Authors Making a Difference on Twitter #MFRWauthor @MFRW_ORG @AuthorNicMorgan

MFRW on Twitter 

On the first of July this year, author Nicole Morgan became the Twitter Coordinator for Marketing for Romance Writers. Please join us in thanking Nicole for her service to MFRW and to its members.

What does a Twitter Coordinator do? Here's the job description from the group files.

Twitter Coordinator

Like all staff positions in MFRW, the Twitter Coordinator and assistant are an unpaid positions. Either looks great, however, on a writing resume. The Coordinator needs a solid understanding of how Twitter works, and should be an experienced user. This position is a highly visible aspect of Marketing for Romance Writers.

Main duties (same for both positions):

Sign in as the owner of the MFRW Twitter account.
Share tweets requested on the MFRW street team.
Follow MFRW members.
Send tweets for the MFRW blogs.
Assist Pinterest Coordinator with sending tweets if needed.
Use lists on Twitter to make it easier for members to find and follow each other.
Launch and run a program to get MFRW members to follow the MFRW Twitter account.
Communicate with staff via email in the separate MFRW Staff Yahoo group.

Other duties:

Attend staff meetings with other members of the MFRW staff (approx every four weeks) using Google Hangouts or other software as decided by the staff.
Time involved: one hour per week, slightly more for attending staff meetings. Total time invested is up to the individual.

Ownership:

The MFRW Twitter account is registered under the MFRW Admin Email.

---

As you can see, there's plenty to do, and Nicole needs help. We're looking for an assistant who can do pretty much the same thing. Having help means Nicole gets to take time off, attend conferences, meeting writing and editing deadlines, and so on. If you're interested, please apply by emailing mfrwstaff-ownerATyahoogroupsDOTcom.

---

We've seen an increase in followers, and we are busy sending out messages for our members. The MFRW Pinterest account also shares tweets. When our members' books are posted on our Pinterest boards, we tweet about it. You can learn more about MFRW and its benefits here.

We urge you to follow our Twitter account, and also the account of our coordinator. You can find us here:

MFRW_ORG http://twitter.com/MFRW_ORG

Nicole Morgan https://twitter.com/AuthorNicMorgan

---

Other MFRW Social Media

Facebook https://www.facebook.com/groups/mfrwauthors/

Pinterest http://www.pinterest.com/mfrworg/

Goodreads http://is.gd/mfrwgoodreads

LinkedIn https://linkedin.com/company/marketing-for-romance-writers-organization/

Marketing for Romance Writers http://marketingforromancewriters.org/

Marketing for Romance Writers Yahoo http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MarketingForRomanceWriters/

WHO THAT? #MFRWAuthor

Semi Rant Warning.

It seems I've posted endlessly about the misuse of Who, Which, That. I've certainly raged enough internally when I hear the words misused, which is all too frequently. Most of the time people look at me as though I've lost my sense of humor. No big deal, they might say. It's not as if the words aren't interchangeable.

Sigh.

Use which for things and who for people. Use that for things and, informally, for people.
Make it simple: Who is for people. That and Which are for things. The 'informally' seems to have crept into use fairly recently since the last time I checked the rule was very clear. The same as using 'laconic' to describe facial expressions, and now I doubt many people know the definition of laconic. I didn't when I first read it, and had to look it up. Looked it up again when a well known author used it to describe a lifted eyebrow.

Sigh.

Yeah, I sigh a lot. But then I read a gem, such as this by Doranna Durgin from her Sentinel Shifter book  Tiger Bound

Emphasis mine "She looked down at him, this man WHO had come for her, and at the monstrously huge creature THAT accompanied him—"

How perfect is that? The man is WHO the creature is THAT. And for those writers of Urban Fantasy with shifters, what better way to convey how they feel about their animals selves? If the POV character thinks of other shifters as WHO when they are in their alternate form, the writer is SHOWING the character is comfortable with their 'other' self. But if they use THAT, we would know they're really not happy about the 'monster' living under their skin.

Simple?

And as far as using THAT as an extra word in a sentence, you might want to rethink. In the preceding paragraph I originally wrote: "...the writer is SHOWING that the character is comfortable with their 'other' self." Upon rereading, I removed 'that' as an extraneous word, slowing down the narrative. Sometimes 'that' is the perfect word but far too much of the time it's makes our writing cumbersome.

Think about it, especially if you write characters who are 'more than.'

What are your grammar gremlins? Let's grab a cup of coffee and rant on.

Mona Karel is the writing alter ego of Monica Stoner who lives at 6500 feet and has been known to growl when hearing the English language abused.

Moderating the #MFRWorg Facebook Group—Keeping Track of Group Posts #MFRWauthor

As of this writing, the MFRW Facebook group is at 3,918 members. While I thought I might perhaps be announcing the 4,000 milestone marker with this post, it appears that will have to wait until next month. :) I won't be surprised if we hit it by sometime around the middle of next week. The group’s growth is still going strong!

For this post, I thought I’d mention a feature I discovered relatively recently that some group members and especially moderators may find useful. If you aim to keep up with the posts to a group, Facebook has a feature that makes it a bit easier. Each new time you visit the group page, Facebook indicates the point at which the posts on the page are ones you’ve already seen. It does this with a label that says “OLDER POSTS” in the left margin. The label is a bit subtle, written in shaded gray and in a somewhat small font size. Once you know to look for it, however, it can help you keep track of which posts you’ve seen and which you haven’t.

For me, for example, it’s a very helpful feature in moderating the content posted to the group. Before I learned of this feature, I used to haphazardly visit the group multiple times throughout the day and vaguely memorize when I had last been there so I could tell when I had scrolled down far enough that the posts were ones I’d already seen. Now, I click on the group listing from my home page feed and scroll down until I see the “OLDER POSTS” heading (often I’ll just do a Control/Command + F search with the word “older” to locate it quickly). Then I simply check the new posts by scrolling up the page until I get to the top.

For moderators, this makes keeping track of checking the group page content much easier. And if you’re a group member, this feature lends a hand if you want to be sure you don’t miss any posts. :) Do note that whenever someone comments on a post, that post automatically moves to the top of the group page, so if you see posts you’ve already seen amidst the new ones before you get to the “OLDER POSTS” label, that just means a new comment(s) has been left on it.

To learn what the “OLDER POSTS” heading looks like, you can go to any group of which you are a member (the MFRW one, for example :) ). At the top of the page beneath a pinned post if there is one, you should see a shaded gray heading that says, “RECENT POSTS.” This means that the posts that follow that are ones that are new since your last visit to the group, and the font and appearance of the “RECENT POSTS” heading are exactly like the “OLDER POSTS” one. If you scroll down far enough, you’ll eventually see the “OLDER POSTS” heading, indicating that all the posts below that are ones that were already posted the last time you visited the group.

Incidentally, if you haven’t been by in a while, you may want to go check out the MFRW Facebook group—holiday weekend sales and giveaways abound! For those who are celebrating U.S. Independence Day, I wish you a safe and beautiful holiday weekend. And for those who aren’t, I wish you a beautiful weekend as well, and you may want to come by and take advantage of the sales and giveaways of those who are! ;)

Thanks for reading, and until next month!


Emerald
Emerald is an erotic fiction author whose short stories have been featured in anthologies published by Cleis Press, Mischief, and Logical-Lust. She serves as an assistant newsletter editor and Facebook group moderator for Marketing for Romance Writers (MFRW), and she selects and posts the monthly inspirational quote on the MFRW Marketing Blog. Find out more about her at her website, The Green Light District.