Weekend Weather Coming!

Best Tweet about what’s been happening:

“@EamonDolan Once again, this weekend’s weather forecast is brought to you by the Book of Revelations.”

I don’t know about you, but we are hunkering down for weekend storms. I hope those of you already feeling the bite of Hurricane Irene are safe and sound. Please don’t take any chances out there.

We’ve got some fun new things happening in the review community – Dual Reviewers dishing about books. So today I’m sharing with you two of those fun couples:

Morgan and Whitney Dish

Check out Morgan and Whitney dishing about THE FIFTH KINGDOM!

Also any thanks to RT Book Reviews for giving THE FIFTH KINGDOM 4.5 Stars! You rock!

Here is just a little snippet of what they had to say:

This story is an Indiana Jones-style thrill ride infused with just the right amount of romance and sexual tension. . .The mystery, the family dynamic and the love story all blend together perfectly in this delightful adventure. Who needs Harrison Ford when you’ve got a tale like this?

To read the full review, you can click here.

She Said, She Said at Paranormal Romance Guild

For you paranormal writers and readers, you have got to check out the Paranormal Romance Guild! They have got a whole host of things for you to check out.

Their reviewers, Gloria and Penelope, were nice enough to do a She Said, She Said review of THE LOST.

Thank you for your 4.5 and 4 stars for THE LOST! To read what Gloria and Penelope have to say, you can click here.

OBSESSED/LOST Launch Party at Fontana’s

I got to see Morgan last night at the absolutely wonderful launch party for OBSESSED and THE LOST. Hope to have pictures for you soon from that event and thanks to all who came by and also, mega thanks to Rachel Kramer Bussel, The Pleasure Chest and Tied Up Events for hosting this fabulous party!

Also many thanks to Maria, Kim, Denise, Diane and Nisha for coming with to the party.

The Old Spice Man Goes Viral!

You may have seen the original Old Spice commercials with that very hunky man spoofing some of favorite things! Now he’s gone viral!

Visit his Twitter account and Youtube pages (addresses below) to see his responses to various tweets sent to him. A very fun ad campaign, I must say.

@OLDSPICE Twitter Account
OLD SPICE Youtube Channel

Check out the sites to get Fun Friday and your weeked off to a great start!

If you can’t see the video below, then click here to see the Old Spice man or cut and paste this link into your browser: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLTIowBF0kE

Teaser Tuesday and a Call for Help!

Today is a teaser Tuesday because I’m going to whet your apetites about some upcoming contests as well as ask you to help out with those contests.

But not in the way that you might think.

With two upcoming fall releases (AZTEC GOLD, a vampire novella, and STRONGER THAN SIN, the next book in the SIN HUNTERS paranormal romance series) I’m going to be running some special contests later in the year.

In fact, I’ve already been gathering up all kinds of fun prizes for you!

There will be a beautiful gold Aztec-style butterfly, a silver SONY PRS300SC E-Reader Pocket Edition, Gift cards, delicious Bath & Body Works goodies, t-shirts, hats and books. But I’d like to know from you what kinds of things you like to see in contests and whether you tweet them, share them on your Facebook and Myspace pages, list them on your sites, etc.

To thank you for the comments you post below, I will pick one of you to win a copy of SINS OF THE FLESH and a STRONGER THAN SIN t-shirt!

Just leave a comment by midnight EST Friday, June 18th for a chance to win those goodies.

SINS OF THE FLESH Video Premiere

Welcome to day 2 of the SINS OF THE FLESH Book Launch Party! Today we have something really special – the premiere of the SINS OF THE FLESH video.

So grab a bag of popcorn, make sure you’ve gone to the bathroom because you won’t want to miss a second of this and sit back and enjoy this awesome video! Many thanks to all involved in the creation for doing an amazing job in translating my vision for the book into this trailer.

If you can’t see this video on your computer, you can also visit this link to view it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqpKM-uIZwA

Don’t forget to leave a comment by midnight EST on Friday, October 30 for a chance to be one of 5 lucky winners of a SINS t-shirt and autographed copy of the book.

And don’t forget to either tweet or post the following for a chance to be the lucky winner of a $50 gift certificate! The SINFUL THINGS Contest ends on November 30, so keep on retweeting/posting!

On Twitter please Tweet/Retweet (please be sure to include the bit.ly link):

    Celebrate the Release of Caridad Pineiro’s SINS OF THE FLESH! RT for a chance 2 win a $50 Gift Certificate. http://bit.ly/2AZWlC

On Facebook please post to your profile (please be sure to include the bit.ly link):

    Celebrate the Release of Caridad Pineiro’s SINS OF THE FLESH! Post this link to your profile for a chance to win a $50 Gift Certificate. http://bit.ly/2AZWlC

Alleviating the demands of Social Media Promotion

My friend Rayna Vause and I were recently at the Moonlight & Magnolias conference in Atlanta to give a workshop on publicity and promotion in cyberspace. One of the topics we discussed was Social Media and how to use it to help build your brand online.

One of the major concerns expressed by many was the time demands of being in so many places online. It’s a truly valid concern. With so many authors still holding down jobs and/or the needs of family, spending time on the web and social media sites can be a major time suck, especially when you’re also trying to write a book.

But it is possible to use technology to alleviate some of the demands of Social Media promotion. If you’ve got a blog, Facebook, Twitter and Myspace, it’s possible to automate many of these applications so that you’re content will be available on all of them with minimal work. How do you do that?

Feed your blog to your Twitter, Facebook and/or Myspace pages:

Both Twitter and Facebook allow you to feed content automatically from your blog. In Facebook, find your NOTES section and you will see a spot where you can add your blog feed to bring it into your Facebook profile. With Twitter, you can use Twitterfeed to automatically post your blog content as a tweet.

Unfortunately, I have not been able to find a similar application for Myspace, but it is possible to create a widget for your blog feed that you can embed on your Myspace page or in other applications that accept Widgets. I’ve used Spring Widgets and find their RSS feed widget very handy.

Feed your Twitter, Facebook and/or Myspace to each other:

It’s possible to feed your various tweets, status changes, etc. from one Social Media site to another.

To feed your Facebook status to Twitter and vice versa, you can use this Twitter application on Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/search/?q=twitter&init=quick#/apps/application.php?id=2231777543&ref=search&sid=1130005412.376077238..1

To feed your Tweets to Myspace, you can try out this application:
http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewProfile&friendID=463617608

Keeping track of your Social Media Sites:

There are a number of applications that will allow you to view and take action on your various sites at once. Two of the more popular and useful applications are TWEETDECK and HOOTSUITE.

Tweetdeck is a desktop application that will allow you to see tweets, respond, retweet as well as view your Facebook and Myspace content. Hootsuite is a web-based application that also does much of the same, but also allows you to schedule tweets. A great ability to have if you must get information out but know in advance that you will not have access to the web.

I hope you found today’s Tuesday Tip helpful and that it will help you avoid the possible time suck of Social Media. If you have any good applications that you can recommend, please let us know by posting them to the comments section.

Improving Visibility on the Internet

Penny Sansevieri, the CEO and founder of Author Marketing Experts, Inc., tweeted the other day about how Starbucks had taught her something about Search Engine Marketing. For the full text of the article, you can click here on this link:
http://www.articlesbase.com/internet-articles/what-starbucks-taught-me-about-search-engine-marketing-260912.html

The article contains some useful examples for you on how to increase your visibility on the Internet and improve search engine rankings.

We’ve discussed some of them before, like leaving comments on blogs (and finding those blogs by using news alerts). Sending out books for review and having those reviews posted online is another great way to get your name noticed.

Likewise, we’ve talked about doing article submissions to create buzz and drive traffic to your site.

What else can you do?

Having links from key sites back to yours is another way to improve visibility. How do you do this? If you’re book has something that would be of interest to a particular industry (i.e., knitting, crafts, civil war), find sites for that industry and see if you can’t be listed there. Make connections to stores, vendors and magazines in that industry.

An excellent example of using this kind of marketing is Debbie Macomber’s connections from her books to the knitting industry. Macomber even has her knitting related products with her name available at HSN!

If you’re book is in a particular genre, like vampires, search out sites for that genre and ask to be placed on their list of links. Oftentimes sites may require that you link back to them which seems like a fair exchange.

Search engines will see those incoming links and if the site on which your listed is a high ranking site, that will improve your page ranking.

Finally, don’t forget press releases, especially close to the date of your novel’s launch. Reach out to local papers and use those free press release sites to get the word out!

Hope today’s Tuesday Tip was of help!

To Tweet or not to Tweet . . .

Tweet Tweet!To tweet or not to tweet, that is the question. Some of you may be wondering just what a tweet is. A tweet is a post using Twitter.

So now some of you may wondering, What’s Twitter? Wikipedia defines Twitter as “a social networking and micro-blogging service that allows its users to send and read other users’ updates (known as tweets), which are text-based posts of up to 140 characters in length. Updates are displayed on the user’s profile page and delivered to other users who have signed up to receive them. ”

Lots of people are sending tweets. Some believe it is a useful way to promote yourself (see this discussion at Bubblecow) and others do not (see West Pier Words).

I’m undecided, although I’m leaning toward the not. Like Dot at West Pier Words, I’ve gone through the Shelfari, Gather, etc. thing only to find they take up too much time. I do have Myspace and Facebook pages. I’ve found them to be good for letting people know about the books and also, connecting with friends from all over. Same goes for this website and blog. It’s nice to hear from you and it does truly make a difference to me!

As for adding yet another thing to my life – my already crowded and busy life – I think I’ll forego the tweets for right now.

How about you? Do you Twitter? Do you find it for keeping up with friends? For those of you who are published authors, do you like it?

Also, a big thanks to my fellow author Chris Redding for the links to the Twitter discussion. You rock, Chris. You also tweet! LOL!