by Scot Herrick on August 28, 2007
Loyal readers of this blog will note that I have been a fan of authors and writers doing a “virtual book tour” by visiting other blogs on a schedule and promoting the tour on their own blog and other sites. I’ve been a big proponent of using the blog technology to do the virtual tours as it is a perfect mechanism for reaching your core audience.
For context, I’ve mentioned virtual book tours in my articles Marketing Using Technology, or Book a Book Tour with Your Blog.
Context is great, but where are the tips on setting up and doing a virtual tour? Yvonne, over at Grow Your Own Writing Business had Mary Emma Allen of Home Biz Notes (where I know her writing) and two other blogs come over and provide a guest post on how to do the Virtual Blog Tour.
In the article, Mary Emma covers the right stuff:
- How to participate in blog tours
- Making the most of the virtual tour
- Coordinating Virtual Tours
- Virtual Tour Resources
This is a great article for how technology can help a writer market their work. Take a read; it’s a great article and resource.
Scot
by Scot Herrick on August 27, 2007
This blog is about technology for writers. It is about how to use technology to help market a writer’s work.
But, it’s really about how to use technology to start and enhance relationships with readers.
For those of us in the technology business, we can get pretty engrossed in our technology. We can get hung up on the next shiny thing out there. We can write passionately about the need to upgrade your blog software from WordPress 2.2.1 to 2.2.2 because of the security. Or we can Twitter with others and proclaim it to be a networking tool.
Balderdash.
It’s important to maintain your technology, just like it is to maintain your home. But it’s not about the home or the technology, it’s about the people who are in the home or using the technology.
If technology can’t help you enhance your relationships with people, or the way you use the technology inhibits your relationships with people, then we should all stop using the technology. If technology becomes a barrier to meeting, chatting, and working with people, we need to change how we use it in our work.
In the end, it’s about people. Writer’s know that. As you embrace new technology in your writing work, notice whether or not the technology helps you in your relationship with people or how it could. That’s the measure of something that will work for you.
Scot
by Scot Herrick on August 21, 2007
One of the more interesting concepts in blogging happened over at Writing Thoughts and Grow Your Writing Business. The challenge? Write one post on a problem and another on your solution.
Now, this is one of those blog “meme’s” where bloggers think up an innovative way to get people to write about their subject. My issue? The meme is usually about something totally unrelated to the topic on your blog — and you know how I am about that topic. You need to write about the topic of your blog and stay there because it helps define your brand.
Well, this meme was perfect for it. I wrote an article that was on topic for my blog — The Problem: My Hosting Company Sucks — and a solution to it through — The Solution: Changing Hosting Companies. Both were struggles with technology for a writer. And, believe me, they have been struggles.
Yvonne and Laura have posted all the articles for the problems and the solutions and they are a great, eclectic set of issues presented by writers. I’m passing them on here as a great representation of the different avenues you could pursue for a writing blog and how to stay on topic.
And, oh-by-the-way, great reading too.
Scot
by Scot Herrick on August 20, 2007
This comic over at blaugh got me to thinking about what kinds of problems the Geek Squad runs into when they go about fixing stuff for us. And then I realized that I have no idea what kinds of things they run into because I’ve never used nor talked to anyone who has used their services.
Have any of you used the Geek Squad? How was their service?
Scot
by Scot Herrick on August 15, 2007
Here’s a great way to let your readers know what’s in your book library — from what you’ve read to what you are reading now. The Now Reading plugin gives the writer the ability to document your library of books — or books that relate to your blog topic.
From the author’s site:
Now Reading is an expansive WordPress plugin which allows you to maintain a virtual library of books. Display which you’ve read, which you’re currently reading, and which you plan to read; add metadata to describe them; write reviews detailing what you thought of them. Now Reading fetches its data from any Amazon domain, so all you need is an ISBN or book title and you’re good to go.
Now Reading shows up in you sidebar on your blog and then can take you to a complete page on your site that shows your books as links within these categories.
I’ve been planning on having a “book” page related to the content of my blog so that others can see what I’ve been reading and have read. I was going to do it manually, but this allows for nice, tight control and consistency in the information presented.
This plugin has been downloaded over 16,000 times. How I missed it, I’ll never know. Hat tip: Alison Kent and her article Book Heaven!
Scot
