First Word

So I was perusing my blog's most-read items and noticed my posts about social media seem to be popular among readers. In fact, my most popular post for the month of August was about Facebook an social media. So it seems social media trumps True Blood . All right so I have learned everything I know about social media marketing via hands-on experience. I am by no means an expert per se. I am an expert on marketing, public relations and communication -- and these days social media plays an integral role in getting the word out about your business. The most common complaint or more like "whine" I hear about social media is that it's a time-suck vortex. I give this simple advice on how to manage your social media activities. First, I don't want those of you caught in the vortex to feel guilty. It's easy to get sucked in. I advise users with basic rules to apply. 15/15 Rule --only devote 15 minutes at the beginning and end of your work day to social media. If y...

We all assume that most people with manners know that social media can be either a positive or negative marketing tool. In terms of personal image management, social media plays a critical role in sculpting impressions of what people perceive about you. Unless you close off your privacy settings, which in business is unproductive, you have to manage your image carefully. We were talking about this subject in my writers' group. One of the members mentioned many people do not realize that now employers are looking at your page. They do not realize in the competitive race for a great, often-coveted position, employers scrutinize everything including your social media. Something (and seemingly as harmless) as being photographed with a glass of wine or cocktail in your hand can send a message you don't want an employer to see. Those social media users who also notoriously are photographed with that glass of wine at social events might think, "What's the harm? It's a...

Promo Sheet/Flyer --your promo sheet should be loaded with great quotes from reviews about your book. If you don't yet have professional reviews, use testimonials. Put an image of your book on the sheet. Use it to hand out to prospective readers. Stand near your sales area and direct those readers to your sales table for actual purchase. Bookmarks --nice bookmarks with brief information about your book. Bookmarks take the place of business cards and should have your URL and general contact information along with where to purchase the book. Large poster board of book cover image --an enlarged poster-size image of your book cover created on a cardboard of foam-core backing to protect it. Do not date anything on the image so it can be easily reused from event to event. Bring a sturdy stand to put it on.

Flawed characters are more interesting than vanilla heroes or heroines. Flawed characters have chinks in their armors. They do things that push the limits of black and white/right and wrong. They do things some of us wish we could, but know that while it tastes sweet going down the aftertaste is bitter. When you write flawed characters, though, remember it's easy to make those flaws so deep they turn from good to purely bad. So how do you write a great flawed character without making him/her unlikeable? A tortured soul --the tortured soul is good at heart but his/her pains of the past have created demons. These characters will stop and help the little old lady cross the road and yet end up at the bar at night drinking and yelling profanity at the bartender. They will help the bad guys (inadvertently) because they are driven to self-destruct, but in the end their humanities always win. Sweet, funny, endearing but doing bad things anyway --they aren't intrinsically bad people...

In an unevenly paced and poorly written season, one of my favorite series came to an end -- True Blood created by Alan Ball. I was completely disappointed in the finale. It dragged, lacked any action, and the closure was disappointing. We got a sappy happy ending for one of the campiest, funniest shows around that produced such great lines as "Sookie's precious fairy vagina." The show established Bill as Sookie's true love (huh? She had way more chemistry and emotional resonance with Eric), and then showed how he really "loved" her to want to set her free and give her a vampire-free life. They had "kind of" tied up the feelings with Eric in the previous show, but instead of letting the two characters truly wrap it up when Eric saves her one more time they just skipped it. What happened to the love triangle and Sookie loving them both? Those loves scenes from Season 4 all went for not. In the books, Eric and Sookie had the passionate love affair....

A funny Help a Reporter Out (HARO) query presented the story "Five Ways Cats Improve Your Life". My cat Bill is my nemesis. So as you can see I wrote the opposite. Here are the five ways Bill doesn't improve my life. 1. The trashcan isn't there to knock over and bat around garbage -- although Bill thinks it is. Any kind of trashcan within claw's reach is fair game. Whoop! All over the floor. Who picks it up? Oh yeah, I do. 2. Just because I liked it . My favorite purse. One bite and the leather strap chewed through in one place. Tied it back together. I said to my husband, "The little shit did it because he knows I love my purse." A day later: not only did he chew both ends of each side, but he severed them. Oh by the way: it was a new purse. 3. Scars on my ankles . For some reason it's A-okay to run past me and swipe my ankles. The last time he did it he left a red, bleeding slash. I think he's a serial-kittier.  4. Scratches on my feet...

The 10-minute blog results from a full morning schedule of back-to-back meetings. It's the one you do when you already woke up early (and you're not an early-riser) and now you have 10 minutes to write and you don't know what to write. The 10-minute blog is designed to keep your blog readership consistent, posting regular, and writing fresh. Well, fresh is relative when you have 10 minutes and nothing to say. I could, though, prove that I type really fast in 10 minutes ;). Daily blogging is important. It keeps the search engine optimization on the "labels" or keywords out there being picked up by the search engine crawlers. It keeps Google alerts alerting. The ideal is to blog every day. At the same time, don't kick yourself if life gets in the way. Or just do the 10-minute blog.

Today's blog is personal. Several friends have been going through some hard times. After I had my own front-row seat on the show called "Hard Times" I've learned a thing or two. The worst cliché in the world that no one wants to hear turns out to be the truest truth: Time heals all. No one wants to hear that kind of platitude when they're hurting. What good does that do right when you're feel terrible? Most of us would prefer an instant-fix-it-now pill. Sitting in the puddle of our pain and disappointment as we wait for it to evaporate is a wet proposition. You can't dry until it evaporates. In the meantime you get to soak it all in -- good, bad, painful, real and present. Can't make it dry any sooner than it will dry. Can't escape the feeling -- it still is wet. And while this next piece of advice doesn't make it any better it's simple truth: sit in it, feel it, soak it in, and accept it. Yes, you're going to feel it for sure, and it...

Britney, 3L Publishing's copy editor, recently said this about writing vs. authorship. She said, a writer loves to write. An author sits down and professionally writes a novel. I've been asked that question many times. I never distinguished the difference the way she described. Although I've written five books, I didn't give the title of author much thought nor did I consider whether or not I was a writer or an author per se. I typically say "writer," and I've used that moniker to describe myself for decades. I've done so many different kinds of writing including screenwriting and magazine writing that I feel it fits best. These days as a publisher, though, I am prone to neglect my own books. Writing at various times becomes a difficult creative process. I find that I sometimes even avoid it. I can write easily enough (e.g., see this blog), but I can spend days or even weeks rolling thoughts about story around in my mind. Everyone has their own crea...

Today's question from an author is a common mistake and misnomer. If you want the new rules of style in terms of word processing and digital printing, invest in the book The Mac is Not a Typewriter . Today's question: do you still put the double space after the period?  Old rules of business writing and even academic writing suggested we use the double space. Today the computer does it for us, and there is no need. Word processors put the right spacing in for the user. Older writers unfamiliar with the change in the rules still add the double space, which is unnecessary and removed during editing. The double space was used in typesetting methods where typesetters physically put the "plates" together with the words and used the spacing to distinguish between the end of the sentence and the start of the new one. Since the computer can now automatically do it, and the new digital printing methods don't require plates, it's gone away. Underlining titles now ...

Children's Picture Book Author: Carol Shaver Illustrator: Rachel Smith This enchanting new children's book from my company 3L Publishing was an absolute joy and pleasure to publish. The sweet author who is full of moxy and passion wanted her precious story about a little bear named Cubby who dreamed of flying taken from her imagination to the page. She was able to achieve her goals by working with the incredible talents of Rachel Smith, one of our favorite illustrators. The book's theme is simple: no dream is impossible! All children's books should be distilled down to simple concepts. When you can distill your story thematically down then the story becomes focused and clear to the reader. For children a simple idea is the best. This book is also uniquely different because its size is 11 x 14, which means it's tall and wide. Carol was thrilled with the idea so that little eyes and fingers could take in the vibrant action depicted on the pages. Turning the...

This video is perfect from "Weird Al" Yankovic! Reminds me of Saturday morning cartoons where I learned things like "conjunction, conjunction what's your function ..." Yes, I just gave away my age, again! Enjoy the video and maybe learn something new like what is the Oxford comma. We don't like the Oxford comma around here, but other strict grammarian have a love affair with it.

I was chatting with 3L Publishing author Jason Kraus about his forthcoming book Late Bird . The subject of work ethic came up in the conversation. Jason admitted he chose 3L Publishing to create his book for two key reasons. He had watched my posts on Facebook to observe my viewpoints on key social and political issues, and he noted that I had an amazing work ethic. Without digressing into my stand on social issues, which I really don't spend much time revealing on social media but I guess I showed enough, I'll address the work-ethic discussion. What happened to good-old fashioned work ethic? I've asked that question many times over the years? Without making sweeping statements, I'll give examples. The younger generation, which I'll suggest is from about ages 20-30 give or take have some perspectives that baffle me. My operations manager who is in this age range says this generation thinks they are all "special snowflakes" -- and honestly that made me ...

Before we publish any book, I always have to have the "talk" with authors. No, the talk isn't about the birds and the bees or "It's not you, it's me." The talk is about what I'll refer to as "Amazon World". In Amazon World all the rules of customer service and effective communication are obsolete. In fact, Amazon World has no such rules or cares to have them. You have to think of Amazon as this other planet where the laws of gravity do not apply. In Amazon World, the sign "Out of Stock" hangs on the doorknob to turn customers away. The irony is the more sales your book attracts, the longer the signs hangs. The ugly outcome is the same sign also repels sales, too. I give authors the Amazon World talk. I warn them. I explain, "It's not us, it's them." But no matter how many times I give the talk, the authors' frustrations ultimately override my words, and I always receive "the email". The email is a...

The perfect picture and view from the historical site lakeside.   Style, usage and grammar mistakes galore. Where did I see these mistakes? In a casual email? On a text? On a sign somewhere? No, not exactly. I saw these mistakes "littering" the historical signage sprinkled along a trail in Tahoe City to celebrate the town's 150th anniversary. At the end of the tour, I noticed that the local rotary club got credit for the signs. At that point I realized the "road to messed-up signs is paved in good community intentions but weak grammarians." Now to the average eye the mistakes wouldn't necessarily leap off the signs, but to the well-trained eye the errors flew off those plaques. Misused commas in strange places, no hyphenation on words that should have been hyphenated -- those two mistakes were the most common. I can only imagine how many corrections a professional editor would have left behind on that copy had one only had his or her hands on it. I imagi...

Every blogger needs a vacation! I'm giving my ole typing fingers a rest. I'll be back chatting you up on August 11. Cheers! Michelle