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Have added mine and some others - thanks for the link, Sarah!JAC
Well I think that's very cool! A little affirmation never hurts.Splitter
Number 4 in one fell leap is pretty cool, I should say!
J.A. wrote: "Have added mine and some others - thanks for the link, Sarah!JAC"
You're welcome - and to anyone and everyone here who voted for me> a very big THANK YOU!!
I'm at #3 now. Just need 5 more votes and I'll pop past the other 2 and reach #1. It's a matter of number of votes. They are both tied with 4 votes more than I have so I need 5 to "outweigh" them.
Anyone else want to vote for me? :) Splitter, a little affirmation is like GOLD to a writer! We have very, very fragile egos, didn't you know?
Thanks, JAC. Holding steady at #3, which is actually my favorite number, but the #1 and #2 placeholders are pulling away from me now!How does one go about publicizing a Listopia on Goodreads? Anyone know? Other than creating an author blog or a book giveaway/event, I don't know how to do much of anything here on Goodreads.
Are there other things to do or ways to share Lists and get other Goodreaders to vote on the List?
(not just for the sake of getting votes, it's a good list of indie eBooks, right?)
Hmmmm, dunno. I reckon, just slide it into conv wherever necessary or blog / Tweet it etc. maybe?Sorry, not helpful!
JAC
Sarah- I voted for ya. JA- I voted for you too!!
That's so cool, Sarah! Congrats! I've a brand new blog and I'd love to feature you in a book spotlight/interview/giveaway. PM me :)http://www.book-spark.blogspot.com/
Er, me or Sarah? Happy to if you mean me but guessing that was a typo?;o)
JAC
You're right, that was a typo-I meant Sarah. But you know what? All the better! I learned that you would be willing to do this too lol! I was thinking maybe a book spotlight & giveaway (if at all possible) for Sarah, and a guest post & giveaway for you, JA? How does that sound?
All good with me! Thank you very much!JAC
Anagha wrote: "You're right, that was a typo-I meant Sarah. But you know what? All the better! I learned that you would be willing to do this too lol! I was thinking maybe a book spotlight & giveaway (if at all p..."Sounds great! Do you mind waiting a bit for mine, though? I'm working on creating new cover art (click through to my Webbiegrrl Writer Facebook Page to see some of the work in process -- I'm drawing it myself and it's VERY slow going!) When I re-release with the new cover, I'm going to want to do a free giveaway to for a limited time to generate new interest anyway.
I need to stop giving this book away or it's never going to make me money *LOL* Then again, I've had almost 400 readers so that's not nuthin'
It could be as much as a month from now. If that's too long to wait, I would be delighted to be featured when it's good for you--it's your blog after all. I'd ask only that I restrict any giveaways to Fridays only so as to coordinate it with my regular weekly blog feature (Freebie Fridays at Webbiegrrl's Writings)
You can always contact me at webbiegrrlwriter at gmail dot com. I can't believe I thought I had my email address on my Author profile and didn't. I didn't even have my twitter handle there! Just updated my Author profile with all kinds of good linkiness (still no email addie *haha*)
Anagha wrote: "That's so cool, Sarah! Congrats! I've a brand new blog and I'd love to feature you in a book spotlight/interview/giveaway. PM me :)http://www.book-spark.blogspot.com/"
p.s. Anagha, your blog started playing a really LOUD and not pleasant noise in the background while I was typing my reply. I had to actually close the window to make it stop. That's never a good thing for a blog to do (urge/force a user to close the blog window and never want to open it again)
p.p.s. If you would like to wait a month AND read the book so you can give it an honest review, I'd be happy to provide you with a limited time coupon code to get your free review copy. Just email me at the webbiegrrlwriter gmail to make arrangements (and to send interview Q&A if you have them).
Thanks again!
J.A. wrote: "All good with me! Thank you very much!JAC"
Send me a PM! Tell me a little bit about yourself and give me a description of all your books, especially your newest one. And please do go into a bit of detail on the characters. Thank you!
Sarah wrote: "Anagha wrote: "You're right, that was a typo-I meant Sarah. But you know what? All the better! I learned that you would be willing to do this too lol! I was thinking maybe a book spotlight & giveaw..."LOL I don't mind waiting, but I'd love for you to PM me as soon as it's done. I admire your do-it-yourself attitude! Especially since I am the least creative person in the world lol. Friday would probably work well because I'm hoping to do a Frugal Friday/Free Friday Finds kind of thing. Just remind me about that when you PM me.
Oh gosh, my volume's been off the whole time and I had NO IDEA about this. Thank you so much for pointing this out-I'll get on it right now.
Actually, as part of my review policy, I don't accept ebooks anymore-I don't have an ereader, it takes me forever to read them on my laptop (I get distracted easily), and I've got too many requests already. I'll let you know in a week what exactly I'm planning (I'm not sure yet)
Thanks!
Hey Sarah, just wanted to let you know that I figured out what was causing the noise-it was my second newest addition to the site, Harper Collins' countdown to Silence (Hush, Hush series). I removed the widget; would you mind commenting on it again? And let me know if you think the rest is okay (except the footer, still trying to fix that).Thank you!
Anagha wrote: "Hey Sarah, just wanted to let you know that I figured out what was causing the noise-it was my second newest addition to the site, Harper Collins' countdown to Silence (Hush, Hush series). I removed the widget; would you mind commenting on it again? And let me know if you think the rest is okay (except the footer, still trying to fix that)."Hi Anagha, THANK YOU!! That was a truly obnoxious little widget. Harper Collins really surprises me sometimes. They're so huge and successful, I forget they are also half-clueless. Or maybe that's why! Design by committee usually results in the worst-possible designs.
Speaking of which I'll be happy to comment further on your blog but remember it's your blog and should reflect you not a conglomeration of all the comments you get from us :)
Starting at the top, I love the sparkler in the hand graphic but it's pretty tall to be a header. If it were only 200 or so pixels tall it'd be better. As it is, it takes up most of the first screen so that's all I see and have to actually scroll to see CONTENT. Remember you only have 3-8 seconds (seconds!) to get a reader hooked or they are gone. If they have to scroll to see something, that's eating up 1-3 seconds right there. It's considered "wasting the eye shot" in web marketing circles.
Next another squeee for your Amazon widget. I love the little annotations! You put a lot of work into that. I know! I created a nice little Amazon widget for myself and a few friends, so we could cross-market each other's books. Then sadly found out that because I live in No. Carolina I am not allowed to link to use ANY of the Amazon widgets or Affiliate links or even HAVE an affiliate account--oh and I tried emailing them to ask if I coudl just have a dynamic button link to my own book and never mind the affiliate fee. No, I cannot. It's a tax issue that No. Carolina caused and Amazon cannot allow me to have the button :-(
So I'm envious of your lovely widget. It's a little slow to load but well worth the wait.
Because you have such great content on the main part of the page, I'd stay away from the super-busy background image. Right now, it's totally distracting my eyes. I feel like I don't know where to look. It's that 3-8 second rule again. If your visitors are spending the first 5-8 seconds just waiting for their eyes to stop roving around all the busy images and SETTLE on one for them to actually read or click on, they might not see or click on what you WANT.
It's a case of more is less and less is more. Your content speaks for itself. Leave the background...in the background.
I don't like the purple argyle pattern and personally would get rid of the silhouettes of the people and just leave the pile of books and shoes on the bottom right. I think if you have a solid color background with that one corner of the screen "decorated" it'll be enough to feel "booksie" without being too busy. I get you want it to feel like your visitors are coming "into your room" to read along with you. It's either a very messy room or part of a circus. It's too much for me to focus. I would not be inclined to read for long on this site with that background image.
Lastly, along those lines, I'm not a big fan of the kidstuff handwriting font you're using but that might be because I'm 50 years old and need reading glasses. I hate having to get them, pick them up and put them on. I'm not using them to read this page as i type this message, for instance. I shouldn't need to stop scrolling or clicking around your site to go get glasses. Likewise, I should/won't bother to go up to the View menu of my Firefox browser and make the font larger--that's not the problem and worse, it'll mess me up for the next page I read. I want to read the site "as is" and without my glasses. I can JUST barely almost do that. Sort of. If I had to really read anything more than 5 words long, I'd have to put on my glasses.
As I noted, you have great content - don't let the design keep your visitors from seeing it. Repeat after me: Less is more. Repeat that five times :)
Have you seen the blog design I did for my Phoenician Series books? Like you, I also wanted a really big header graphic (it's about 2/3 the size of yours) but I left all the graphics at that and I used the plain screen font, leaving the site design/layout and content to do the work. Take another look at its somewhat minimalist approach here:
http://phoenicianseries.blogspot.com/
I hope this helps more than it hurts. I repeat, it's YOUR blog. Do what feels right to YOU, not necessarily what I or anyone else says.
-sry
p.s. Coming Home (Dicky's Story) is an eBook only (no DTB version) at this point so I cannot offer you any other version to review. If you cannot read an eBook--and it's a LONG book!--then that's fine. I appreciate that you thought of me. Plus you've got JAC on board :)
Wow! That is one big comment! I appreciate your suggestions so so much! I see you've spent a while going over the content, so I'm very grateful. That is some very helpful constructive criticism.Oh, of course, I understand that, but since you were already commenting, I thought you'd like to go back once that annoying widget was taken care of.
I'll see what I can do about the sparkler graphic. I thought when I saw other blogs that it might be a little too big, but I just shrugged it off when people said they really liked it.
Thank you for noticing! Yes, it took me well over an hour to create the Amazon widget, and when I was almost done, I accidentally clicked something and everything disappeared. I don't have an Amazon affiliate account, so I can't save my settings either. Is signing up free? Can I save and edit my widget if I've signed up?
Last time I changed my background, all my settings for everything else (including all fonts, sizes and templates) changed to default. I could change the background if I could somehow prevent that. It takes forever to get this stuff exactly right, and I'm still never satisfied.
I guess, I keep putting in more flashy stuff because I don't believe that my posts are enough to keep a reader hooked. I even have a Super Mario game embedded. That has nothing to do with books. What's up with that? By background, you do mean, the purple and the people? Or the bajillion gadgets?
I got the background from a free templates website and I don't know how to keep one thing and remove the others. I seriously need to learn HTML.
I agree about everything else, but the font...well, I'm less inclined to change that. It's probably the age difference-I'm 15, and I kind of love the font. But I suppose it's about the readers too, and I have a feeling most readers are not in my age group.
Very catchy mantra, by the way. I am willing to bet it'll be stuck in my head by the end of the day lol.
Though my blog isn't great, I probably wouldn't approach the (very) minimalistic either. Somehow, I can't deal with having almost nothing else other than content. Again, probably my age. No hurt at all, just lots of appreciation here :)
As for your book, there are other options than just a review. Book spotlights and guest posts are just some :)
Sarah: I made the header (a little) better, though I don't know if I can do more without compromising the picture quality and making it blurry or leaving a gigantic white space on the side. Even now, I have a sizable chunk...After earnest contemplation, I've changed the font to something I liked almost as well last time, so not really compromising my integrity yet lol!
And I almost forgot to mention - I put you in the Coming Soon near the top of the page :)
Anagha,Your posts are getting ahead of me. I wanted to reply yesterday and didn't quite manage the time, so I'm not putting this off again.
First of all thank you for the Coming Soon! mention. I'm delighted to have my name mentioned anywhere. I would note, however, since (at least for myself, don't know about JAC or Michael Reilly) my name is probably not a recognizeable one, you might want to identify each of us authors more. Forex
J.A. Clement, author of the fantasy novel, The Lady - Guest Post and Giveaway
Sarah R. Yoffa, author of the Jewish Inspirational, Coming Home - Author Interview and Giveaway
you get the idea.
I'd be sure to put space in between each one of us as otherwise, the 3 coming soon "events" blur together.
Okay second, I CANNOT believe you're only 15!!!!! squeeeeeee!
That is what's sooooo kewel about the net isn't it? I mean you're 15, I'm 50, and here in this group, we are TOTALLY EQUAL. It's so awesome that the net does that. I would never have known you were 15 if you didn't tell me. You conduct yourself well, young lady. Keep it up! Careful wording and choosing what to say definitely makes a difference in how people view your content.
I suppose your liking the busy background is a function of being 15, but it sounds more like a function of not having software to fix that yourself and not knowing how to make Blogger do what you want. That just takes time and is a matter of learning. You'll get there. As they used to say in the 1960s David Carradine TV Show called "Kung Fu"
In time, Grasshopper, you will know how to do everything. In time.
I think the header graphic looks fine. Having the whitespace on the right is because the alignment is to the left. I suspect you would have to edit the HTML to make it "align: center;" but I don't know what your template says or how it's set up.
I don't a graphic at all on Webbiegrl but on Phoenician Series, I use the Awesome, Inc. template. I've modified it a lot, tiny things, but a lot. I can't help you realign your header graphic, I'm afraid as it totally depends on which template you're using and what that particular designer decided to call the header graphic image and alignment of same.
The one thing I *can* help you with is removing the purple argyle if you want to have just the books/pile on the right and the people on the left (and a solid background everywhere else). Email the graphic file you used, the one you uploaded, to me at my webbiegrrlwriter gmail address. It'll take me about 2 minutes to modify it. I can defintiely do it this afternoon. I'd suggest making the background (other than the people and pile) a solid grey, like the grey in the argyle.
If you want.
If you want to leave it, that's fine too. It's YOUR blog and you are, as you said, 15. I think I might've liked it that way myself when I was 15 :-) You'll grow out of it when your eyes are old and tired like mine *haha* just you wait!!
Well, I have to go. The clock is ticking on today's Saturday Surprise blog post--and I haven't got anything ready to use! *eep*
Thanks again, Anagha for joining the conversation here. Your words (on the blog) are "enough," all by themselves, but it's nice to have you here interacting, too.
L8R
Definitely Sarah, I'll change the coming soon when I can get to it today (I'm really not a morning person). I'll do like a bulleted list or something. Thanks for mentioning.Thank you, that was a great compliment and I appreciate it. Unfortunately, I can't express myself like this outside my computer-everywhere else it's "Duh"s and "Whatever"s just like any other teenager lol. You're one of the very few people on Goodreads that I have told my age to. Usually, I'm just kind of gratified when I'm treated as an equal and not singled out as "young".
I don't expect to be able to manually do a background change like that anytime soon. Well the header graphic image was a picture I found on Google, so that has noting to with the designer. The template is Picture Window, if that helps you any.
Again, I'll email you when I wake up properly-I do want to do that though (I think)!! I'll have to preview it before I put it in, but I expect it'll be nice. I have been confused about this-what do you mean when you say background? When you say argyle? What IS an argyle?
And thank you soo much for all your help! I've found out a lot :)
I just gave blog advice! ME! Advice! Lol. Somebody just asked me where I got my Amazon widget and if it was hard to figure out. I feel...elated!
By the way, do you know about the Amazon affiliate account thing (see Message 22 - 4th paragraph)
Anagha you know a lot about blogging and don't you forget it. By the time you are my age you will own something. LOL.By the way I heard you mention book spotlights above....care to elabortate on that??
(Seems you'll be giving another set of advice....)
Cambria wrote: "Anagha you know a lot about blogging and don't you forget it. By the time you are my age you will own something. LOL.By the way I heard you mention book spotlights above....care to elabortate on ..."
Cambria, I'm honored, but I only know as much as I've read in other blogs in the past. Sure wouldn't hurt to own a business though! I'll be sure to tell you right after I stop my stomach from grumbling lol!
For book spotlights, I would probably write a paragraph or two about the author, then display each of the author's books (or just a couple if the author has a lot of books) with a blurb, whether it's an ebook or a hard copy, where to buy it, any trailers, and possibly a short excerpt (as you can see, I haven't done this yet). I may include a book review of one of the books and any contact info given by author.
Anagha wrote: "By the way, do you know about the Amazon affiliate account thing (see Message 22 - 4th paragraph)"nope, since i am not legally allowed i can't even see it
Cambria wrote: "Anagha you know a lot about blogging and don't you forget it. By the time you are my age you will own something. LOL."Your age? who're you kidding. By the time she's 21!!! You go grrrl, Anagha you are ON it.
Sarah wrote: "Anagha wrote: "By the way, do you know about the Amazon affiliate account thing (see Message 22 - 4th paragraph)"nope, since i am not legally allowed i can't even see it"
Thanks anyways Sarah. I did make an account (it's free!) and it turns out I could save and edit my widget. I had to do it all over again. Grrr!
Sarah wrote: "Cambria wrote: "Anagha you know a lot about blogging and don't you forget it. By the time you are my age you will own something. LOL."Your age? who're you kidding. By the time she's 21!!! You go ..."
You are too kind Sarah! I'm honored, truly. But I'll be lucky to not too be burned out and get into graduate school by then.
Anagha wrote: "Sarah wrote: "Anagha wrote: "By the way, do you know about the Amazon affiliate account thing (see Message 22 - 4th paragraph)"nope, since i am not legally allowed i can't even see it"
Thanks an..."
Because I don't like to lose my work after spending a lot of time getting things the way I like--not just for Amazon widgets!!-- I make a habit of saving important, hard (or just PITA) things to find in a Notepad file on my desktop. Literally, a scratchpad.
Creative Reviews
Books mentioned in this topic
Coming Home (other topics)Coming Home (other topics)
http://www.goodreads.com/list/show/12...
(ETA: whoa, in the time it took me to type this msg and go get the URL, it rose from 4-->3!!)
I'm still working on the cover art (yeah, I released the book in March and am JUST NOW working on doing some really nice cover art, I know, bad Webbiegrrl, bad bad bad) but apparently my 5-star ratings are worth something.
It's a Jewish Inspirational / Romantic Comedy, eBook only for now. It's a really LONG book (183k words) but once you start reading, the consensus is, you just can't put it down--and it has an extremely uplifting ending. One of those feel-good reads.
Anyone who'd like to try your hand at reviewing this--honest reviews only, definitely NOT looking for positive-only reviews despite that being all I've gotten so far--please email me offline to get a coupon code and I'll give you a free copy to read. You have a choice on Smashwords of all the standard eBook formats (MOBI for your Kindle, EPUB for your Nook or Apple device, Sony Diesel too!) My email's on my author page.
And thanks to anyone here who voted to get Dicky's Story to #4! woo-hoo! I guess the "worth" of the ranking is it makes me feel good? :)
-sry