SOCIAL NETWORKING

Dana Lynn Smith, the Savvy Book Marketer, will be offering an important teleseminar on 22 June:  Social Networking Success for Authors.  Participants must register in advance and pay a fee of $39 for the live seminar, a downloadable accompanying study guide and a copy of one of Dana’s reports.  After the seminar, participants can download a recording of the presentation for future reference.  The 75-minute seminar will cover a lot of ground, and the accompanying study guide will contain links to the various resources Dana will recommend.

If you’ve never participated in a teleseminar before, I can recommend this form of training.  One of the benefits is the post-lecture interaction between the presenter and the participants.  If you have questions, you can send them to Dana in advance — or you can send them right after her presentation.

I have always found Dana’s blog one of the best on the subject of book promotion, and I’m sure the teleseminar will be worthwhile.

HARNESSING THE WEB

I have just learned about Matt Mannsfield’s blog Leverage the Web.  He has just uploaded the first in a series of video reviews of online website creation resources.  Like me, he’s done a lot of research into the many applications available, and he has come up with his list of favorites.  He has found a couple of applications that I’ve never run across myself.  His description of them is intriguing — I’ll have to look into them myself.  If you do not yet have a website, this series may help you find the right resource to help you build an online presence.  Certainly, as Matt points out, these online applications are getting more and more powerful.

I’m intrigued enough by Matt’s blog that I’ve signed up for his email newsletter, just so that I’ll be reminded to keep up with his future posts.  That’s a strong recommendation from someone who is aggressively cutting back on my web surfing.  I can already tell from his previous posts that he’s covering information that many writers would find useful.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been looking into the many different routes a writer might take to creating a presence on the internet, with particular interest in the evolving tools to create websites and blogs.  It is astonishing to me how this area has developed so very quickly.  Once the domain of geeks and professional designers, new technologies allow do-it-yourselfers to build very powerful and sophisticated sites with little technical knowledge at all.  Just select a platform, choose a theme and color scheme, drag and drop desired elements into place — and you are in business.

So many options are now available that the biggest challenge is simply choosing which website platform to choose.  Here are two lists that pull together the many options for an overall review.

• 40 Places Where You Can Create Your Own Website Online gives you the links and displays the home page of each service.  The brief descriptions do not really reveal the underlying differences among them all.  If you’ve got a free weekend though, you can work your way through the list yourself — and learn a lot along the way about website and blog creation.  And perhaps you will uncover the service that will appeal to you. Web Design Booth is the blog that pulled together this list.  While you are at the site, roam around other recent posts and perhaps subscribe for its feed.
• AppAppeal’s list of Content Management System web applications is not as wide-reaching as the Web Design Booth list, but it does offer a star-rating system indicating the author’s evaluation of the applications.

I have myself played around with several of these online applications, creating sample sites within a matter of hours just to see how each application works and how they differ.  So far I’m personally most impressed with Weebly, Webs and Wix.  Multiply and Wetpaint, while they serve the purposes of the sites I developed on these platforms, seem less useful to writers.  I’m sure I’ll play around with a few more of them and perhaps eventually develop a chart to clarify the differences I’m finding.

I should add that the lists above do not include the well-known blog platforms, such as Blogger and WordPress.  Nor does it include desktop web-creation applications, which I am currently exploring.  As my investigations progress, I’ll have more to write about this subject.

QUESTION:  What website platforms have you used?  How do you rate them?

With so many writers having so many websites and blogs, it will be helpful to all of us to pool our experiences with the various options.  Please share your observations.

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There’s no better way to explore this option than to look at some writers that are blazing the way.

British children’s book author Anita Hunt is a writer with a cause:  to address the problem of bullying of children, either in the school yard or online.  She has written a book bringing the issue to life for children and concerned adults:  Matty-boy & the Secret Pigeon Racket.  She has built a fully developed website devoted to the issue:  Are You Being Bullied.  Featured prominently at the site are the major characters of her book.  While at the website, take note of the extensive range of book-related products that are available for purchase.

Anita is also endorsing an anti-bullying campaign the Britain — and she’ created a Facebook Fan Page to push it along:  Percy the Pigeon’s Anti-Bullying Campaign..  It has attracted 333 fans.

Some things to notice about Anita’s Fan Page.

• It features a distinctive graphic — from her book, of course — that identifies her work and campaign.
• Just under the graphic on the left sidebar is a description of what the Fan Page is all about.  Amazingly, many people don’t utilize this space very well.
• Each of the tabs along the top contains important content.  You’d be amazed at how many fan pages feature tabs with no content whatsoever, certainly making a negative impression on visitors.
• You will also notice that Anita adds a post at least once a week, always on topic, always of interest.
• Perhaps most important, the Fan Page does not duplicate the book website — instead it complements it with a sense of more personal engagement.

Travel writer Alice Griffin has a very simple, straightforward Fan Page — but it has elements to it that have drawn 287 fans.  On the one hand, she announces possible upcoming travel articles and invites input from her fans.  That leads to some interesting interaction.  Secondly, her articles appear here and there, so this fan page allows her to provide links to her various writings.

• Notice that Alice places her website URL in the sidebar where it’s easy to find.  Click and take a look — you’ll discover a beautifully integrated design that carries through her website and even over into the blog, which is maintained via Blogger, the free blogging platform.  This is a prime example of what design can contribute to one’s online identity.

I was so intrigued by the way the Blogger theme graphically matches with the website, something I’ve not encountered before, that I emailed Alice about that.  It turns out that before becoming a writer a year ago, Alice was a graphic artist.  Here’s her reply:

“I recently updated my blog to try and tie in a similar feel/design to my portfolio website as I felt it was important for visitors to immediately get a sense that the blog was from the same writer, if you see what I mean. It’s quite easy (even for a non-web designer) to amend colours in blogger layout so I just amended the colours of my blog to tie in with those I used on my website, albeit slightly softer. I also created my own header which again anyone can do by saving a simple photo to the required size – or pay a designer a small fee to do it for you if you don’t have the ability. I have even seen graphic designers offering to create headers for very little money on Etsy.”

Writers Susan Odev and Mark Weeks used their Fan Page to announce publication of their book Mum Ultrapreneur five months in advance of publication and have subsequently used it to promote upcoming events and tele-seminars.  The page has attracted 134 fans, and the book itself has ranked as high as #6 in the Motherhood category at Amazon UK.   Things to notice:

• The Fan Page graphic is the cover of their book.  What many people do not know is that the Fan Page ID graphic can be as large as 200 pixels wide and 600 pixels deep.  In this case, the larger graphic truly grabs the reader’s attention — and it graphically ties the Fan Page directly to their book and its website.  Note how the distinctive typeface, the color pink and the photo from the book’s cover [ingeniously "flipped" to provide a visual difference] tie book, Fan Page and website together.
• The Page is uncluttered, offering only tabs with useful information for true fans.

Now if you’ve gotten this far in this post, I must confess to you:  this post was inspired by Nikki Pilkington.  Her blog provides a lot of helpful advice about internet marketing.  Lately, she’s been posting some very informative “how-to” articles about how to best use Fan Pages.  Just days ago, Nikki created a special Fan Page called Here’s My Fanpage, where people can share their own Fan Pages and share insights into the Fan Page phenomenon.  That’s where, in fact, I found the writers cited above.

And, yes, I found Nikki because I’m finally beginning to pay attention to my own Fan Page.  Hey, I’m already up to TWO FOLLOWERS, counting myself.  But then I haven’t promoted my Fan Page anywhere — until now.  Wanna be my fan?

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To quality, one must have published at least one book.  Here’s how Completely Novel states it:

“The writer of that blog must be an author. Our definition of an author includes those who write fiction and non-fiction, prose and poetry. They can be self-published or published by someone else – they must have written at least one book.”

The blogs with the most nominations will be drawn into a categorized short list.  I recommend that readers of this blog go by the website again right after Easter to check on the nominees.  Then click on the links to study them.  It will be a fabulous learning opportunity for anyone who has or who envisions a blog to further their writing career.  Finally, be sure to VOTE on or before 15 April. Winners will be announced on 20 April at the London Book Fair.

As an incentive, anyone who nominates a blog or votes for a winner will be entered into a contest for numerous prizes to be given away by sponsors.

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As I read my online magazine, I also remembered the observation from the current cover story of Fortune Magazine, “The Future of Reading,” about the interactions of the author’s daughter with her new issues of the print magazine Vogue, with her many sticky-note flags on pages to follow up:

…she was trying to annotate each issue [the author wrote], sorting the material by outfits, accessories, footwear, and other categories for later reference.  I noticed that the more issues she tagged, the more frustrated she became.  This was a lot of work.  So why was she doing it?

“Don’t you get it?” my wife observed.  “She’s trying to turn the magazine into a computer.”

That comment, which I read five days ago while flying across the Pacific, hit me like thunder and lightning.  I can’t get it out of my mind, for I think it strikes precisely at the essence of the revolution that’s now in full throttle.  But, mind you, the obverse is equally true as well:

We are trying to turn our computers [and other electronic devices] into magazines.

We writers are caught right in the middle.  We’ve got the content, but just how do we package it in a form that future readers will embrace and enjoy?

FROM BOOK TO E-BOOK:  AESTHETICS, DESIGN AND THE DIGITAL

Strong reinforcement for my current train of thought arrived in my email inbox this morning:  the “last-call” announcement of the Think Future Panel Two seminar scheduled for next Tuesday, March 2, at Random House in New York.  The topic:  From Book to E-Book: Aesthetics, Design and the Digital, presented by Publisher’s Weekly.  The seminar features a graphic designer and three publishing executives dealing with digital media. Details are available at the Think Future webpage.

As writers, especially those of us who will chart our own route to publication, we need to think about e-book design.  After all, the design will become the package through which we offer up our thoughts and fantasies to our readership.  And much of what passes as e-books today is unattractive and a nuisance to read.

Within the past two weeks, I’ve bought several e-books dealing with various aspects of harnessing the computer and the internet as a writer and a blogger.  They are “home-grown” e-books, lacking flashy design or aesthetics.  The reading experience is, frankly, not very pleasant.  The pages are oriented vertically, not particularly handy on a horizontal computer screen.  They are basically simple word processor files converted to PDF format.  To read them, my computer calls up Adobe Reader.  The pages sadly do not fit the screen very well:

• I can either see the full page with type too small to read comfortably,
• or I can boost the page size so that the type is readable  Then, to move from page to page in the e-books I’m currently reading, I’m required to SCROLL DOWN, which before long gets tedious.

The new e-book readers fortunately are addressing these problems, with vertical page orientation, adjustable font sizes and easy flipping from page to page.  Meanwhile, online magazines are currently opting for double-page spreads across a horizontal screen.  To make things even more interesting, new publications will be called upon to instantly redesign themselves as readers turn their e-book devices from vertical to horizontal and back.  Readers, I predict, will quickly get accustomed to these e-reader and tablet formats and their design.

Hidden behind these new marvels is a challenge I’ve not yet seen addressed.  What will the effects on reader expectations be on web design as we currently know it?  Will web design adjust easily to e-readers and tablets?  Or will the ease of reading on the Kindle and iPad force a change in website and blog design?  Equally important, will readers become more focused on short-form writing, such as serialized novels, novellas, short stories, in-depth essays, tightly focused booklets.

BLOGGING FOR THE TABLET

I began thinking about these questions this past week as I wondered how Becoming A Writer – Seriously will translate to the iPad.  Maybe I’m raising false fears, but I do think bloggers may need to search out new “themes” that are designed specifically with tablets in mind.  At the moment, I do not know of any such designs.

I know that in this post I’ve been “thinking out loud.”  I am not offering answers, I’m raising questions.

What do YOU think?  Will e-readers and tablets, just by their physical design and inner workings, begin to influence what we write?  And how we write?  And how we present our work through graphic design?  Share your thoughts.

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Other blogs, of course, provide fodder for Becoming A Writer – Seriously.  Here I share some links, with my own take on just what they provide.  I’m sure some of you will find this information of particuar use.

TOP 100 BLOGS FOR WRITERS IN 2010

Compiling a “top 100″ list takes a lot of time.  Writing insightful annotations for each entry on the list requires even more commitment, but that’s an effort that is especially helpful to readers as they try to identify which sites in the list are of special interest.  One of the best such lists for writers is Top 100 Blogs to Improve Your Writing in 2010, recently posted by Universities and Colleges.  Becoming A Writer – Seriously is honored to be on the list — and I would like especially to thank Colleges and Universities for its perception in identifying the blog’s feature most dear to my heart:

“Easy to navigate yet full of information for a better writing experience.”

Some of you may be surprised to learn that the blog’s Table of Contents was completely conceptualized even before the blog was launched over three years ago.  I took about two months to think through the goals and organization of this blog before it went public.  That preparation has made a lot of difference in keeping me motivated and on track.

This blog’s goal has always been not to be just a place for random postings.  Instead, I’ve aimed at compiling the material here into a virtual online reference book for writers interested in the mechanics and business side of writing.  The Table of Contents has mostly been invisible, hidden away in a drop-down list, until the site gathered enough information to flesh out the various chapters.  Just last week we unveiled our new design, which attempts to put the range of resources here more easily at hand.

FIVE CHAPTERS and KINDLE

I’m an avid fan of MediaBistro’s new blog eBook Newser.  Craig Morgan Teicher has just written a short post that contains several important references for writers.

First, he draws attention to the short story website Five Chapters, where writers can serialize their short fiction.  Or unveil a chapter of a forth-coming book as a teaser, as Sam Lypsite has done.  Fiction writers take note:  this site may play a role in your promotional efforts.

Teicher then goes on to describe how to get the Five Chapters material into a form readable on a Kindle.  Well, that is valuable to know.  More important, the online resource Teicher identifies — ReKindleIt — has value for any writer seeking to promote his website material for reading on the Kindle.  For example, writers may place sample book chapters on their own website, with information about how to ReKindleIt for reading on one’s Kindle.

Teicher in a December column provides more informtion about ReKindleIt, along with tips for best results.  Note, however, that one must first own a Kindle to download material into the device.  Still, writers can tap the resource to encourage website visitors to download their material via this online facility.

CALLING YOUR ATTENTION TO…

Bloggers probably know about Zamantha, a tool for finding links to other blog posts relevant to one’s own post.  I routinely select such links to append at the bottom of my posts.  Many of them point to really important information.  Today, for example, I point to a brand new startup website for both Writers AND Readers.  This may eventually become a useful tool for bringing one’s own work to more reader eyeballs.  Check it out.

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How many times have you heard the recommendation that serious writers should maintain a blog or a personal website.  I’m guessing many of you are already actively engaged.  This post is especially for you, with some information that may help you improve your blogging experience.

FREE BLOG EDITORS

Most bloggers probably just use the internal posting feature contained within their blog platform, be it Blogger, Wordpress, or whatever.  There’s nothing wrong with that.  That’s what I mostly do.  But sometimes using an external blog editor has advantages.  I’ve rounded up a few links that lead you to thorough discussion about these advantages, along with reviews of the many options available to you.

For those wanting a free editor, I’m pointing you to an excellent post at TechHail, which gives quick, insightful reviews of 10 WYSIWYG blogging editors.  This is a really good summary of what is available these days.  I’ve experimented with several of these.  Currently, I sometimes use ScribeFire when I come across something I want to blog about while I’m surfing the web.

OFFLINE BLOG EDITORS

The TechHail list, however, leaves out some important options, especially for Offline Blog Editing.  I personally have run into occasional problems when using the editor within Wordpress, and even ScribeFire, with posts somehow lost.  And sometimes when I’m travelling, I want to write a post on my laptop, even when I have no internet connection.

When I discovered offline editors almost three years ago, I also learned the reassurance I found by having local copies of all m posts right on my own computer.  I also discovered that offline editors provide some power not available within the Wordpress online editor, especially when it comes to design and manipulation of graphics.  I settled on Ecto, an editor available for both PC’s and Mac’s, and I used it for quite a long time.

The downside becomes apparent when one goes through computer crashs and upgrades, requiring reinstallation of software.  I’ve had my share of those over the past 6 months, and now I’m back to relying to online editors that do not require any installation on my computer.  Still, I miss the added power offline editors provide.

The Wardman Fire has an excellent discussion of the many benefits of offline editors.

If you are intrigued by offline editing, here’s a very useful, though somewhat out-of-date post with reviews of offline editors at One Cool Site Blogging Tips.  Serious bloggers can also learn a lot by browsing through this site — lots of useful tips there.

WORD 2007 AS BLOG EDITOR

Lest we forget, Word 2007 can serve as one’s offline blog editor.  It’s a build-in feature.  Mind you, it has limitations, and some people don’t like it at all [see link below].

FINAL WORD

More recently, people are beginning to blog from their iPhone.  I’m sure this will proliferate as the iPad gains traction.  For more information, check the link below about four such applications.

SHARE WITH US your own experience with blogging.  What platform do you use, and why?  Do you ever turn to an external editor?  If so, tell us about it.

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Yes, newspapers are laying off staff and even shutting down right and left.  But, in case you haven’t noticed, the internet, which has helped kill off newspapers, is spawning a new opportunity: the HyperLocal News Website.  It’s yet another example of big do-it-all enterprises giving way to niche players.  Writers take note!  There’s a lot of opportunity out there in this emerging field.

EXAMPLES:  SUCCESS STORIES, SAD STORIES

Sun Valley Online: Billing itself as “The Voice of the Wood River Valley,” this small enterprise provides a livelihood to its three core journalists.  It’s been around already for five years.

Buckingham Herald Trib: Just to put things in perspective, not all hyper-local news sites succeed.  Steve Thurston, the editor of this news site, wrote late last month about his decision to say “goodbye forever, for now.”

Naples News: Even established community newspapers are jumping on the hyper-local news band wagon.  Steve Thurston’s article above pointed me to this small, thriving newspaper:

… I felt like I was on the cusp of one trend in journalism: hyper-local coverage.  Newspapers all over the nation have carved niches out of their communities, given laptops to reporters, and told them to make an office out of their cars, their houses, their local coffee shops and bookstores.  Naples (Florida) Daily is one that has done this more than others, with dozens of reporters covering news with laptops and cell phones.

Banderas Bay News:  I first encountered this hyper-local journalistic phenomenon right here in my retirement home in Mexico.  Expats all around Banderas Bay — that includes Puerto Vallarta, Nuevo Vallarta, Punta de Mita — turn to this valuable news source, which has become in a short time the most reliable English-language source of “real” news, as opposed to tourism-oriented websites.

A NEW BLOGGING PLATFORM:  NEIGHBORLOGS

The primary reason for my post today is to bring to your attention to a new blogging platform created specifically for hyper-local news sites.  I’m speaking of Neighborlogs, a free open-source blogging platform still in beta development.  I’d never heard of it until this morning when I read a post by Dave Chase in Online Journalism Review entitled 15 Criteria for picking a content management system for an ad-driven hyperlocal news website. Chase knows what he’s talking about:  he’s the editor of Sun Valley Online, and he’s preparing to shift his website from Wordpress over to the Neighborlogs platform.

Here’s how Neighborlogs describes itself:

Neighborlogs is a free, hosted placeblogging platform with an integrated local advertising service. It is designed for local content entrepreneurs and organizations to document the news and information that matters most in their communities and gives local businesses a relevant, engaged audience for their advertising messages.

The distinguishing element here is the “integrated local advertising service.”  This will be a model for bloggers to create income.

Neighborlogs points to several examples of sites using its software.  Here are three hyper-local news sites, all from Seattle — they truly illustrate the neighborhood opportunities within larger cities.  Check them out.  You will find that they all look different, even though sharing common elements:

Capitol Hill Seattle

South Lake Seattle

Central District News

This publishing platform, according to Dave Chase, makes it easy to gather a team of reporters who can post to the news site.  I’m guessing that success in the hyper-local news niche will depend on the editor’s ability to build such teams.

Neighborlogs is developed by Instivate, which, it comes as no surprise, is located in Seattle.  The company has a companion free software InstiAds, also in beta development. This is the software that will easily create ads for insertion into a Neighborlogs website.

Like most software in beta stage, anyone interested can request an invitation to become a beta tester.  Maybe that’s YOU.  You can follow developments regarding Neighborlogs through its own blog.

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In case you don’t know, ScribeFire is a free Mozilla Firefox extension that allows one to write blog posts from within the Firefox browser.  This is really convenient, especially if one is blogging about information gleaned from the internet.  Just check one’s sources in various browser tabs, then write the blog in another tab.  It’s that simple — at least, so I’m told.

By default, ScribeFire opens two screens, with the blog itself on top, and the post entry form on the bottom.  The bottom screen can be saved as a “note,” rather than a post published on the blog — very useful when building a post over several days of research.  While writing, one can easily insert links, photos and video.

ScribeFire works with a number of different blogging platforms.  I use WordPress — and ScribeFire did all the behind the scenes work to set itself up to post items there.  Also, one can add a number of different blogs to a list, so that you can easily post to multiple blogs from one place.

Making its debut on 12 October, Social Media Examiner is new blog — it calls itself an “online magazine” — that may become a major source of marketing advice for writers.  Founded by writer and blogger Michael Stelzner, this venture will certainly contain lots of nuggets specifically for writers, along with all the general advice for business people and marketers wishing to harness the social media.

The blog opened its doors already with a stock of very useful articles, by a strong team of professionals.  This blog will focus primarily on the major social media, from a marketing point of view, including LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter.

Becoming A Writer Seriously has over the past 3 years been examining the emerging new paradigm for writers, a revolution comparable to that spawned by the Gutenberg press.  Now anyone can get published.  Anyone can reach tens of thousands of potential readers.  All at virtually no cost.  But to do so requires a new set of skills, a new way of thinking about one’s writing career.  I foresee Social Media Examiner becoming a major tool for writers who wish to equip themselves for this new world.

I’ve been following Examiner founder Michael Stelzner for several years now, via his blog Writing White Papers.  His blog takes a decided slant toward copywriting and business writing — but I often find ideas and information there that’s useful even to novelists, journalists, essayists and the rest of us writers.  His blog has become recognized as one of the very top blogs for writers, an honor well-deserved.  With this new venture, I think Stelzner and his professional team will have even more important information to share with us.

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