Remembering Columbine

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weekend chatterbox: Will Oprah Fail Twitter?

Now that Oprah is @Oprah on Twitter will social media change for readers and authors? I've been on Twitter for two years now. In the beginning it was many techies and probloggers hibernating and connecting there. When journbloggers, mombloggers, journalists and pr pros began to use it, we knew that eventually this thing would become a pop culture phenomena. Boy were we right! President Obama's team used it last year to galvanize masses of people. Today Oprah finally signed up and did half her show focusing on Twitter. Really. Although this news is exciting, but it also is a double edged sword. With masses of people coming on and Twitter's bandwidth limitations, how can we continue to support this product, while at the same time making sure it remains a pure ad free microblogging service? If we don't want to see the Oprah Fail Whale, we need to come up with something, else Twitter become monitized soon. Your thoughts. What can Twitter do to pay for the bandwidth and its staff without becoming an adnetwork?

The Oprah Fail Whale pic is courtesy of @TechCrunch

3 Days Until: A Free Report if you answer this simple Question

In three days I will share with you some of my tools to host a successful book event at the Virtual Writer's Conference. I hope you have registered. If you haven't you have only three days until you miss this chance. I will not be able to share this information again this year, because I am practicing what I preach...building and promoting great book events, and this summer and fall will be releasing some other educational products for authors and publicists. But until then, wouldn't you like a snippet of what I'll be discussing? If yes, just answer the question below via my email vidae at writing dot com, and I will send you a special report. I will not share your email with others. I will not secretly opt you in to any newsletter, because frankly I don't use one, so outside of you choosing to subscribe to this blog or my twitter feed, you want receive boilerplate white paper from me. only personal emails. Isn't that what you like, to have a personal connection with someone who can help you achieve your goals without selling your soul to the devil? lol. ok. i'm sleepy obviously. So here's the question:

What is the single most important question you have about launching your book to the marketplace?

Publishing House Beta: 3 Reasons Why Book Widgets Work

Harper Collins' Browse Inside Widget

I have fallen in strong like with a new widget for Christian Fiction Blog- Harper Collins Browse Inside

The Browse Inside widget enables book enthusiasts to embed sample pages of their favorite books directly into their blog posts, Web sites, and MySpace pages.

I really like this feature for CFB, because most of the books I showcase are books with Christian themes or books written by Christian people. From time to time I receive and email, DM or comment questioning the orthodoxy of these titles. Although the face that it's featured on my blog should suffice, I am reminded that sometimes I put up a disclaimer that the book isn't a Christian Fiction title, and I also give a reason why I think it deserves a read. With the Browse Inside Widget you guys don't have to buy the book or goto the store and read you can click on the widget and check it out yourself.

There are other browse inside features on Amazon and Barnes, but this widget is small enough for your blog and does the trick. Once you click on it you are directed to a page devoted to sharing the book, mainly first chapter, cover flap, reviews, and a newsletter request that you opt in to keep up with the author and the current title. It is similar to how Amazon's look Inside feaute is, but the pages are more dynamic and fluid, easy to get through and see. It also has a search engine for the book like Google Book Search. So it seems to be the best of both worlds exclusively for Harper Collins books.

I searched to see if other publishers had hopped on the bandwagon: Simon & Schuster did not have one.


Random House Insight

Love this widget, too!

The widget is a lightweight internet application that can be easily embedded into a Web page. In its small version, at 195 x 335 pixels, it fits snugly into any website and delivers interactive book previews by allowing a user to page forward and back through the book or search for keywords in the actual text content of the book - without ever leaving the Web page.

It also has audio capability where you can listen through an embedded player audio versions of the book.

So what does all this mean?

Some publishing houses have not just embraced the New Age of Digital Paper, but are using it competitively and smartly.

What it means for you are three things:

1. If you're a writer, you must understand your best marketing tool by far is to write a well-written, relevant, compelling story that meets the readership of your day. More readers will be able to view your words and choose quicker than before.
2. These widgets can be embedded in email campaigns, to social networks and will be great tools to help your favorite book or your book become more viral. Although both widgets aren't Facebook friendl yet, and Facebook's buying of Shelfari still hasn't taken off, I'm sure some group is tinkering around with a way to have the beauty and fluidity of these two widgets easily transferred. Now I wish I didn't drop my Math major to a minor. I could be the Widgetmaster for the Dream book widget. LOL.
3. For publishing houses that haven't embraced these new appis to began conversations with their readers, you may feel a sting of the Fail Whale.
   

Trailer Park Tuesday: Deadly Charm

It's TRailer Park Tuesday. Today we are featuring my buddy and write or die chick, Claudia Mair Burney's Deadly Charm(Simon & Schuster.)

What AmazonFail Can Teach Bookstores Not just Amazon.com: Christian Fiction Blog

This past weekend while most of us were participating in Easter/Resurrection Day events Amazon.com was having an event of its own. Amazon.com removed sales rankings and listing on the main search page for 57 000 of its registered titles, many of which were books with gay/lesbian themes. When some of these authors realized what happened and more importantly that Amazon.com still had not responded to their challenge, they organized a social media campaign via Twitter, coined the term AmazonFail, and got media attention. Amazon.com later told Publishers Weekly...

that a "glitch" had occurred in its sales ranking feature that was in the process of being fixed. The spokesperson added that there was no new policy regarding "adult" titles. As of Monday morning, a number of titles affected by the glitch were still without sales rankings. No one at Amazon was available this morning to discuss when the problem might be fixed or what caused the glitch.

An interesting article here that suggests culprits behind AmazonFail.

Last night during #journchat we discussed #AmazonFail as a teaching tool for other pr firms. Long after the discussion I wondered how this event could serve as a teaching tool for online bookstores, authors, and brick and mortar stores.

Whether we want to believe it or not Twitter is more than a microblogging service. It can be used for many things, one of which is a tool for rapid response CS. If book stores whether mobile, online or in a store want to build value with their customers, they are going to have to devise a way to respond in real time to their base, especially when "glitches" and stuff happens. Because if they don't then they will experience a bit of the venom that was spewn onto Amazon this past weekend. I've been tempted at times myself to tweet a few crappers I've experienced dealing with publishing houses, bookstore chains, churches, you name it. But I didn't, haven't yet. However, as more and more Twittercotts tweet up, you'd be more than the wiser to have a contingency plan designed.

One tip I will throw at you: Use Twitter to monitor your brand. There are various twitter tools you can use to do that. Search through my blog I've shared some on here already.

Also this Saturday I will be hosting a workshop on The Virtual Fiction Writer's Conference about book events and I will be talking about the power of Twitter, of course, and designing your own instore event contingency plans. ;)

What your Novel Beginning Must Hide

For the past month I've participated in #writechat. It is a live chat between writers on Twitter that happens between 1-3pm PST. Since I have hung out there I've learned from some of my writechat tweeps that the newbie writers aren't using a basic plot structure to guide them through writing the novel and they need one. For the summer --I'm here every 2nd and 4th Monday I believe--I will be sharing the 8 point plot structure skeleton I use with you. Let me confess I got it from J. Mark. Mine has been tweaked to fit me. You will more than likely do the same. In any case, let's begin...

Continue reading "What your Novel Beginning Must Hide" »