Welcome to The Corner Cafe Blog Book Tour!

Join us for the latest wild and crazy experiment at the BBT Café, the online social group for all the writers who have taken my blog book tours classes over the past few years! This community of about 100 authors supports each other’s writing efforts through daily social media interaction, blog book tours, and by sharing information and conversation as the publishing world changes. And, boy, is it ever changing fast!

In the past few years, the opportunities for self-publishing have burgeoned, and the stigma attached is virtually non-existent. Only an Old Publishing School dinosaur would think of self-publishing as an inferior option. Programs like Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing have leveled the playing field, and more authors are jumping into the game every day.

This fertile publishing ground is what inspired The Corner Café short story collection. We noticed that authors were starting to give away samples and old titles in e-book format, and that it resulted in increased sales on their other titles. Even a free day or two tended to increase sales when the regular price of a title came back. 

Without too much forethought about what we were stumbling into, we decided to put together a collection of our very own around a common theme: The Corner Café. The object was for readers to sample various writing styles, and tempt them to link to other works by the contributing authors. We’d promote the new project via a month-long blog book tour (what else?), and track sales each day, as well as measure download bumps the five free days allowed by the KDP Select program. (Seth Godin suggests free is a good marketing strategy in publishing. Here’s his post about it.) So we’re putting it to the test. That’s the short version of how it all came about over the past four months. You can get more gory details at the various blogs listed below throughout June.

Let me tell you a little bit about the book’s content. Here’s the description on Amazon:

Sweet, dreamy, steamy, and sometimes slightly seamy, this multi-genre collection of short stories includes something for every taste. Prepared by the BBT Café authors: Marian Allen, Shonell Bacon, Karen Casey Fitzjerrell, W.S. Gager, Helen Ginger, Dani Greer, S.B. Lerner, Audrey Lintner, Morgan Mandel, Maryann Miller, Bodie Parkhurst, Bob Sanchez, Mary Montague Sikes, Red Tash, Christine Verstraete.

These are just a few of the teasers each author submitted for their respective stories:

• In The Catfish Enchantment by Marian Allen: Cosmo’s father deserted the family and died unforgiven, his mother is sinking into depression, he’s started cutting himself to relieve the pain, and his boss suggests…a tattoo?

• In The Eyes Have It by W.S. Gager: Crimebeat reporter Mitch Malone hates going to church, but when he gets rooked into speaking to the Bible-toting ladies, he may be facing the devil himself as he investigates the prayer group's missing purses.

• In The Consequences of Breaking and Entering by Audrey Lintner, Goldilocks gets an update and her comeuppance.

• In Perfect Timing by Christine Verstraete, a rescued pup helps Corner Café owner Gina Mason find love and thwart a would-be robber.

You can also read the first two chapters using Amazon’s Look Inside feature. If it sounds like something you’d like to download to your Kindle, here’s the link to buy. Only 99 cents!

Join us during the blog book tour all month as we visit these blog hosts:

June 4 Blog Book Tours Kick-off http://bit.ly/CCBBT

June 5 Bob Sanchez with Stephen Tremp http://bit.ly/CCBS1

June 6 Red Tash interviews Dani Greer http://RedTash.com

June 7 Magic Dog Press http://bit.ly/CCMagic

June 8 Heidi Thomas http://bit.ly/CCHeidi

June 11 Marian Allen http://bit.ly/CCCosplay

June 12 W.S Gager http://wsgager.blogspot.com

June 13 Chris Verstraete http://candidcanine.blogspot.com

June 14 Helen Ginger http://straightfromhel.blogspot.com

June 15 Kathy Wheeler http://kathylwheeler.wordpress.com/

June 18 Morgan Mandel Double M http://morganmandel.blogspot.com

June 19 Pat Bean http://patbean.wordpress.com

June 20 Shonell Bacon http://chicklitgurrl.blogspot.com

June 21 Alberta Ross http://albertaross.wordpress.com

June 22 Karen Casey Fitzjerrell http://karencaseyfitzjerrell.blogspot.com

June 25 Pat Stoltey http://patriciastoltey.blogspot.com

June 26 SB Lerner http://www.susanblerner.com

June 27 Maryann Miller http://its-not-all-gravy.blogspot.com/

June 28 Mary Montague Sikes http://marymontaguesikes.blogspot.com

June 29 Stephen Tremp http://breakthroughblogs.blogspot.com

We hope you join us each day to read more about how The Corner Cafe: A Tasty Collection of Short Stories evolved. For those of you out there who know little about how a blog book tour works, a great way to get an education is to follow along on a tour. You'll get lots of ideas for your own blog book tour. Join us and do leave questions and comments here!

Worrying About Time

An Excerpt from Creating Time by Marney Makridakis

Try this: Imagine who you would be if you didn’t worry about time. How might your life be different? I surveyed fifty-two people, and the results revealed that 90percent felt “somewhat anxious” to “significantly anxious” about time. What’s even more startling is that these results don’t even seem all that surprising. Anxiety about time is very much a part of most of our lives. Think back to a time when you greeted a casual acquaintance and asked how he was, and he said, “Great! Things are fantastic!” It can be almost jarring when someone responds so positively. Somehow we’re more conditioned to expect to hear people complain that they are tired, or sigh that they are busy.

It’s helpful to dig deeply to figure out what is at the root of our problems with time. Why do we overschedule ourselves? Why do we want to be so busy? Why are we so consumed with time? Why does it seem so “normal” to worry about time so much? Why is it easier to be caught up in a drama about time than it is to be released from it?

In short, what is the payoff for worrying about time?

When I examine this question myself, I can recognize that the more I complain about time, the more I block my ability to accept and express love and connection. Violette Clark shared, “I suppose not having enough time, or the illusion of believing this, makes us feel important. I also realize it keeps me safe. There have been a lot of dreams that I’ve accomplished, including publishing a book, but there have been a lot of balls that I’ve dropped, too, in the name of ‘not having enough time.’ Putting myself out there more fully means more potential for rejection. Sometimes not ‘going for my dreams’ is safer.”

Similarly, artist Peggy Lynn boldly admitted that time complaints are related to ego: “The ‘I’m too busy’ implication does stroke the ego: ‘Oh, look at me — busy, busy, busy!’” A workshop participant shared that her worries about time give her an excuse and an outside source for not following her dreams. She said, “I’ve never been someone who likes to blame, but now I suddenly realize that I’ve actually been blaming time. I don’t have enough time, and so that’s why I don’t go after this dream, or that’s why I haven’t tried this or followed up on that. Then it’s not my fault. This was a big discovery for me!

  Here are some examples of payoffs that people might receive from worrying or complaining about time.

• Time is a good catchall: if I can complain about being busy, then I don’t have to look at other areas in my life.

• Worrying about time gives me something to talk about with other people.

• Worrying about time is a convenient excuse for not following my dreams.

• My schedule is wrapped up with my self-esteem. Being “too busy” means that I’m successful.

• I don’t plan things that I might enjoy because it is too scary — it just feels safer to be bored.

Do any other payoffs come to mind? Which ones resonate as possibly being true for you? For further reflection, refer to the questions in the sidebar “Exploring Your Time Anxiety.”

Once we can identify the payoffs that we get from worrying about time, we can see them for what they are: illusions that keep us from living our true potential. Simply being aware of what we are getting from our time worries allows us to make a different choice. Choice is one of the nine ARTbundance Principles, which are building blocks to self-awareness. Making new choices is one of the best ways we can explore new layers of freedom with time. Dana Sebastian-Duncan, a trainee in the ACT program, put it nicely: “When I really think of the Principle of Choice as it relates to time, it reminds me that I have the freedom to create my life and my own ‘reality.’ My daily choices add up to my life, and that is empowering.”

To learn more, please take a look at the book trailer by clicking here!
To purchase a copy for yourself, click here. 

Marney K. Makridakis is the author of Creating Time. She founded the Artella online community for creators of all kinds and the print magazine Artella. A popular speaker and workshop leader, she created the ARTbundance approach of self-discovery through art. She lives in Dallas, Texas. Visit her online at http://www.artellaland.com.

Excerpted from the book Creating Time: Using Creativity to Reinvent the Clock and Reclaim Your Life ©2012 by Marney Makridakis.  Published with permission of New World Library http://www.newworldlibrary.com

Elements of a Good Blog

A major premise of the blog book tours course is that a good author blog is the foundation of a good blog book tour. Why? Unless the author is a dedicated blogger and has created a great blog for himself, it’s not likely he’ll be able to determine whether a blog host will be an effective tour stop. You must establish a strong comfort level and respect for blogging to engage in a solid blog book tour.

What are the elements of a good blog?

Here is the entire list which students use as a guideline to shape their own blogs:

Basic Design Attractiveness?
Title and url cohesive?
Consistency and clarity of blog purpose?
Loading speed?
Follow widget in place?
Hit counter?
Bookmarking in place?
FB and Twitter widgets?
Blogrolls?
Linking effective? Tags/keywords used?
Frequent posting 2-3 x weekly?
Quality of overall posts?
Comments section working?
Blog components arranged in optimum manner?
Too many/too few third-party gadgets?
Pages used effectively?
What's great?
What can be improved?
Is it ready for a blog tour?

Most of the criteria is self-explanatory. You might look at your own blog to determine if some tweaking would help make the blog stronger and more appealing to your readers.

Elizabeth Zelvin Cyberschmoozes With Us

We're bumping up this excellent guest post by Liz Zelvin from several years ago for the benefit of the current Blog Book Tours class which is spending the month of September finding blog hosts for their own tours:


Welcome to Liz Zelvin, author of Death Can Get You Sober. She shares with us tips on developing friendships in the cyber-world to help promote our publications.

Cumulative Cyberschmoozing: The Secret of a Successful Virtual Book Tour
By Elizabeth Zelvin
My debut mystery, Death Will Get You Sober, hit bookstores on April 15 (2008). Since I want to give my novel the best possible shot, I am working hard on a variety of promotional activities. I set up a book tour, and I will be traveling across the country signing books, talking to readers, and most important, meeting individual booksellers face to face, from late April through all of May and June. A virtual tour has a different purpose: to reach and improve my visibility with the many readers who talk about and buy books online.

Setting up the virtual tour was time consuming. But I found it relatively easy to develop a list of blogs and websites that were willing to interview me or host a guest blog, others that offered opportunities to chat, record a podcast, or appear as a featured author.

How did I know where to go and whom to ask? I’ve been networking among mystery lovers for years, on e-lists like Guppies and DorothyL and web-based social networks like CrimeSpace. What gave me the time to build up not just contacts but friendships in the mystery community was how long it took me to find a publisher: more than five years from when I started sending the manuscript out. In retrospect, not a day of that agonizing time was wasted.

All this time, I’ve been schmoozing (a Yiddish word that a friend of mine insists means “to network shamelessly”) in cyberspace and also face to face at book launches, meetings of Mystery Writers of America and Sisters in Crime, and mystery conferences and parties. It helps that I live in New York. It also helps that I make my living in cyberspace as an online therapist and therefore am very comfortable expressing myself in text. I’ve been lucky in having had the opportunity to blog with some terrific mystery writers on Poe’s Deadly Daughters. When I finally did get a publisher, it happened to be one that gives me enormous credibility with other writers.

But anyone can follow a few simple rules that, in retrospect, I think contributed to the effectiveness of my virtual tour.

1. Get out there on the Internet and make friends. Be generous. Post when you can contribute something, not just when you need something. If you like someone’s book, email that person one to one and tell them so. Post comments to the mystery blogs. Don’t just talk about yourself and your book or manuscript or blog. Be thoughtful, informative, and entertaining. These skills will come in handy when you’re ready to write your guest blogs, and they’ll convey that you’re someone it will be a pleasure to help.

2. Keep it fresh. Stockpile blog posts whenever you can. Blogging is like any other kind of writing: it often starts with a spark of creativity, and then you’ve got to do the work. Don’t just write about writing or blogging or promoting books. Write about whatever interests you. During your virtual tour, you’ll want to avoid redundancy—and since you’ll tour around the time your book is published, you won’t have time to write ten or twenty pieces at the last moment. Make sure you say something different or reveal a different aspect of yourself or your work each time. I even write my brief bios from scratch every time, so they won’t all sound the same.

3. Ask your hosts if they’ll interview you rather than host a guest blog. I found every interviewer had a distinctive style and approach. Answering questions allowed me to keep it fresh without having to come up with a different angle every time myself. A bonus: license to talk about myself until the cows came home. I admit I had a grand time doing it. And some of the questions were definitely wild and unexpected. We all had fun, and I think it came across to readers.

4. Keep careful track of the logistics of your tour. A lot of the work, besides contacting hosts and writing the material, was record keeping. I had a master file that included the date of every virtual gig, the host blog or newsletter or website name, what kind of event it was (eg guest blog, interview, profile, podcast, live chat, Q&A), the url I’d need to create a link for the schedule on my website, the contact person’s name and email address, and—most important—the status of the material. Some I wrote and sent months in advance, and the host took on the task of remembering to post it at the right time. Others asked me to send it—or remind them—at a particular time nearer to the event date. All undone tasks appeared in my master file in red, and I duplicated the “Send” and “Remind” dates as notes on two different calendars. Then I posted all the events to the Virtual Tour page on my own website, with active links to the host sites or blogs—a small enough return for their generosity in hosting me.

5. Do it in advance. Get it done. It took me all of February to get my virtual tour schedule set and write the material, with a lot of emailing back and forth to my various hosts. But now it’s done. Unlike a real-life tour, except for the occasional live chat or podcast, when you’ve done the preparation, the work is finished. One or two blog hosts asked me to check in several times on the day my guest blog ran in order to respond to reader comments. And if I hadn’t heard recently from a host I’d set up a date with months ago, I might email to reconfirm as the date approached—or check to see that my blog or interview got posted as scheduled. But basically, once finalized, the virtual tour will run itself.

Elizabeth Zelvin’s debut mystery is Death Will Get You Sober (St. Martin’s, April 2008). Library Journal calls it “a remarkable and strongly recommended first novel.” Her related short story, “Death Will Clean Your Closet,” has been nominated for an Agatha award for Best Short Story. More about Liz, including her Virtual Tour schedule, appears on her website.




And you can keep up with what Liz has to say by regularly visiting her at the Poe's Deadly Daughters blog.

Daily Blog Book Tour Tip

Your blog book tour is in full swing, and you're wondering why your daily stops aren't getting more comments. Even the sign-ups for drawings seem weak. Here's a tip for you: post your host's permalink for that day everywhere you ordinarily go to do your social networking. Don't expect your fans to check your tour schedule to connect. Everyone is busy, and you must remind them. Do not act bashful! Promote at least three times a day during a tour. Updates on Facebook and Twitter disappear very quickly, so repeat performances are a must.

Don't be shy when promoting your new book!

Little Mountain with Bob Sanchez

Today we're happy to help kick off a blog book tour for Bob Sanchez's novel, Little Mountain.
~~~~~~~~

And we’re off!

Thanks for hosting the kickoff of my Little Mountain tour, Dani, and for all you do encouraging others on their tours.

As much as I love to write humor, some books leave no place for it. Little Mountain has no humor and barely even has a mountain. It does have a Cambodian who becomes an American homicide cop and has to solve a crime that brings back haunting memories.

I used to live near the scene of the crime: Lowell, Massachusetts, where thousands of Cambodian refugees settled beginning in late 1979. My wife and I sponsored such a family and became well acquainted with some of the issues they and their host city faced. My first-ever and never-to-be-published novel, Freedom Country, was about a young Cambodian girl surviving the Khmer Rouge horrors and coming to the United States. I did all the research I knew how to do, short of traveling to Cambodia myself. Not having seen the country and my being a tyro at writing fiction pretty well sunk that ship. But what came out of Freedom Country was a better understanding of Cambodians’ plight and much-improved writing skills, thanks to many workshops and critique groups.

Little Mountain was the next novel I wrote, although it’s the third I’ve published. Humorous, wise-guy fiction exerts a strong pull on me as well, hence When Pigs Fly and Getting Lucky. The owner of Fjord Press phoned me one Saturday with glowing comments about Little Mountain and saying that he wanted to publish it. He even provided me with some free line edits, which were excellent.

Then he went out of business, and Little Mountain languished on my hard drive while I pursued other projects. Recently I decided to bring it to life, so I found one more great critiquer, hired an artist to design a cover, fixed nits in the writing until I thought my eyes would fall out, and published it.

I sent one of the first copies to my brother Steve. He soon called me and asked if Sam (the hero) could also change water into wine, which puzzled me. Then he explained that Sam gets a cup of tea in one paragraph and finishes his coffee in the next. (Nice trick, huh?) Well, say what you will about self-publishing, I was able to upload a correction in just a few minutes. Try doing that at Random House!

I hope you’ll visit all the fine blogs on my tour. Please post a comment for a chance to win an ebook or signed paperback copy of one of my novels. And thanks for visiting!


Bob’s tour schedule
Bob’s Blog
More background on Little Mountain
Purchase Little Mountain

P is for Promotion

Today at the Blood-Red Pencil, Maryann Miller and I discuss how difficult BSP is for authors and how the rest of us can help. It's all about liking each other. Go read what I'm talking about.

Rana DiOrio at Little Pickle Press has another effective tactic for promoting her blog. When LPP writes about other people, they not only include links to mentioned sites, but after the blog publishes, Rana emails the mentionees and asks them to stop by the blog and leave a comment. Here are examples of emails she sent for today's blog post:

Good Morning!

We feature you today in our blog post about the Santa Barbara Earth Day Festival:

http://bit.ly/g3QpFO

Please stop by and leave a comment!

Thank you,

Rana

***

Good Morning:

We just wanted you to know that we have a very favorable mention of your business in our blog today:

http://bit.ly/g3QpFO

Please stop by and leave a comment.

Thanks so much,

Rana

 ***

Good Morning:

Just thought you'd like to know that we extol your organization today in our blog post about the Santa Barbara Earth Day Festival:

http://bit.ly/g3QpFO

Please stop by and leave a comment!

Thanks so much,

Rana

It takes only a few moments to send these reminders,  but the benefits in the way of traffic and comments to the blog can be great. Don't miss an opportunity to gently encourage someone to read your post about them!

O is for Oops

It's also for, "oh, dang, I don't have a blog post for the A-Z Challenge and I'm out of town."

So here's a picture of an orchid I have in bloom right now.

Talk about pulling something out of an orifice!

M is for Murder

Right about now, most of the A-Z Challengers are probably thinking this project is murder! About halfway through a blog challenge is when the going gets tough. It’s easier than usual for me having a narrow focus, that is, using letters of the alphabet throughout the contest. So today is M, and originally I’d planned to host a tour stop for Susan Wittig Albert’s new mystery novel, Mourning Gloria. But the tour has been pushed to later since the author is still on a live tour. I’ll talk about Murder Must Advertise instead.

MMA is a Yahoo!Group for mystery authors to share promotion ideas of any and every kind, and there’s no better place to find creativity and kindred spirits. I encourage you to join the group,  even if you don’t write mysteries. Their discussions and suggestions apply to all writers, including (and maybe especially) self-published authors. Don’t waste a moment joining the group. It is a moderated forum, and each comment must pass muster by the list owner, so no worries about any wild and off-topic discussions. This is about marketing your book, and that’s what you’ll read about. But you’ll also meet a great group of people. Kudos to award-winning writer, Jeffrey Marks, for starting the group twelve years ago. Tell them Dani at Blog Book Tours sent you over when you join!

L is for Length and Other Lessons

I manage the blog for Little Pickle Press, and using some of the techniques I’ve mentioned in the past days, we’ve managed to consistently achieve 100-200 visitors a day, and now have a Google 3 ranking. Because the LPP Team shares lots of information about children’s book publishing (and environmental sustainability), it daily becomes more of an authority blog, with lots of guests from related industries. One of the challenges I encounter editing guest posts is length.

How long should a blog post be? 350 words is probably optimum for an average post. 500 words is getting too long and probably should be split into two consecutive posts. I also try to mix it up during the course of a week. It’s better to have five posts day-after-day, rather than two long posts during one week. So think about this when planning your weekly posts. Are you driving your readers away because it takes too long to read what you have to say?

The average length of time a visitor will stay at your blog is 1 ½ minutes. That’s your window of opportunity so grab them and impart your message. Or lose your reader. It’s not a lesson you need to learn the hard way.

K is for Knowledge

Yesterday, I talked about increasing blog traffic and building a voice of authority through your writing. What do you know that sets you apart from other bloggers, something that might attract a very narrow, but perhaps large group of readers?

What brings people to this blog is information about blog book tours. So that narrows my readership to authors who want to promote their new titles on the Internet.

In the past five years, I’ve become something of a sage (I hesitate to say "authority figure" as it sounds so unfriendly) about blog book tours, and it all started as research for my own book promotion. I didn't invent the idea by any means (it goes back at least 20 years to author, M.J. Rose). After many years of promoting a business with related traveling, hotel conferences, and other “face-time”, I knew I didn’t want to do any of that to promote my own book. It was too expensive, too time-consuming, too strenuous at my age, and an environmental nightmare. It was this last issue that decided my interest in online promotion, and it was a short jump to the blogging platform and it’s obvious potential, that led me to researching and planning online tours.

Five years later, I still think blogs, blog book tours, and other Internet platforms like YouTube and podcasting, are powerful book promotion tools, which have changed the publishing game, and tilted it in favor of the author. If you’re interested in a quick how-to be sure to read my Quickest Blog Book Tour Guide Ever and then consider taking a class to plan your own tour. Not only will you pay less out-of-pocket to plan your own tour, you’ll have a better one. Because nobody knows your book as well as you do, and nobody cares more about its success. Sign up for the next class here, and acquire the knowledge you need to build your own blog book tour.

J is for Jumpstarting

One of the most frustrating things in the early days of a blog is getting daily readers. Even bloggers who post every day don’t always get the results they want very quickly. This is where a group effort comes in handy to jumpstart results.

In the blog book tours classes, we usually have a blog-a-day challenge for one month. This serves several purposes.

1. It develops a good habit in the blogger, because infrequent blogging is the death knell of even the most attractive blog.
2. It increases traffic to a blog through visits from team members, and consequently makes the blog more noticeable to search engines.

Both of these elements are vital for jumpstarting a blog. Projects like the current A-Z Challenge, the basis of the blogs you are currently reading, are even more powerful. (Click on the link at the top of the page.) Almost 1,200 bloggers are teaming up in the same project, egging each other on, visiting member blogs, back-linking to each other. The Google ‘bots must be going crazy. Which, of course, has us all jumping for joy!

I is for Improvement

There was a time that WordPress was touted as the professional blogging platform, but Blogger has added so many features and improvements over the last year, that they are almost as powerful in a business environment. The most notable improvement is a new and flexible Designer feature, which not only includes countless templates to personalize the blog, but also a myriad of fonts, page elements, and colors. As well, gadgets that include statistics and email subscription sign-ups have been added, and with the upgrading of the spam feature, there’s really not a lot more to change for the average blogger. It amazes me to see blogs out there still using the old, original Blogger templates.


All these improvements are great tools to help create an attractive and entertaining blog, and you’ll want to use them to bring people back. Increasing traffic should be one of your goals, and with steady work, you should be able to regularly get 100 visitors a day within a year. In that time, you should also gain the Google ranking we mentioned a few days ago.

Why is this important? The more visitors to your blog, the more influence you have, whether promoting your opinions, teaching a lesson, or promoting your book. You become an authority via your blog. So think about that other “I” word – Influence – and how much of it you can develop on the Internet through your written word. Let’s review these interesting concepts:

Improve your blog
Increase traffic
Influence more readers
Internet is the road to achievement and success

H is for Help

How-to blog:

I often have folks sign up for my classes thinking they'll learn to blog. You have to know how before you sign up - the point of the class is to learn about blog BOOK TOURS. So you need to be fairly adept at blogging to sign up. The best way to learn how to blog is to simply Google "how to blog". Then see what comes up. Here's one example to try on YouTube, and you might have to search around for updated links since last year's Blogger upgrade, but the information is at your disposal. Seek and ye shall find.

Hit counters:

Everyone needs one and two favorites are Statcounter.com and Sitemeter.com. I prefer Sitemeter, and like to show actual hit count since a good high number makes the blog more attractive to readers.


Holiday blogging prompts:

Last week, I found a really great site that lists all those crazy holidays we're always hearing about like National Naked Rat Day and National Black Licorice Week. This site lists hundreds of those holidays by month, and what great writing prompts for your blog! Go here for more and be sure to bookmark this site.

Hurdles like word verification:

I've noticed during this month's A-Z Challenge that quite a few of the blogs have word verification and moderated status activated. I would definitely get rid of the word verification, as I and many people, don't return to blogs that create comment hurdles like that. I've even turned it off on this blog, despite having the blog shut down for six months by Blogger for excess spam visits. Bloggers new spam filter is really quite adequate for the job. If you're still not sure, then moderate comments, but even this is a mental hurdle for your fans. You'll lose too many to make it worth the bother. Remember, you WANT comments, because it makes your blog stickier to the search engines.

Hint-of-the-Day:

Collapse your archive in the sidebar. It's ugly, takes up too much space, and nobody uses it anyway. Make it a nice tidy little box like mine in the sidebar. See it? Now compare it to yours. Which is better?


Finally H is for Happy blogging!

G is for Google

There is so much about Google to talk about, it's hard to know where to start. Let's make it short and discuss two things:

Google ranking is one important gauge of how popular or influential a blog is, and you should know your ranking, as well as any potential blog book tour host's. If you're planning a blog book tour, try to find blogs that have a Google ranking of 3 or 4. Blogs don't often rank higher than 5. To get your ranking, visit PR Checker and follow the easy directions.

You should also set-up  Google Alerts for your book title, your name, and perhaps some key words associated with your brand or book. This allows you to monitor what's going on on the web related to your interests. Setting up Google Alerts is as easy as checking your ranking, and you automatically get daily or weekly updates in your mailbox.

Was that useful information? Do you already do these things? Leave a comment and share what your blog's ranking is. I have a widget in the sidebar letting all visitors know I'm a Google 4, which makes me a prime host for blog book tours. I'll be doing more of that starting in May, and will feature children's literature and cozy mysteries, as well as non-fiction related to organic and sustainability topics. Be sure to add me to your blogroll for future reference!

D is for Dates

 I'm not talking about the ones we all wanted on Saturday nights when we were young.

What I mean is the date you might find on a letter... or on a blog post like this one. Do you notice anything? I have a day of the week above right and a time at the bottom of this post. But no actual date. Why? Because many of the posts are timeless, and apply to many situations or from one blog book tours class to the next. There is no need for me to rewrite the post. Often I bump a post up by going into Post Options and changing the date so the blog post reappears at the top of the blog. Clever, no?

You can do the same thing. An added advantage is that the blog never looks stale to a newcomer, who might wonder why I haven't posted anything since last month, if the month stamp could be seen.

Tomorrow, I'll bump a prior post I use often that explains the Elements of a good blog. Stay tuned.

A-A-A-pril Fools!

I need another drink quick!

Anyone who has taken a Blog Book Tours class with me knows there is usually a Blog-a-Day Challenge involved. It's a great way to make your blog sizzle in a hurry, and it is especially beneficial when a group of people are linking to each other, leaving comments, and just generally adding to the support and fun. I've seen blogs go from Absolutely Awful to Ztellar. Okay, maybe that's a stretch, at least in the spelling department.

Special thanks to the pals from the BBT Cafe (our blog book tours alum and social spot) for organizing the A-Z Challenge. Alex J. Cavanaugh and Stephen Tremp, you guys are nuts! I have no idea how I'm going to interact with almost more than 1,000 bloggers over the next month, but as Steve points, at least they are allowing us to take Sundays off, unlike yours truly who had  no such mercy in any class. Paybacks are tomorrow's letter, huh?

Please click on the A-Z Challenge tab above to see all the great bloggers playing the game this month. My goal? To make this blog a little stickier with the search engines, possibly set the stage for a Google 5 ranking, and be poised to start hosting authors I like when they have their blog book tours, something I haven't done much up to know. Leave me a message if you have a new book coming out this year. And be sure to follow the blog by clicking at right, friend me on Facebook, and follow me on Twitter. The more fools, the merrier!

If These Walls Could Talk

When it comes to Facebook, your walls actually can talk, and that's why it's important to visit them on a regular basis. Here's a good example why:

The Heartless Contessa Refuses Make-a-Wish Request

I have no idea if this story is true, but when it comes to social networking, it doesn't matter. The Barefoot Contessa, a popular cooking icon, has a fan page that is littered with comment after comment condemning the woman for being the ogre in this story. She has over 50,000 fans and the story is going viral on Facebook. This is not a good thing.

Clearly, nobody is monitoring her Facebook wall, which brings me to the point of this post: go to your profile page daily and clean up house. I even remove posts that are no longer relevant within a week of posting and which have no comments.  Also, thank yous from people for friending them. This makes it easier for new friends to scroll through your first few pages to get a sense of what you're about reading posts of relevance.

I felt compelled to leave a positive comment for the Contessa, and left this message on her FB wall:

This is all over FB. You should perhaps do some damage control and start with an explanation, then monitor your FB comments. Social networking tools require daily upkeep.

The same advice applies to us all.

Hot Tip of the Day

If you are marketing a book on your blog, and expect comments or questions, turn off your comment moderation and Captcha codes - these only create a hurdle for your customers. They won't jump them, I promise you. One presumes if you are actively marketing a product that you will be monitoring your blog live and in person throughout the day.

Also, if you have requirements for the reader like following your blog to get some benefit, make sure the follow link is clear and up high next to your post where the viewer can easily see it. Don't make them work for the benefit you are offering. It will only drive them away, and worse, it could irritate them to the point they never come back to your blog.

You have seconds, seconds, to make your case. Make friends and customers the first chance you get. It will often be the only chance.

Collapsing

I've been reading and commenting on a lot of blogs lately, and if there's one tip I could give just about everyone, it's Collapse.Your. Archive. You would have so much more sidebar room for blogrolls, book covers, and other interesting information, if your archive didn't drop down into a series of staggered clickable links that none of your readers ever use. See how nice and neat mine is at right. I don't usually place it that high either - it can live down lower on the sidebar below more important topics.

Collapse this. It's more information and clutter than anyone needs to see on your blog. Look how much room it hogs.

If you are using Blogger, click Design top right. Scroll down to the gadget that says Blog Archive and click on Edit. From there, you should see your other options. Then be sure to Save, and you should be all set.