bowersock
Image by Melissa Bowersock

Ever been to a book-signing or book festival where you’ve had to sign and personalize books over and over? Ever run out of ways to do that? Yeah, it’s tough, huh? (Don’t we all wish?)

Truly, though, how much thought do you give your dedications? Some readers may request specific things, but most are just happy to have their name and yours, maybe a sentence or two. Or some might say, “Be creative.” You know, that thing we can turn on at the drop of a hat?

I do try to be creative, but it’s not something I leave to the last minute as I’m sitting with the pen poised. I really have put some advance thought into it. What I try to do is make the sentiment of the signing match the story of the book. I’ll give you some examples. Continue reading “Personally Yours: Personalizing Your Inscriptions”

Candy from Strangers

John KennyGuest post
by John Kenny

At the end of May, I found myself in an extraordinarily long security line at the Ottawa airport. I don’t have a lot of patience for that. As an emergency responder and HazMat tech I know that airport security is towards the bottom of the list of risks we all face every day, most of which we take for granted – like driving. As many people die on North American highways every month, as died in 9-ll. Every propane truck rolling through our towns and cities is a bomb on wheels and all you need is shoulder mounted rocket launcher. And no one gives that a second thought, but I digress… Continue reading “Candy from Strangers”

Keep Writing, Keep Improving

iStock_000009700656XSmallLike a number of my author friends, I took a good long inventory of my publications when Kindle Unlimited went live. There are, and probably will be, so many variables to the success of this program, and I’m leaving those for the other minions to write about. In fact, Lynne Cantwell wrote a really good article about KU recently. But I needed to make some calls about my own participation. Did I want to move any stories back into KDP Select? Move any out? Write a couple new ones for the program? A tough call, because recently I’d spent some time and energy prepping three titles for Smashwords and their online distributors. Continue reading “Keep Writing, Keep Improving”

Get More Eyes On Your Tweets

5 Ways to get more Twitter InteractionsLast week we wrote about the Twitter Twelve—minimizing the time it takes to effectively use Twitter. This week we’ll focus on getting your Tweets noticed. Here are some simple steps you can take to get more visibility on Twitter and grow your platform.

1. Be Yourself – As with any platform, keep it real. Don’t try to be someone you’re not. You see all kinds of Tweets out there. You don’t have to mimic others. The social media world will recognize a fake faster than the lifespan of a single Tweet (which isn’t very long.)

2. Get Personal with Retweets – When we share, we tend to click the Twitter share button and hit “Tweet.” This is a time effective way to engage, however, take a moment and add a question like, “Does this happen to you?” or “What do you think?” People are more apt to engage when asked a question. Or, you can add a comment like, “Must read for writers.” Continue reading “Get More Eyes On Your Tweets”