I was challenged at the beginning of opening a Pinterest page to come up with an idea about how to make Pinterest interesting for authors to think of as a marketing tool.
The main goal of Pinterest appears to be sharing photos, recipes, how-to’s, and interests in one place so that friends can view them. I’ve found it fascinating to see what other people know how to do! People create boards about odd things also. I’ve been creating a Pinterest board for my husband, because he is opening up a dental practice in a few months on lower Westheimer, and he needed a board about Dental Health. Let me say here, there is some disgusting things on Pinterest having to do with Dental health. Ach! Ach! I wasn’t wanting to gag …couldn’t help it. You won’t gag if you view Nolen Dental’s Pinterest board http://www.pinterest.com/pbndds/
It hit me one day that both of my novels are visual. There are specific places on earth to pinpoint the location of each in a visual way. The Dry is also full of nature, especially insects. Deadly Thyme is set in one of the most visually amazing places on earth, Cornwall, England. How to evoke interest in my novels while serving the general public’s desire to be interested? If I post pictures of the places in my novels on my Pinterest, I may have discovered the one way to do that.
p.s. the photo above is of mole crickets. I used to hold them like that, too. Awesome, weird, creatures.
I also wanted to share what a BLAST I had at the Menilfest last Saturday! There must have been close to a thousand people come through during the day. Sometimes the crush of people was so thick I could see through them. The Dry had great sales but I have to give credit where credit is due and that is to THE WASP! I had my wasp costume with me and I had it on a dress dummy. I’ve tweeted the pictures but I’ll post them here tomorrow.
Also on Sunday a long section of lower Westheimer near our house was blocked off to traffic so that people could walk on the road! It was called “Walk Houston”. The organization will host another road block next month in the Heights.
We walked but not on the road. We walked over to see the tearing down of the old building on the corner of Montrose and Hawthorn. It was the multistory building where the famous Cody’s Rooftop Bar was a huge attraction for years. It was the only place in Houston where a live jazz band played all the time.
The weather was delightful here in Houston. If you were here I hope you got outside. If you live anywhere else. I’m Sorry.
Kidding! I hope you also had lovely weather and walks where you live, too.
This is Kristen Lamb’s blog post and it’s great. But to tell you the truth, I fell out of my chair laughing at the banana slicer Amazon reviews. Really, really funny. But you can read it to find that out, too.
This is a heartfelt expression from another mom. But I know the feelings she expresses as she watches her daughter perform on stage.
There are times I watch my daughter from across the room and my breath catches in my throat. It seems she caught all the good genes. She has my husband’s narrow face and my family’s golden skin.
As a child I prayed for blue eyes. Brown was boring. Needless to say I have brown eyes. But as answer, he gave me a child with the clearest blue eyes on the planet. At the time it seemed miraculous given that my husband has dark jade green eyes. But now I see more clearly. Because I can look across the room and catch my daughter’s blue eyes and that’s a better answer to prayer than I could have imagined.
Home school assignment: brutally honest reviews of books
Hannah Roberts was given a choice of assignments one of which was to choose books to write reviews for. Here is what she posted on the Internet:
YA Authors! If you want the brutally honest opinion of a 14-year-old girl of your new book, send me an ecopy and I will post a review, post a video of my review of your book and share it on my Facebook and Twitter accounts. It’s a home school thing but this is an assignment I think I will really enjoy! Contact me at mobookreviews@gmail.com
So I asked her if she would do a review of my book. You all know that if you don’t ask you can’t expect anything. A rejection is a reflection of your courage.
I love stories where the heroes are my age and are fighting for what is good. I love stories with magic and magical creatures, other worlds and mystery! So when I started reading The Dry, I was really excited because it has all of that!
Elliot is a 12-year-old who goes out into the world to search for his father. When he meets Lefty, Eliot discovers another world where dragons live, just under the surface of the world. But there is more to this new world than meets the eye. Water is disappearing and so are several children!
Elliot is determined to find out why it is happening. He learns of his own powers over animals of this world and must find a way to use it to help him solve the mystery of the disappearing water, the disappearing children and the mystery of the dry!
Will he be able to find his father? Or the kids? Nope, I’m not going to tell you! You have to read it yourself! I loved Lefty’s attitude because she was strong and wasn’t willing to give up when things got hard. It was very fun to read! Posted by Hannah Roberts at 3:05 PM
A long time ago I decided that I would make my dreams come true and get a book or two published. That was about twenty years ago. I’ve worked hard since on reaching that goal, but you have to admit twenty years is a long time. Along the long and winding road to publication I discovered a very valuable tool to always have in my tool drawer. Every once in a while I must, must, must pull it out and slip it over my head to wear. Yes, that’s right, a writer must have a thick skin to be able to withstand the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune and/or snark.
This odd skin development starts at home. The act of writing is a private thing in the beginning. Unless you are having the words of your novel tattooed on all forty of your friends, or you are twittering the novel in increments of 140 characters or less over the course of however long it takes to do that. Or, like Neil Gaimon you tweet all your twitter followers a question a month, and write-illustate-sing a complete story from each favorite answer. Me? I write alone – with the dog, an impatient-for-a-walk companion. I then take the bit I’ve written and share it with a family member for an opinion. This can be tough. Family members aren’t necessarily your best and most encouraging critics. Here is where the skin begins to thicken.
Next, you take your revised work to your critique group. They give you constructive (we can only hope) criticism that you can use because you trust them. Then, there’s always the one – you know what I mean if you’re in a critique group – there’s always the one person who slams your effort. Here is where the writer’s skin becomes cow hide.
Last but not the least in this process is presenting your masterpiece to editors and agents. Oh, the mortification! Oh, the anguish! Oh, the *let’s not get too melodramatic!* Let’s just say the skin begins forming layers upon old, crusty layers to become inches thick.
Having thick skin doesn’t mean there aren’t hurt feelings, it means that you quickly dry your tears and pick yourself up and go forth to write another day!!
Then, years and years and a lot of tears later, you see your baby book birthed. Oh, isn’t it precious? Isn’t it adorable? Doesn’t it look just like Mommy? (Okay…that’s too far) But yes, you have a novel. And in order for that novel to grow up and make it in this world it has to have reviews.
The reviews begin to trickle in. Oh! How excellent! Look, isn’t that lovely? And
what’s this?
GAK!
Two stars????!!!!
I received my first bad review last week. Before you, my friends, storm the Bastille to take down the infidel – stop. Don’t do it. Don’t do a thing. This is important. Why? Because I have thick skin. I can take it. There are two good reasons to have bad reviews. First reason, it teaches me something that perhaps I was unaware of and in this instance I did not stress enough on storycartel.com that The Dry is a children’s book. Secondly, a bad review proves that this is a real book read by real people.
Yes, please read the bad review. Please do not press the “no” button that this review was not helpful, and do not reply with a comment to the review. Do read the five-star reviews and press the “yes” button if any were helpful to you. The best defense is always a good offense and in this case if you have read the book – give me an honest review. Or if you haven’t read the book, get it and read it and give me an honest review. This is especially true if you have youngsters in your house that you can read it to or who would like to read it. I really need reviews from some kids.
Here’s a review that is not posted on Amazon about The Dry. This is from a junior high girl writing to her school librarian.
Mrs. Martin,
I finished the book you asked me to preview! It was wonderful! I will bring it back to school tomorrow.
It is totally appropriate for middle school students, I would put it lower middle school. 6th – 7th grade age. As a girl, I liked it. The girls would enjoy it if they like science fantasy, like Chronicles of Narnia…
In very general terms, it is a good vs. evil battle. It is like a mix of Narnia and Lord of the Rings set in the 1800s using insects, lol. It is the Wet (water, animals, good) forces against the Dry (arid, insects, bad) forces. There is a boy trying to save his father and a girl who is trying to save her brother as the main characters. It gets a little convoluted toward the end trying to keep up with everything but I really enjoyed it. Of course, the good wins out in the end and the queen of the Wet (good) shows forgiveness to those that betrayed her.
Moral of the story – it is never to late to ask or receive forgiveness, keep your promises, working together can bring triumph.
It is a very interesting book. It didn’t explain everything that I wanted to know, but it moved fast enough that I wasn’t bored.
I just read a great post by At WordPress.com. It is about not putting a link in your tweet or comment because you are trying to market yourself. I’m sure I’m guilty of this. I’ve been very enthusiastic about posting my URL for my book all over the place.
There is a time and place for this. I am not trying to be boring but doing anything repeatedly is boring.
At any rate, this is a great post if you take time to read it you’ll see what I mean. Plus, if you are trying to promote a business or a book, follow me on twitter – @rlnolen to see the tweets I’m finding about social media and author platform.
I’m wondering if you, my wonderful readers, would be interested in giving me a review on Amazon? You see, I’m fully aware that Amazon is the new “black” for the world of publishing. The “place to be” for any writer is getting to be top-rated on Amazon. Go Amazon!
Some people don’t like Amazon because they are the equivalent of the “big box store” and because they cut prices on books and often will cut the price lower than any other book outlet. But what I’ve found is that many people are willing to pay that extra two dollars or four dollars for a book they’ve discovered at their local book store, too. Amazon can mark down prices on my books, it doesn’t offend me at all.
About reviewing my books. I’m not asking for a thumbs up. Because my asking for such a thing isn’t right in the grand scale of RIGHT. I don’t want you to support my book if it isn’t good.
Here is what one reader said of it – “Twelve-year-old Elliot Sweeney could walk off the page, he feels so real. He’s a collector, a tinkerer, a lost boy who is more interested in rescuing his lost father than in sitting around whining about being stuck alone with an uncaring uncle. Compassion comes naturally to him; it is neither effeminate nor overwrought, it simply is and it defines him. Lefty is an excellent companion for Elliot. Fierce and determined, Lefty’s deeply ingrained mistrust and tendency to avoid getting involved in other folks’ troubles are a valuable contrast to Elliot’s nature. The Wicked Prince of Every Place lives up to his name and reputation; smart and evil, he is motivated by an unquenchable thirst for power, ironically played out by taking control of the world’s water supply.
Reviews don’t have to be elaborate. And please don’t say *** spoiler alert and give away things. A good review is a sharing of enthusiasm for the story. You can even tell which character was most appealing to you. You can share favorite excerpts. I love it when a reader shares favorite excerpts. Chances are they are my favorites, too.
Buy a book and I’m thrilled, give me a review and I’m ecstatic, tell a friend and I’m indebted forever.
I was reading a blog the other day about author platform and one thing this author said struck me as doable. If you google yourself (go ahead), and you find your name and your novel, business, etc. at the top of the page, you “got it”. You have struck gold and you have the proverbial “platform”. You have answered the bridge troll’s three questions…you get to go across the bridge to …ummmm. Okay, you get to go across. Be happy.
Okay, I’m all for easy, so I googled Rebecca Nolen. I find my name up at the top of the page, several links to me at my “social media” sites and about half-way down the page there it is again… “The Real Rebecca Nolen”.
Ha. Ha. Ha.
The link goes nowhere, meaning that there is no information of what and who this “real” Rebecca Nolen is except that she is a total mystery. The only nugget of gold information that can be scraped up is that she lives in Dallas. I should pay her a visit.
Knocking on door…woman opens door, “Yes?”
Me. “Are you the real Rebecca Nolen?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, I’ve been researching Rebecca Nolen and I see that you are the real one, or so it says on Google.”
Door slams.
Well, and that’s as far as I got trying to figure her out on Google, too.
So, I scroll down the Rebecca Nolen google page and find a lot of obituaries. There are a lot of dead Rebecca Nolens. Sad.
And more scrolling, Rebecca Nolen’s arrest record in Ohio. Hmmm. Haven’t been there in thirty years, no worries. Wait! What’s this??? Rebecca Nolen arrested in Galveston. Whoa! That’s too close to home. Ouch, she even looks a tad bit like me … if I had no teeth… and red hair. Okay, she doesn’t look much like me.
And more scrolling – found lots of references for The Dry. That’s fantastic!! The Dry is showing up, people! Get it while its hot. And what’s this? A link to Rundstedt’s flicker page…where… he is showing all his friends my novel THE DRY!!!! Wow! Bing. Bing. Bing. Jackpot! Rundstedt is the WASP photographer who lives in Australia and kindly, I say KINDLY let me use his amazing photo for the book cover. Wow. He is showing everyone the book. Wow.
Who cares about platform when you have a world-famous photographer showing his friends your book?
What a joy to be able to connect with readers through social media. One junior high boy wrote to me yesterday that he loved The Dry. He said it was “awesome”. A girl wrote recently on FB that she was enjoying The Dry.
Social Media is a buzzy set of words. Without social media how do we connect with people that we know now? Or how do we meet new people who share our interests? I don’t know the answer. The world is not necessarily friendly. There are few opportunities to connect to people we would want to hang out with daily.
With social media such as Facebook or Twitter or Pinterest you can at least view those trying to connect with you. I don’t connect with people with no photo for instance unless I do know that person already. When someone tries to connect to you, wanting you to “accept” them, you can check out their page first. This would be difficult to do in the physical world. It’s not as if you can ask a person who wants to meet you walking past on the street all the pertinent questions within a few seconds. I think if someone stopped me on the street, I’d be apt to run away. Unless I’m walking the dog and they have a baby in a carriage.
Meeting people on Facebook is a snap. You can see where they’re from, where they live now, what they do for a living, if they own a dog… all in the comfort and time period that you wish, before accepting them as “friends”. It seems safe.
Are computer “friends” the same as friends? There are pros and cons about the “friendships” we have on the computer. Our FB friends are there as we share troubles, have a birthday, or celebrate a book launch. They might live on the other side of the world, but they are able to press “like”, type “Congratulations!” or “LOL” just as if they lived nearby and will be meeting up for lunch later in the week. The cons are that some FB friends are friends in a disconnected way.
Fortunately, you can control how much and to what extent FB friends, twitter friends, or LinkedIn friends/associates can see of you and what they can see of your other FB friends. The part about “your other friends” is important. I have marked on my security controls that friends except acquaintances can see my posts on my personal FB page. This is important. I may not know my friends’ friends so I don’t actually want them to see pictures of my family.
We all get the occasional repeat repeat of announcements in our news feed. An example from back when it was popular is Farmville. I never wanted to get on Farmville, but Farmville under the guise of being posted by friends would send me invite after invite to join. To the far right and upper corner of every post you can scroll your mouse over and see a little drop down box. In that box you can “mark as read” or “turn off”. In other words, you can turn off those annoying “please join such ‘n’ such” bits that turn up every other hour.
Another way you can control what shows up on your actual FB page is that you can delete and even edit what appears or what you’ve added. There have been things that I did not solicit or want to appear on my page. The occasional old photo where someone has “tagged” me I enjoy seeing. I don’t enjoy seeing ads to enter contests, or buy products. In a post, you can run your mouse over the top right hand corner and you will see a drop-down box that asks if you want to: change date, add location, highlight, hide from timeline, delete, or report/mark as spam.
Any post you post to your own timeline or to someone else’s you can go back and edit later, or immediately. Just like my writing, I often see mistakes in a post that I’ve posted when I read it again the next day. And just like my writing gets edited often more than once, so a post gets edited. You can do this, too.
Not seeing much on FB? If you click on “Home” at the top of the page you will see a long list/feed of what everyone on your friend’s list has posted. Poignant, sad, hilarious, scary, morbid, encouraging, and interesting stuff gets said every day. Scroll down and engage in fun, happy events. Leave a short comment or click “like”. Spend a little time doing this every day. You may see someone whose opinion makes you smile and think “I wonder if they would join my friend’s list?” Do it. But not often and not many. Facebook does not encourage mass “friending”. In fact, you can get booted off.
I hope I’ve given you some ideas about how you can control what kind of FB experience you have. Give yourself an enjoyable fifteen minutes a day on your FB visiting friends.
Briefly, I want to share the one thing I’ve learned of value from Twitter. There is a lot of information being passed around on twitter in the form of “how-to’s”. Check out what interests you. If you find something you like or have found very informative, retweet it. You can scroll over the top right hand corner of a tweet and see your options appear.
Control your social media so that it doesn’t control you. Enjoy getting to know others in shared business or interests. Have fun and be careful. Navigating the internet is like walking down the street. For your own safety you need to know what’s going on around you.
people was so thick I could see through them. The Dry had great sales but I have to give credit where credit is due and that is to THE WASP! I had my wasp costume with me and I had it on a dress dummy. I’ve tweeted the pictures but I’ll post them here tomorrow.
Walk Houston”. The organization will host another road block next month in the Heights.
Rebecca Nolen 