Here come the Texty Ladies!  Some of us, anyway.  The rest will be here when they get here.  2009 was a bit busy for us all, but we’re all dedicated to this site and we’ll be hanging around more.

So . . .

Magic Monday is back!

To celebrate, [...]]]>

Here come the Texty Ladies!  Some of us, anyway.  The rest will be here when they get here.  2009 was a bit busy for us all, but we’re all dedicated to this site and we’ll be hanging around more.

So . . .

Magic Monday is back!

To celebrate, we’re having a contest. Yay!  But more about that later.

Each Texty Lady has her own story for our hiatus but here’s mine:

In May, 2009, Ann Charles and I launched a website called 1st Turning Point, dedicated to help authors teach, learn, and share with each other—all about marketing and promotion.  The way we had it set up is that she would write an article on Mondays, I would write one on Fridays, and we’d try to find a guest columnist to contribute something on Wednesdays.

That was the plan.

Now we have almost fifty columnists and reviewers, we post four how-to articles per week, plus a website review every Saturday, and a book video review every Sunday.  We have five deckhands to handle the running of the ship.  And we’re all called Parrots—subscribers, crew, everyone.  So we have a great time but man-oh-man are we ever busy!!!

Meet the Parrots (podcast)

We had no idea how popular 1st Turning Point would be, and in such a hurry, too!  Now we also have a monthly podcast called Meet the Parrots.  If you’re an author, you might want to listen the latest show, Your Website: The Essentials.  I’m the host, and my guests were Library Goddess and event planner Deborah Schneider, 1st Turning Point Co-Captain Ann Charles, website designer and owner of DewPoint Studios April Rickard, and first-time website owner Wendy Delaney.  And of course all these authors have a unique perspective on what comprises a good author’s site.

Plus, there’s the forum, and now we’ve started classes, too.  And just because Ann and I didn’t have enough to do, we also started Platform Coach™ and we’re writing a non-fiction book about platforms.  More on that later (we’re still in the proposal stage).

And then there are the workshops—one with Ann and Wendy Delaney, one with Eilis Flynn, a couple on my own, and probably more that I’m not remembering right now.  I’m booked through the end of the year. :faint:

Plus, there’s the actual story writing—you know, the thing I originally started out to do?  Sheesh.

So yes, I needed a hiatus!

Next week, we have a special guest, Carrie Lofty.  She has some awesome books out and more on the way—one with Anne Aguirre.  You’ll learn more about her next week.  I participate in Carrie’s group blog, Unusual Historicals.  If you’re even the faintest bit interested in history, that’s the place to go.  I love the articles.

Oh wait, I got off track.  Anyway, Carrie has contributed a fantastic guest article that all you writers will enjoy.  She calls it “Window Characters,” and I’m not saying anything more.  My lips are sealed.  But come back next Monday and see what she has to say.

As always, Magical Monday will give you a craft article either from me or a guest, and an occasional author interview.  Okay, maybe a frequent author interview.  In fact, we might have a few returning guests.  If life gets too crazy, I might have to skip a posting occasionally, but I’ll try my best not to.

And now {drum rollllllllll . . . } for the contest!

One commenter who posts a comment on any Texty Ladies article posted between now and May 31st will be the lucky winner of a copy of Justin Saragueta’s latest CD, Gueta, and a print copy of Down Home Ever Lovin’ Mule Blues.  I have to limit the contest to USA mailing addresses because of postage costs.  If you’re the winner and you live outside the USA, let me know and I’ll see if I can get a download of Justin’s music, and an ebook to you.  Can’t guarantee that, though.  Winner will be drawn May 31st at 10pm Pacific Time and announced on the comments of Carrie’s article.

Sound good?  Just tell me what’s been going on with you over the first part of this year—truth or lies, I just like to have fun.  Don’t forget to leave your email address.

Have a Magical Monday!

Jacquie

Down Home Ever Lovin’ Mule Blues (See the Book Video featuring Justin Saragueta)
Jacquie’s website * 1st Turning Point * Myspace *** Twitter * Facebook
Faery Special Romances * Book Video Royalties go to Children’s Tumor Foundation, ending Neurofibromatosis through Research

Things happen.

A few weeks ago, I wrote about my experience with publishing a novella on the Kindle, called Faery Merry Christmas. Publishing is one thing–selling books is something else altogether.  It requires time, effort, a little (lot of)  money, and a boatload of luck (which [...]]]>

Things happen.

A few weeks ago, I wrote about my experience with publishing a novella on the Kindle, called Faery Merry Christmas. Publishing is one thing–selling books is something else altogether.  It requires time, effort, a little (lot of)  money, and a boatload of luck (which you get only if you invest the time, effort and money so luck can come around). That’s how it works.

But sometimes it’s not to be.  I haven’t had any chance at all to publicize this book. There are about three of us who know it exists and only one of us owns a Kindle.

Like I said, things happen. My father-in-law passed away two weeks ago (not unexpected, but death is always a shock), and his funeral was last Monday. My husband and I had to travel out of state, and of course several things needed to be handled before we could return. Why am I mentioning my personal affairs in a writing column? Because we’re writers, and things do happen that sometimes puts the kibosh on our best-laid plans.

Faery Merry Christmas is a Christmas story (of course). When do you sell Christmas stories? You’ve got it–Halloween!!! Yep, all marketing for Christmas publications need to have the reviews done, the web pages finished, the book video done, and probably a contest laid out, ready to roll the first of November.

Faery Merry Christmas

Not going to happen. But since my novella is set in 1956, it can be sold next year just as well. I’ll prepare a marketing campaign for autumn of 2010, but meantime I’ll do what I can this year.

I guess the moral of the story is to not procrastinate — get everything done before you think it’s necessary. In this case, I hadn’t decided to publish the book until a friend urged me to, and it seemed like a good idea at the time. Yes, I knew it was late to start publicity,  then Kindle took 3 days to go live so I was late to start with.  So the timing went awry in a major way right from the get-go.

I fully intend to carry on, pretending as if I didn’t lose the prime two weeks of promo and writing time–after all, being with family was time well-spent.  First priority is to get some writing done.  My critique partner and I are heading to her resort condo for a five-day writing retreat.  My AlphaSmart has eight empty files and my goal is to fill all eight of them by the time I return home on Friday evening.

While this article is about promotion and the timing gone south, it’s always good to remember that if you don’t finish new stories, you have nothing else to sell.

Speaking of which, who’s doing NaNoWriMo? Again, the timing is terrible for me, but I can still give it a whirl. November is the month where we can put our heads down and write, write, write!

And you know, things don’t always go the way we wrote it down in our Daily Planners. Sometimes we just have to go with the flow.

Next week, I’ll let you know all about the writers’ retreat I’m attending this week.  I’m really excited to spend five days doing nothing but brainstorming, writing, or drinking wine.  Oh, did I say that?  No wine.  Okay, not much wine.  Or cheese.  I’ll have brie, please.

Jacquie

Down Home Ever Lovin’ Mule Blues (See the Book Video featuring Justin Saragueta)
Jacquie’s Website * 1st Turning Point * Myspace * Twitter * Facebook
Faery Special Romances * Book Video Royalties go to Children’s Tumor Foundation, ending Neurofibromatosis through Research

Most authors are on a gob of readers’ lists. Sometimes I wonder if there are more authors on these lists than readers, but since authors are readers, let’s argue the value another day. For now, let’s discuss how to effectively promote your book using these lists.

First of all, [...]]]>

Most authors are on a gob of readers’ lists. Sometimes I wonder if there are more authors on these lists than readers, but since authors are readers, let’s argue the value another day. For now, let’s discuss how to effectively promote your book using these lists.

First of all, please understand that these readers’ lists are only one venue. There are lots of other ways to promote your book–social networks, contests, print media, and of course the most important, making friends with your local bookseller. However, readers’ lists are good venues for promotion and it’s important for the author to project a professional image through her messages.

What to do, how to do it:

1. Introduce yourself to the list.

Chat with people, congratulate other authors (but be sincere), participate in the discussions but make sure it’s in a meaningful way. When you develop a character in your story what’s the first thing you do? Give the reader a chance to root for him. On a readers’ list, you want to give the reader a chance to root for you.

2. Take it easy on your audience.

If you have several books out, promote only one per day. Many of the readers and most of the authors are on nearly all these lists and the number of promo emails is quite overwhelming. One author who has eleven books out, promotes them all several times a week, so if you’re on 20 lists with her, then you’ll receive 220 emails from that one author. Now, imagine ten authors doing the same. That’s 2,200 emails, of which only the first few are of any interest at all. But wait, since these authors did the same thing three days ago, as well as the past weekend, you’ve had these same emails to deal with over and over and over . . .

You get the picture. Don’t annoy or overwhelm your audience. You want to tell them about your fabulous book, and you want them to love your story as much as you do. So don’t shoot yourself in the foot by spamming the readers’ lists.

3. Embed your book cover in all promo emails for lists that take HTML messages.

If you don’t know how, find out. If the email program you’re using doesn’t allow it, change your program. Why?

Have you ever seen a text message for a Coca-Cola ad on TV? Me, neither. But if they did put a text message ad on TV, do you think they’d scroll a link across the television screen telling you where you can see a likeness of the label on the can? If they did, would you go to that site and look? I wouldn’t.

Your author friends and a few other interested people will take the time to follow the link to your book cover, but not many others, if any, will. If you’re looking to build your audience, this isn’t the way to do it.

Readers do like to see your book cover. Besides, it’s a great way to showcase your work. (I only hope the book cover gods have been as kind to you as they have been to me.) Professional-looking emails will project the image of a successful author, and you want to look successful. So either take a class or hire someone to create your promo ads for you, but make sure you give yourself the best chance at selling your books–and yourself, because building a readership is how you sell your next book.

4. Please follow the posting rules for each list.

I can’t say how many times someone posts with a “Pardon me, but I’ve been on deadline so I don’t remember what the promo days are, but I just wanted to tell you about my newest release . . .” That is SO rude. The message is you’ve been in your own little world, but you’re popping out for a minute and you want everyone to pay attention to you.

I’m moderator for The Haunt @ PNR and we’ve had to put authors on moderation because they blatantly disregard the schedule and post promo whenever they feel like it. By the way, not one of these authors ever bothers to chat with our readers, and readers rarely if ever comment on these “drive-by” postings.

Accidents do happen. Just last week, I got my days mixed up and posted a promo a day early. It’s extremely embarrassing to post in the midst of another author’s day, and to make matters worse, my apology was not taken well. There’s really not anything you can do about that situation–the mistake has already been made and you can’t turn back time. I’ll probably shy away from that list for a while and if I do venture back, I’ll check and double-check to make sure I have followed all the rules.

5. Get some of your author buddies together and schedule a featured author day.

Hey, what could be better than a whole day dedicated to you? Actually, it’s a lot of work, but if you have a connected group, whether from the same publishing house, same sub-genre, same city, or whether it’s a blog group or other group, you’ll fare much better. Why? Several reasons. One, if you have to go pick up your kids from school, there will be other authors there to answer questions. Two, if the readers skulk into the shadows, the authors can still keep a lively chit-chat going. Three, there are more possibilities for publicity, since each author can advertise. And four, you won’t feel alone.

Don’t be shy about asking the moderator for a featured author (or group) day. They need to fill their calendars and that’s not always easy to do. Some months are full and some are lean, so if you’re flexible and patient, you can get some good publicity, and it’s free, which is always good.

How to Prepare

Create and intro email with:

• Your name
• Website
• Bio, preferrably lighthearted to get the day going on a fun note
• Announce a contest

Next email: post a game, recipe, or interesting pictures–hopefully relating back to your book.

Third message:

• Title
• Author
• ISBN
• Buy link
• Book Cover graphic
• Back cover blurb
• Link to excerpt

Of course, you’ll want one post for each book. Please don’t try to cram too much stuff into one message. One book per message.

After that, you’ll want to post a few excerpts, not links to excerpts. Keep up the banter and work up some excitement over the contest(s).

That covers the basics. Then everything else you can handle.

6. Remember Times Square

Eh??? No, I’m not off my rocker. The point here is never put anything on the internet or in an email that you wouldn’t want posted on the marquis at Times Square. The internet is forever. Your great-grandchildren will know everything you said. They’ll be in competition to see who had the wildest great-grannies. Your boss, your mother-in-law, and your kids can follow your tracks on the internet.

And, of course, there’s the Golden Rule. Be gracious toward your peers and your readers, always. Don’t ever let yourself get drawn into flame wars or any sort of character assassination because eventually, you’ll be sorry for it. You’re there to sell books and sell your image, not to be “right.”

So have a good time. I enjoy quite a few lists, and there are some new ones for those of us who enjoy sweet, sensual, and/or sophisticated romances without the graphic language. In case you’re interested, these are:

Classic Romance Revival
Sweet and Sensual Romances
The Book Spa

If you’re a paranormal author and would like to schedule a featured author (or group) day, contact me at jacquierogers @ gmail.com (without the spaces) and I’ll let you know the available dates from which you can choose.

For all heat levels:
The Haunt @ PNR

Next week: Part Two of the interview with singer/songwriter Justin Saragueta. Last week, I posted Part One, if you’d like to read it.

Also, May 1 is the Grand Opening of 1st Turning Point, so be sure to join us for fun and prizes, and at the same time, learn all about promotion.

Have a Magical Monday!

Jacquie
Down Home Ever Lovin’ Mule Blues (See the Book Video featuring Justin Saragueta)
Jacquie Rogers *** Myspace *** Twitter *** Facebook
Faery Special Romances * Book Video * Royalties go to Children’s Tumor Foundation, ending Neurofibromatosis through Research

Hi everybody!

I was asked recently for a signed bookplate. Making bookplates, or buying them, for that matter, hadn’t entered my head until that moment. I loved the idea and decided to google, ask questions, and figure out how to create bookplates to send to fans. I’ve posted below the step by step instructions on [...]]]>

Hi everybody!

I was asked recently for a signed bookplate. Making bookplates, or buying them, for that matter, hadn’t entered my head until that moment. I loved the idea and decided to google, ask questions, and figure out how to create bookplates to send to fans. I’ve posted below the step by step instructions on exactly how I did that; other writers may have other ways of making these, this is the easiest way I’ve found. If you have any questions or suggestions, feel free to post them in comments or send me an email

~Jane

*************************

Open Microsoft Word

Click Tools

Click Envelopes and Labels

Now, I bought Avery white shipping labels size 2×4, so I make sure to click on Avery number 8163 next.

In the same little box, click on FULL PAGE OF THE SAME LABEL

Now click NEW DOCUMENT

Next you’re ready to insert your picture. I had actually created my picture in Adobe Photoshop, so that’s the picture I went after. I also made sure my picture was the exact size of the cell and the label: 2×4. If it isn’t, you should probably resize to the same size as your labels

Click INSERT

Click PICTURE

Click FROM FILE

Find your picture, then double click it, and it’ll show up in the first cell

Now, once the picture is in the cell, double click it

Click LAYOUT tab

Next click BEHIND TEXT under wrapping style

Then click ADVANCED

Now click the PICTURE POSITION tab

Click the little arrow DOWN next to ABSOLUTE POSITION until the number is 0″

Click OK

REPEAT STEPS FOR EACH CELL, filling cells with either same picture, or you can fill each cell with a different picture. Up to you. I varied mine a little.

WHEN CELLS ARE FULL OF YOUR PICTURES, CLICK PRINT. MAKE SURE YOUR PRINTER IS SET ON HIGHEST QUALITY SETTING.

There you go! Now I simply cut apart the labels and they’re ready to send.

Notes: I’ve found that the 2×4 size is lovely, but I may go a step larger the next time I buy labels, to 3×5. It’s really a personal preference, so buy whichever size you’re more comfortable with. They make very large ones, as well!

Here are pictures of two of my finished bookplates–

If you’d like a signed bookplate and a cup cozy I knitted, or a bookmark and a cup cozy, just go to my website, grab my snail mail addy, and send me a SASE.

Here is a picture of one of the bookmarks I made:

Some places you can find pictures are:

GoDigitalScrapBooking.com (beautiful graphics!)

godigitalscrapbooking, Christy Skaggs (I LOVE this place. It’s where I got the graphics for my website)

Digital Scrap Garden, Christy Skaggs (Ditto)

iStockphoto.com

****

My thanks to Loretta Rogers and Anita Philmar for their tips, advice, and help!

~Jane

Authors are responsible for most of their own promotion now, moreso than any other time, from what I’ve been told. I doubt that will ease up any time soon. The successful authors of my personal acquaintance have spent considerable time and effort on publicity. These authors are on or near the [...]]]>

Authors are responsible for most of their own promotion now, moreso than any other time, from what I’ve been told. I doubt that will ease up any time soon. The successful authors of my personal acquaintance have spent considerable time and effort on publicity. These authors are on or near the NYT Bestsellers list, so don’t think self-promo is for small press authors only.

Bottom line is, I believe every author should learn as much about promotion and marketing as she can, and be willing to do whatever it takes to sell books and earn name recognition. There are many avenues–blogs, social networks, online classes, postcard mailings, spamming your friends (no, I didn’t really say that!), and of course, contests. Most of us choose a variety of these in our marketing plans (you do have a plan, right?), including contests. Today, we’ll discuss what makes a successful contest and how to go about conducting one.

I do think contests are an effective way to build your mailing list and garner name recognition. I’m not so sure it sells books, but as the saying goes, we’re using our current release to sell our next book. Is that true? Don’t know. But I do know if your goal is to build your mailing list, a contest is a jimdandy way of doing it.

(Question: Is it still okay to say “jimdandy”? Or is offensive to someone or something? If so, forget I wrote that, please.)

One thing I learned early on was not to get in over my head. Lesson 1: I have a super hard time getting things mailed–don’t know why, but I’m missing that gene. Luckily, my sister is good at it and agreed to take over that part. I bought business cards with her name and the title “Contest Coordinator” before she could change her mind.

So get the practical, physical aspects of conducting the contest under control.
Who will design and code the web pages?
Who will code the messages for online promotion?
And what is the plan for online promotion of the contest?
(You do have a plan, right?)
What are the prizes?
Who will package and mail the prizes?
How will the contest be conducted?
What timeframe? In conjunction with book release? Or a holiday?

Yes, it’s a lot to think about, but all these considerations and more go into the decision to run a contest. There isn’t enough space to go into all the items in detail, but I’ll touch on each of them.

Contests are nearly always run from the author’s website, and for good reason–to bring traffic so the contestant might be lured to buy a book. A website is the best bang for the marketing dollar, and to make the most of it, we need a dynamic site, not static. Contests are a good way to draw readers. But who’s going to code that page? If the author codes it herself, then that project has to be coordinated with deadlines, copy edits, and all that. If not, she has to be prepared to pay. Either way, website changes don’t happen magically or for free.

Same with online promotion. I’m on over 100 yahoogroups, and of those, probably half are readers loops or promo loops. There’s even a yahoogroup that tracks romance promo groups and sends you an announcement each day of what you can post and where called Promotion Loop Schedule. Again, this takes coding (because you don’t want to send amateurish promos), and it takes time to post all those messages–so again you have to weigh the time involved with your writing schedule.

The plan? Yes, before you even start, you have to decide what kind of contest to run, how long it will take, who’s going to do what and when, and what is a reasonable budget. This is a business, and good business requires planning. Write it down and record the schedule on your calendar.

What are the prizes? More is better–either more expensive, or more prizes. Either will get you more entrants than giving away one download. The prizes do need to be commensurate with the scope of the contest; e.g., if your marketing is limited to emailing, most people will never know about the vacation in French Polynesia you’re offering. Save the vacation for a nation-wide print campaign. Download of your most recent ebook? That’s also iffy, because the people who want it are probably the same ones who would buy your book anyway, so you may have just lost a sale. I like to offer my friends’ books. This gives me a chance to give them a little free publicity because they’ve helped me so much, and it also gives me good publicity, so a win-win situation. And I offer my book to them for contests, also.

Okay, one more paragraph about prizes. I recently ran a pet pictures contest and I was amazed at the really awesome pet pictures people sent in. So I told everyone that “we” would mail them something, whether they won or not. Except I sort of forgot to mention it to my sister. This is not a good thing, I learned, unless one enjoys having knots thumped upon one’s head. So don’t change the rules in the middle of the game. Make sure everyone knows what’s going to happen and when, and make sure they have the money and supplies to get the job done.

I’ve conducted three kinds of contests: scavenger hunts with other authors, two different types of voting contests, and then the join-my-mailing-list contest where the winner is chosen from the mailing list. By the way, if you want to join mine, you have to put up with Princess Keely, who runs Keely’s Contest and News Group. (Hint: she rather likes being called “Princess Keely” and has her own myspace page as well.)

Scavenger hunts have resulted in lots of hits to my website and lots of subscriptions to Keely’s group. (Caveat: too many authors and too complicated searches will put off entrants.) Pet pictures voting resulted in the most website hits and the most inquiries about my latest release. The join-my-mailing-list contests didn’t give me a lot of website hits, but quadrupled the number of members on the mailing list in one month.

The last thing we’ll discuss is the timing of the contest. Every romance author has a Valentine’s Day contest, it seems (including me). Do you want to plan your contest then? Or sit it out? I’m thinking this year I might sit it out and have a St. Patrick’s Day contest instead, just because there won’t be so much competition for PR. If you’re having a winter holiday contest, you’re best planning it to be over by mid-December, if not earlier. People are too busy after that to pay much attention. Make sure you schedule your contest to get the most attention to your books and your website.

Hmmm, we haven’t had a contest on Keely’s Contest and News Group lately, so at 11:59pm Pacific Time on February 1, I’ll draw one name at random from the group. All you have to do is be a member, or join if you’re not currently a member.

That said, I’ve already broken a rule because my sister doesn’t know about this. Oh boy, I’m in trouble now!

The winner will receive one Down Home Ever Lovin’ Mule Blues T-shirt and who knows what else. She makes these really cute Faery Special Earrings so you might get some of those if you’re lucky. Don’t know about that–she hasn’t given me any, yet. [pouting]

Coming up: in the next few months, Laron Glover has agreed to discuss her experiences of writing a screenplay, and Justin Saragueta will tell us about songwriting and his journey to release his CD (which will be soon!).

Have a Magical Monday!

Jacquie
Down Home Ever Lovin’ Mule Blues (See the Book Video featuring Justin Saragueta)
Jacquie Rogers *** Myspace *** Twitter *** Facebook
Faery Special Romances *** Book Video
Royalties go to Children’s Tumor Foundation,
ending Neurofibromatosis through Research

Or is it the other way around?

Can a faery blog?

Do readers enjoy seeing characters outside the book?

I admit, I’m a fan of characters and I like to hear their points of view on whatever subject we’re discussing. Too, it’s a departure from the every-author [...]]]>

Or is it the other way around?

Can a mule twitter?

Can a faery blog?

Do readers enjoy seeing characters outside the book?

I admit, I’m a fan of characters and I like to hear their points of view on whatever subject we’re discussing. Too, it’s a departure from the every-author and the this-book-was-so-much-fun-to-write blog. Let’s face it, not all books are fun to write, and even the fun books have their hair-pulling moments. Lots of them, in fact.

Authors are interesting, yes. So are acoustical engineers, farmers, and excavator operators. But characters are really interesting because they’re bigger than life, yet full of life, even though they don’t actually walk on this earth. I’m a big fan of character blogs, as evidenced by the following:

Socrates the Mule, star of Down Home Ever Lovin’ Mule Blues, who says: I’m a miniature mule by design, a performer by occupation, a philosopher by nature, and a matchmaker by necessity. He has his own myspace page, a blog called Socrates’ Cogitations (which he has sorely neglected), and of course, every red-blooded mule needs his own email address.

Last fall, Socrates conducted a Pet Pictures Contest, which was very successful and one of the most fun things we’ve done. Unfortunately, not a single soul entered a mule picture, but at least a donkey named SweetPea made an entrance. We loved him.

Future plans: my husband is making a page linked to the book page called Socrates Sez, and it will be a collection of his witticisms.

Now we get to the Faery Princess Keely, who isn’t all that happy about Socrates stealing her thunder. She’s the star of Faery Special Romances. She has her own blog: Keely’s Faery Good Advice, where she’s willing to give advice but her scribe sort of hasn’t made this what it could be. We did okay for a while, but deadlines, books, PR, you name it, and well, sometimes things don’t happen as we plan. Keely also has her own myspace page and has been bugging me to get on twitter. If anyone, I think Socrates should be on twitter because he’s the master of one-liners, but Keely’s pouting since it was her idea.

She also has Keely’s Contest and News Group on yahoogroups. Socrates announces his contests and news on there, too, and she’s not amused. I’m thinking it would have been a lot better if I’d made the contest and news group under my own name.  She’s really going to be unhappy when a dragon and a pirate come knocking on her door.

You can see I haven’t worked my characters’ blogs and spaces to their full (or even half) potential, but I do have a few suggestions for those who’d like to give this thing a whirl.

Before we get into that, let’s talk about a Great Djinn god named Djetthro-Jason. Oh, talk about scrumptious! Uh, ahem. His scribe, Rowena Cherry, created a myspace page for his book, Insufficient Mating Material. Ms. Cherry went one better when another Great Djinn crashed Djetth’s party–yep, none other than the Saurian Knight, Djarrhett, called ‘Rhett by his pals, who stars in Knight’s Fork, and he does have his own myspace page. (Oh, my . . . he has such a long sword.)

Of course, Socrates welcomed ‘Rhett to myspace, saying, “If ever a two-legged creature could use some cogitating time, it’s the djinn. But it’s a pleasure to meet a djinn with intelligence that nearly equals mine. Certainly doesn’t happen with humans.”

To which ‘Rhett replied, “Salute, Socrates, I want the world to know that it wasn’t I who put out your eye in that piratical picture you left on my site. Yours to a point, ‘Rhett”

Ah, all in good fun and not one graphic word or nekkid person in the lot. (Not that we don’t get naughty, especially Rowena!)

Deborah Macgillivray’s cat, Foutchie, has her own web page but it’s currently undergoing an overhaul. Foutchie also has her own email and blog. She reviews books and movies, and last I heard, was harassing her Lady Purrson about getting an agent, especially since she had a role in Robin D. Owens‘ book. What’s a Lady Purrson to do?

Speaking of Robin D. Owens, her cats are stars, too, and you can read about them on her website.

So whether you use your characters or pets, there’s fun to be had. I do have some advice for those brave enough (or silly enough) to venture into this territory. Some things have worked well and some haven’t. Some should be different.

First of all, I set up Keely’s blog and once I realized the advice column would be too time-consuming, I should have talked my author friends into doing interviews. This does two things: first, it brings their readers to your site (and yours to theirs); second, it gives you a broader platform for the blog.

Secondly (or maybe first, actually), I would have leaned harder on my friends to spring forth with their characters because I think we could’ve stirred up some interest to our mutual benefit. Blogging is becoming passe and we need unique and fun things to read about.

Both Socrates’ and Keely’s myspace pages have been very successful even without putting much time into it. I’d say myspace is where you get your best bang for the buck. I don’t update the pages often enough, though. You don’t want anything static–readers should see something new every single time they come to the site.

I should have given each of them their own pages on my website. I plan to rectify that deficiency in the next few months.

I’m looking into facebook, since it seems to be stealing myspace’s special place in the sun these days.

Characters tend to attract users that authors might not. For instance, Keely is visited and friended by lots of faery people. Socrates is visted and friended by people who love rodeo. And mules. Because of this, it’s important to have information and activities that people out of the ordinary advertising track might like.

How about you? Do you enjoy reading characters outside their books? Do your characters have their own blogs? I’d love to hear from you!

Have a Magical Monday!

Jacquie

Down Home Ever Lovin’ Mule Blues (See the Book Video featuring Justin Saragueta)

Jacquie Rogers *** Myspace *** Twitter *** Facebook

Faery Special Romances *** Book Video

Royalties go to Children’s Tumor Foundation, ending Neurofibromatosis through Research

If you like to blog and would like to make a few simple changes to your site but don’t know HTML, I’d like to pass on a few simple codes I’ve learned that might make a significant difference.  Most blogware (like WordPress) will have buttons you can click to bold, italicize and change the size [...]]]>

If you like to blog and would like to make a few simple changes to your site but don’t know HTML, I’d like to pass on a few simple codes I’ve learned that might make a significant difference.  Most blogware (like WordPress) will have buttons you can click to bold, italicize and change the size of your fonts, however, there is the possibility that your post can become corrupt and you’ll either need to start over or rely on HTML codes.  MySpace is one of many sites that give you fields (like About Me, Movies, Music, etc.) where you can add information but there are no buttons provided to highlight your text and then make a change.  In this case, the following options can easily be used:

To insert a line break:

Place your cursor where you want the line break and type <br /> .  You can use this several times to create extra space between lines or paragaphs.

To make text bold:

Type <b>.  Type the text you want bolded, then type </b>.

To make text italic:

Type <i>.  Type the text you want italicized, then type </i>.

To change the size of your text:

Type <big> or <small>.  Type the text that should bigger or smaller, then type </big> or </small>.

To create a block-level quote:

Type <blockquote>, which will start a block-level quote.  Type the text you would like set off from the preceding and following text, then type </blockquote>.

To center text on a page:

Type <center>. Create the element (text, picture, link, etc.) that you want centered, then type </center>.

You may detect a pattern here with the codes.  The code used at the end of the text is the same as the code used before the text but with a / typed between the < and the code.

To create a link to another website:

Type <a href=”page.html”> where page.html is the URL of the web page you are linking to.  The URL, which stands for Uniform Resource Locator, is the address for a file (or website) on the Internet.  It holds information about where the file is and what your browser should do with said file.

For example, the URL for my journal is http://indya42.livejournal.com.  To use this code and link to my journal, I would type <a href=”http://indya42.livejournal.com”>.

If you’d like the name of the other website to appear (and not just the URL), you would type the initial code, the name of the website, and then </a>. 

For example, using my journal again, you would type:

 <a href=”http://indya42.livejournal.com”>Dreaming in Digital</a> 

It would appear on your page as Dreaming in Digital.

If you have questions about any of my instructions, please drop me a line or comment on this post.  It can be fun to take a standard post or page and spruce it up a bit.  Please let me know if you’ve given it a try.  I’d love to see the results! 

NOTE:  I’ll be posting more codes in a future post.

~ Pamela

Hello everyone! Today I’ll be talking about book trailers; specifically, how to make them. They’re great promotional tools, fun to create, and relatively simple. I’ll take you through my process step by step. I know there are different ways of creating them and different programs to us, but I’ll stick with what I [...]]]>

Hello everyone! Today I’ll be talking about book trailers; specifically, how to make them. They’re great promotional tools, fun to create, and relatively simple. I’ll take you through my process step by step. I know there are different ways of creating them and different programs to us, but I’ll stick with what I know and what is working for me. If you have any questions afterward, just ask!

Step One: First, you must find the graphics you want to use in your trailer. There are different ways of doing this; you can google PUBLIC DOMAIN PHOTOS, FREE IMAGES, STOCK IMAGES. Try istockphoto.com, freestockimages.net, stock.xchng (http://www.sxc.hu/), jupiterimages.com, dreamstime.com. Google is your friend. Just remember that if you’re not paying for it, the photo has to be royalty free, or you have to have permission. I have found some really fantastic photos at DeviantArt. Of course, I get permission from each artist before using anything and credit them at the end of the video.

Step Two: Find your music. Again, you must find royalty free music. I use Kevin MacLeod. I love him.

Step Three: Put royalty free images and music into an easily accessible folder on your computer.

Step Four: On your computer, go to START, ALL PROGRAMS, ACCESSORIES, then click WINDOWS MOVIE MAKER.

Step Five: Under CAPTURE VIDEO in the sidebar, Click on IMPORT PICTURES, find the folder in which you stored the downloaded images, and select the pictures you want. To select more than one picture, hold CTRL while selecting pictures.

IMPORTANT: Go to FILE, and click on SAVE PROJECT AS and name your video. After you’ve done that, click on SAVE often.

Step Six: if STORYBOARD is already selected at the bottom, click and drag your photos, one by one, into the large white slots at the bottom. You can rearrange the order of the pictures later if you need to. If STORYBOARD view is not selected, simply click on SHOW TIMELINE and it will switch to STORYBOARD. Later, you will need to change to SHOW TIMELINE.

Step Seven: Under EDIT MOVIE in the sidebar, select VIEW VIDEO EFFECTS. Choose the effect you want, such as EASE OUT, and drag it down into the little square with the faded out star on your photo on the STORYBOARD. Choose an effect for each photo, and repeat process. If you want to combine effects on a photo, such as EASE OUT and FILM AGE, OLD, simply drag in the EASE OUT first, then the FILM AGE, OLD. You can do this with as many as you’d like. Also, if you select EASE IN and drag this effect to the same photo several times, the EASE IN will be faster and deeper. I particularly like and use EASE IN or OUT in combination with FILM AGE, OLD, because it makes the pictures come alive.

Step Eight: Under CAPTURE VIDEO, click on IMPORT AUDIO OR MUSIC. Select your music.

Step Nine: Click on SHOW TIMELINE at the bottom. Drag your music to the third line under the filmstrip, where it says DRAG AN AUDIO CLIP HERE TO ADD TO YOUR MOVIE when you mouse over. Grab the music once it’s on your timeline and drag it to the beginning image, if it’s not already there. Then you can grasp the end of the music and drag it to where it stretches longer than your last picture. You’ll have to add ending credits; once that’s finished, you can stretch the music to be a little longer than the ending credits. Actually, we’ll go ahead and do that next.

Step Ten: Click on SHOW STORYBOARD. Click on MAKE TITLES OR CREDITS in the sidebar. Select ADD TITLE AT BEGINNING OF MOVIE. Type in whatever you want; on mine, for instance, this is where I wrote One Night With You in the top field, and By Jane E. Jones in the bottom field. Now, for every place you want words, to tell the ‘story’ for your movie, do the following: On the STORYBOARD, click on your image, to select it. In the sidebar, select MAKE TITLES OR CREDITS, the select ADD TITLE AFTER SELECTED CLIP or BEFORE SELECTED CLIP, wherever you want to place the words. You can also select your effects, text, and text color here. You can EDIT TITLES at any time. You can easily do this by right clicking on the text in your storyboard, as well.

Step Eleven: When you’ve finished with that, Select MAKE TITLES OR CREDITS, then CREDITS AT THE END OF THE MOVIE. Add your credits. To get more blanks, simply hit ENTER on your keyboard a couple of times.

Step Twelve: Add your VIDEO EFFECTS as we did in step seven. Now we’ll add VIDEO TRANSITIONS. Under EDIT MOVIE, click on VIEW VIDEO TRANSITIONS.

Step Thirteen: Click and drag desired effect to the blank BETWEEN your images on the STORYBOARD. FADE is my favorite but there are many cool ones.

Step Fourteen: Click on SHOW TIMELINE and scroll to the end of the music. Click on the end and drag the red arrow to the left, to the end of your video. Go a little too long, so you can fade out the music instead of ending it abruptly. RIGHT CLICK on the music line, and select FADE OUT. Play back the move to see if you’ve dragged the music long enough. You may have to make the music a little longer to get the correct fade out.

Step Fifteen: Play back your video and enjoy what you’ve created!

Step Sixteen: Save. Do some last minute tweaking. When everything is EXACTLY as you want it, go to FILE, SAVE MOVIE FILE, MY COMPUTER. Once that is done, you have your video. Go to MYSPACE, YOUTUBE, etc, and you can then upload your video.

Have fun with it! By the time you’re finished with your first video, the second one will be much easier and you’ll be an old hand at it. Enjoy! Let me know when you’ve made your video, I’d love to see it!

~Jane

Wild Design Wednesday!!

Hi there, here is my first small tutorial, and I promise you another later this evening. Part 1 is a Starfields tutorial, a quick and simple way of creating fantastic starscapes… play around with it, and see what you can come up with. The link to the site that taught me my [...]]]>

Wild Design Wednesday!!

Hi there, here is my first small tutorial, and I promise you another later this evening. Part 1 is a Starfields tutorial, a quick and simple way of creating fantastic starscapes… play around with it, and see what you can come up with. The link to the site that taught me my first steps is here: Solar Voyager check for their tutorials.
Part 2 will be my tutorial on how I create planets…so stick around for that.
To download, just please click on the link! It will will link you to my DeviantArt account, and you can download the file from there. It’s a little big
Have fun!
Xoxo
~Kayko May

Link

As promised: here Part 2 of today’s tutorial…on Planets.
Part 1
Part 2
Have fun!
xoxo
~ Kayko

Hey, everybody!  Pamela here, finally, with the first post of my weekly column.  I’ll be focusing on the arts, be it writing, sketching, performance, comics, design or what-have-you.  My main passion is writing so I’ve started there.  I’ve come back to it after a long hiatus and have experienced many trials and tribulations on [...]]]>

Hey, everybody!  Pamela here, finally, with the first post of my weekly column.  I’ll be focusing on the arts, be it writing, sketching, performance, comics, design or what-have-you.  My main passion is writing so I’ve started there.  I’ve come back to it after a long hiatus and have experienced many trials and tribulations on the journey, so, lucky you, I’m taking you along for the ride…