Last week, I mentioned that one of the hottest trends in online promotion these days is Twitter, a fairly new social network that involves micro-blogging whenever the mood hits you. Twitter has taken off and everywhere you turn someone is talking about it online or in the media. Thanks to a gentle nudge from our own Cheryl Kaye Tardif, I joined yesterday.
A week ago, I kind of dreaded the idea of joining because I was reluctant to take the time to learn to navigate my way through yet another network when I already belong to five of them. But Cheryl told me that she’s holding a contest and asked if I’d be interested in donating a book or two. Well, she doesn’t have to ask twice! I don’t mind giving books away to all kinds of causes and helping other writers promote anyway they can.
I have to tell you, Twitter is simple to join and it’s easy to find people and contribute. In fact, you’re only allowed 140 characters per blog entry, which is about a sentence.
Cheryl’s on a mission to gather 10,000 followers (known as friends in other networks), and when she does, she’s going to give away a number of book prizes. I’ll be donating a copy of Taxed to Death and Fatal Encryption.
So, if you’re curious about what people are thinking and doing, give Twitter a try at at www.twitter.com. Happily, not much personal information is asked of you, and very little of it appears on your profile page. Once you’ve joined, you can find Cheryl at www.twitter.com/CherylKTardif. And you can find me at www.twitter.com/DebraPurdyKong. Hope to see you there!
To read excerpts of Fatal Encryption and Taxed to Death, visit www.debrapurdykong.com
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Authors: Hire a Book Marketing Coach to help you market your books
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- Have you joined Facebook, MySpace, Twitter or other social networks but don't know what you should do with them?
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Sunday, March 22, 2009
Hot Trends in Online Promotion
Since publishing Taxed to Death in 1995, online promotion has grown by huge leaps for good reasons. After all, there are hundreds of websites to advertise your work and so many more people browsing and buying online than there were in 1995. Online promotion is inexpensive and can be done from home to fit your schedule. That’s the upside. The downside is that it’s also time consuming and for some, downright addicting. I mean, when you’re out there visiting, posting, browsing, and blogging on a daily basis, where’s the time for writing?
At the moment, I’m on Amazon.connect, where I post blogs and keep my Listmanias going. I’m also on Goodreads, AuthorsDen, MySpace and Book Masons. I enjoy these sites because I get to meet new people, talk about books and book-related topics, or just have fun. But people now tell me that I should be spending most of my promotion time on Twitter and Facebook.
Until now, I’ve refrained from joining Facebook because I heard there were privacy issues and that it was kind of a waste of time regarding book promotion. Not anymore, according to a panel of well established writers I listened to at the Left Coast Crime conference. All of the four panelists, including Dana Stabenow and Laurie King, found that Facebook and Twitter were the best social networking sites to join, not only because they reached a wider audience than say, MySpace, but also because both sites are easy to set up and navigate. Admittedly, I had to ask a couple of people for help setting up MySpace, but I do enjoy chatting with people there.
Some writers tell me that Facebook has done nothing to help them sell books. Others say the same about MySpace, yet I know other writers who disagree. So, who knows? Am I totally off base by spending my time on the networking sites I mentioned? I don’t know, but I’m feeling more pressured to join Facebook and Twitter these days. If anyone would like to share your experiences with these or other social networking sites, I’d love to hear your input.
To read excerpts of Taxed to Death and Fatal Encryption, visit www.debrapurdykong.com. Both books are now available on Kindle and Mobipocket!
At the moment, I’m on Amazon.connect, where I post blogs and keep my Listmanias going. I’m also on Goodreads, AuthorsDen, MySpace and Book Masons. I enjoy these sites because I get to meet new people, talk about books and book-related topics, or just have fun. But people now tell me that I should be spending most of my promotion time on Twitter and Facebook.
Until now, I’ve refrained from joining Facebook because I heard there were privacy issues and that it was kind of a waste of time regarding book promotion. Not anymore, according to a panel of well established writers I listened to at the Left Coast Crime conference. All of the four panelists, including Dana Stabenow and Laurie King, found that Facebook and Twitter were the best social networking sites to join, not only because they reached a wider audience than say, MySpace, but also because both sites are easy to set up and navigate. Admittedly, I had to ask a couple of people for help setting up MySpace, but I do enjoy chatting with people there.
Some writers tell me that Facebook has done nothing to help them sell books. Others say the same about MySpace, yet I know other writers who disagree. So, who knows? Am I totally off base by spending my time on the networking sites I mentioned? I don’t know, but I’m feeling more pressured to join Facebook and Twitter these days. If anyone would like to share your experiences with these or other social networking sites, I’d love to hear your input.
To read excerpts of Taxed to Death and Fatal Encryption, visit www.debrapurdykong.com. Both books are now available on Kindle and Mobipocket!
Blog a Beginning
Some things happen outside of time, like running into old friends, or familiar scents, voices, landscapes and lost letters. These moments propel you to places or memories from a time long ago when you were younger, when life was simpler, and when time was not walking with you, shoulder-to-shoulder. All of these places, all past connections are woven so permanently inside the fabric of our being that at any second with the correct chemistry one or more can awake.
Such a moment occurred recently when I was invited to participate in a book club discussion for my novel, Belly of the Whale. The invitation had come many months before from an acquaintance now living in the Cape Ann area, the location of my book. We shared families through marriage, in-laws, cousins and the like but we were not related. Four decades had passed and here I was at her door being welcomed as an author, treated like a celebrity. She was candid with her remarks before the group arrived. I had to read the book first she said before I could recommend it to the club and I loved it.
Soon her home was filled with the hum of female voices. I was deluged with handshakes and introductions. I looked out among the faces and saw women like myself holding copies of Belly of the Whale. Questions began and I answered. How did the story begin, what was the seed? I knew the responses because I’d made them before, but this was different, that night I was a bridge away from Gloucester, from Ten Nettles Cove and Whales Market. One woman after another exclaimed that they looked for the Market and wondered what street it was on and how thoughts of the story remained with them long after the last page.
When would the sequel be released? Was there a sequel? What was I working on now? When would my next book be published? The walls of inertia that had formed around me in the last few months began to crumble. Every writer requires retreat, time to ruminate and I had mine. The alarm was going off in my head. A room full of wonderful women speaking with honesty and passion was my elixir.
On April 10th I will dedicate my blogging to the education and awareness of prostate cancer. In December 2007 Dan Folgelberg died of this disease. He was barely past fifty years old. We all know his music- Same Old Lang Syne and Leader of the Band to name two. I will participate in the promotion of a double CD package called Dan Fogelberg-A Retrospective Interview. The CD’s feature thirteen of Dan’s great songs coupled with Fred Migliore of FM Odyssey Radio and his interview celebrating Dan Fogelberg’s twenty-five years of music in 1997. Three dollars from the sale of this package goes to PCF in Dan’s name to help find a cure.
Please remember to the fight-fight.
Blog what you hear, feel, think and see. Linda
Such a moment occurred recently when I was invited to participate in a book club discussion for my novel, Belly of the Whale. The invitation had come many months before from an acquaintance now living in the Cape Ann area, the location of my book. We shared families through marriage, in-laws, cousins and the like but we were not related. Four decades had passed and here I was at her door being welcomed as an author, treated like a celebrity. She was candid with her remarks before the group arrived. I had to read the book first she said before I could recommend it to the club and I loved it.
Soon her home was filled with the hum of female voices. I was deluged with handshakes and introductions. I looked out among the faces and saw women like myself holding copies of Belly of the Whale. Questions began and I answered. How did the story begin, what was the seed? I knew the responses because I’d made them before, but this was different, that night I was a bridge away from Gloucester, from Ten Nettles Cove and Whales Market. One woman after another exclaimed that they looked for the Market and wondered what street it was on and how thoughts of the story remained with them long after the last page.
When would the sequel be released? Was there a sequel? What was I working on now? When would my next book be published? The walls of inertia that had formed around me in the last few months began to crumble. Every writer requires retreat, time to ruminate and I had mine. The alarm was going off in my head. A room full of wonderful women speaking with honesty and passion was my elixir.
On April 10th I will dedicate my blogging to the education and awareness of prostate cancer. In December 2007 Dan Folgelberg died of this disease. He was barely past fifty years old. We all know his music- Same Old Lang Syne and Leader of the Band to name two. I will participate in the promotion of a double CD package called Dan Fogelberg-A Retrospective Interview. The CD’s feature thirteen of Dan’s great songs coupled with Fred Migliore of FM Odyssey Radio and his interview celebrating Dan Fogelberg’s twenty-five years of music in 1997. Three dollars from the sale of this package goes to PCF in Dan’s name to help find a cure.
Please remember to the fight-fight.
Blog what you hear, feel, think and see. Linda
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Can a man join Sisters in Crime?
As my friend and fellow author Austin S. Comacho puts it: "This mister's a sister." In his latest blog post at Criminal Minds at Work, Austin explains why he decided to join the predominantly all-female writers' organization known as Sisters in Crime.
If you're a male writer, you'll want to read this.
"Originally I joined because I wanted to support the cause - to combat discrimination against women in the mystery field and raise awareness of their contribution to the field. Soon after I joined I realized that..."
Read Austin's post at Criminal Minds at Work.
~Cheryl Kaye Tardif,
bestselling author
http://www.cherylktardif.com
If you're a male writer, you'll want to read this.
"Originally I joined because I wanted to support the cause - to combat discrimination against women in the mystery field and raise awareness of their contribution to the field. Soon after I joined I realized that..."
Read Austin's post at Criminal Minds at Work.
~Cheryl Kaye Tardif,
bestselling author
http://www.cherylktardif.com
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Aloha and Mahalo, Hawaii
Yesterday, I was eating breakfast on a sundeck, barefoot and in my sundress, watching swaying palm trees and a rainbow arcing up into the clouds. Today, I was walking with my umbrella, winter gloves, boots, and two layers of clothing under a heavy coat after arriving home from Hawaii at about one a.m. this morning. Don’t you hate it when that happens? On the other hand, maybe I wouldn’t have appreciated the heat and sun as much if it had been the same weather here in the pacific northwest. I mean, there’s a good reason people go to tropical climates in winter.
My good reason was the Left Coast Crime conference at the Waikoloa Marriott Beach Resort. This was my first trip back to Hawaii since 1981 and my first time ever on the Big Island. What a place! The variety of vegetation and geography alone could fill a couple of blogs, but I want to talk about the wonderful LCC conference organized by Toby and Bill Gottffried and a team of friendly committee members who helped make the conference memorable, fun, and relaxed.
As always, the best part of going was meeting new people; some aspiring writers and others fans of mystery novels. I’ve come back recharged, raring to work on various writing projects. The third draft of my current work in progress had been going painfully slow, but I’ve edited four chapters this week alone, thanks to my husband’s laptop and my trusty flash drive. I wasn’t sure I would work in Hawaii at all, but the desire to write was revving up, so I spent an hour a day on the book, and the rest of my time was devoted to conference fun, site seeing, and shopping.
If you’ve never been to a conference before, save up and treat yourself, and make the most of the panels and discussions and social events. Writers especially need to network and these events present great opportunities. There are all types of conferences for different genres or just general writers’ conferences. If you Google key words in your area of interest, you’ll find a huge source of information. And if you know of a great one to recommend, feel free to contact me and I’ll share the info with others.
To read excerpts of Fatal Encryption and Taxed to Death—now both on Kindle—visit http://www.debrapurdykong.com/
My good reason was the Left Coast Crime conference at the Waikoloa Marriott Beach Resort. This was my first trip back to Hawaii since 1981 and my first time ever on the Big Island. What a place! The variety of vegetation and geography alone could fill a couple of blogs, but I want to talk about the wonderful LCC conference organized by Toby and Bill Gottffried and a team of friendly committee members who helped make the conference memorable, fun, and relaxed.
As always, the best part of going was meeting new people; some aspiring writers and others fans of mystery novels. I’ve come back recharged, raring to work on various writing projects. The third draft of my current work in progress had been going painfully slow, but I’ve edited four chapters this week alone, thanks to my husband’s laptop and my trusty flash drive. I wasn’t sure I would work in Hawaii at all, but the desire to write was revving up, so I spent an hour a day on the book, and the rest of my time was devoted to conference fun, site seeing, and shopping.
If you’ve never been to a conference before, save up and treat yourself, and make the most of the panels and discussions and social events. Writers especially need to network and these events present great opportunities. There are all types of conferences for different genres or just general writers’ conferences. If you Google key words in your area of interest, you’ll find a huge source of information. And if you know of a great one to recommend, feel free to contact me and I’ll share the info with others.
To read excerpts of Fatal Encryption and Taxed to Death—now both on Kindle—visit http://www.debrapurdykong.com/
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