Category Archives: Author

Author, Tips, URL, Website

Author’s Website:Take a Bite Part 2

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How many posts per page? After checking out several websites and asking around the consensus is three posts is considered enough at first viewing of a page. If people are interested they will look further. The word count per post should be around 500 words give or take a few. Anything excessive will make people stop reading unless the post is drop dead amazing then well ignore this advice.

What I like is how we can personalize it with our own pictures. My heading is my main character to my first book, ” Jasper, Amazon Parrot”.  It is often one will see  authors promoting their books or characters by the pictures located on the first page.

Do leave a place where people can contact you. This was a big snafu I had done. I had shown them where to find me but not how to contact me directly. Lesson learned, one of many we will all discover as we branch out into doing our webpages.

What format you use will determine how many widgets you can place whether on one side of the page or on both. You can even have the drop down menus that you can see on my page at the top. That is a golden opportunity for people to take a quick peak and see what you got going on. Just make sure you keep it updated. Something I need to do in fact.

You can have so much fun with creating your website. It can be how ever you want it while working for you at the same time. Now when I hear of my writer friends tell me they don’t have a page I tell them what is stopping you? How can I help? A far cry from when I waited two months while my site was set to private. It brings out the confidence in a person as their words are being read by other people. To get a person to click like to a post or even comment still makes me giddy. I love it. And you will do once you get started. So after all this what is stopping you?

I don’t proclaim to know all that is good and bad with setting up a page but as always if you have any questions just holler.

Author, Facebook, Online Communities

Facebook Author Page

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You need one right? Sure you do. Some authors makes one for each book while others like me creates one that pertains to us as writers. How easy is it to do? Simple actually. If you already have a FB account then all one has to do is create a group.

Create a page at the link here

https://www.facebook.com/pages/create.php

It is as easy as filling in the dots. Before you start you might want to take a few minutes to figure out what you would like your page to be called. Do you want it primarily for you as an author or for each of your books. How would you describe yourself? What is the purpose of you creating this page? Are you wanting to use your real or pen name if you have one?  Once that is all figured out it is time to begin at the link above. You can change your name of the page a few times. However once you have 25 likes the name you place in the box will be the name until the group is no longer active.

This is a good way like Twitter and other social medias to get your brand and yourself out there. When I first started 25 seemed like a heck of a lot but that is where family comes in and friends of family. Thanks to them I reached the magical number relatively fast. There is one thing that FB does not say out there in the open. If you like someone’s page using anything but your profile page then the like is not counted toward the overall count. Why? No one seems to know the answer to this. So if you are getting people to like your page or you theirs use your profile page not your FB fan page.

How can we get our likes to increase comes to networking. There are quite a few karma groups out there that it’s mere existence is to like other people’s pages, follow their author’s blogs, follow them on Twitter and the likes. Some people are happy to jump on this wagon and go for the ride. Others feel it is impersonal and rather go slow and steady. Whatever way works for you works for you. I dip into both pots. Why not I mean it is all about authors helping authors trying to support each other in a tough business of publication.

Since I have started my page the hits on my author’s blog has gone up and with a bang. People are talking about what I write there and are sharing it with each other. A win for me and for what I am trying to accomplish. You can find the karma groups on FB, Twitter and other media. I have gotten most of my likes from Twitter and FB groups. In fact I am now an admin for such a group that helps share the karma around. On FB it is called Author Karma Group.

It is not a sure hit, most people will follow some will not. This crosses all formats of social media. But in doing this you come across some pretty cool people who are willing to share with you what they have learned as I am trying to do here in my social media series. We are all here for each other, trying to help each other out like others have done for us.  Some people are not into FB or creating pages for themselves and that is totally up to them. This is a tough business though an a little help goes a long way. And by doing this on FB it is a good start on getting your name out.

Have any questions just ask.

Author, Book, Dream Big, Emotions, Jasper, Publication

Dream Big

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This is a chorus from the song “ Dream Big”

And when you dream, dream big
As big as the ocean blue
‘Cause when you dream it might come true
When you dream, dream big

This is a phrase we hear a lot. When I first heard the song by Ryan Shupe and the Rubberband I immediately fell in love with it. So seeing this plaque while I was shopping with my mom I knew it was coming home with me.

My mom on seeing the plaque said to me, “Sharon, do you dream big?”  Looking at her I nodded and replied I did.

As we continued our way around the store what she had asked me still was in my head. Do I dream big? I have been a dreamer for most of my life. My imagination has always been without borders as I wondered, plotted and tried to figure out how to accomplish what was going on between my two ears.

My first dream big was to go to a four year school of higher learning. I would be the first in my family and I was determined to not fail. Even when I changed my major in my Junior year I still graduated on time at the top of my department, Chemistry and Physics.

But when that day came what was left? Finding work and getting married seemed to be what we did at least in the time frame I was at. When my future mother law had said ,” Sharon don’t make me a grandmother before a mother in law,” I told her my only goal at that moment was to graduate.

Getting married and having a child was another dream, one that came and went pretty quickly.  My life started to have a routine about it. There is nothing wrong with routine. It keeps me stable and focused. Yet when my mom asked me that questioned I wondered when was the last time I dreamt big and the first answer that came to my mind was my writing.

I started writing Jasper:Amazon Parrot in the Fall of 2009. I completed it in a few months and have done so many revisions and edits if one saw the first draft to where it is at now you would recognize the name Jasper and that is about it.  Prior to that time I had never thought of myself as a writer in any form. A good friend Debbie told me that my husband had told her he felt I wrote well. When she told me that the wheels started to turn in my head. That summer is when the thoughts and words came of how to start this book. I am not sure what was the umph that made me get started but I did and have not turned back.

This is my dream big project and it has been with me for a few years now. I don’t think of the business as being hard, which we know it is. I don’t think of the many people who have told me this can’t be done. I don’t think of all the negatives that can come in one’s way when one tries to get a book published.

My sole thought is why the hell not? Seriously what do I have to lose? My back up thought had always been if worse come to worse I can make it into a book and read it to my grandchildren the series that I have in mind of writing. So with that I am pushing forward with this book and others that have been written since the late months of 2009. This is my dream big. It has been a rocky ride but I am up to the task. I don’t have a back up dream big plan at the moment, I am too busy trying to make this one a reality. ‘Cause when you dream it might just come true.