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.