Monday, September 10, 2018

RT - Fall in Love with #MFRWauthor and #MFRWorg #Novels - Follow @MFRW_Org

It's Retweet Day for MFRW on Twitter. All Marketing for Romance Writers are invited to set up tweets for their books.

Go into Twitter and create a tweet. Make sure to use #MFRWauthor or #MFRWorg You can now share up to 280 characters per tweet -- twice as many as before.

Once the tweet has been posted, click anywhere in the white background of the tweet. This will open it and allow you to highlight and copy the URL.

Now, navigate back to here and paste the URL in the comment section of this post.

Remember to visit the blog on Second Monday of the month. You can post your tweet until Wednesday of the same week.

Retweet Day is on the second Wednesday of each month. Retweet everyone on the list.

To help people find your tweet, click the the white background and then the down arrow (found on the right side). Choose "Pin to Your Profile Page." This will keep it at the top of your Twitter feed so more people can find it.

Retweet Day Rules

1. Have #MFRWauthor or #MFRWorg in the tweet. (This retweet day is to promote each other and our group.)
2. Do not use profanity or sexual explicit graphics. Keep it for all age groups.
3. Please do not use adult topics for your blog post. Keep it general for all ages.
4. Return on Retweet Day and click each link in the comments.
5. Click the heart on the tweet and then the retweet symbol and the Retweet button.
6. Click the G+ symbol on the comment so you can see where you left off, and to add a little more visibility to the post.
7. Limit hashtags to three (3) per post.

Here's to a great day of retweets,

Tina Gayle
Tina Gayle enjoys writing contemporary romance and stories featuring strong women, as well as tales that touch the heart. Her writing started at a young age when she created stories to put herself to sleep. Now, she spends her days living her dream.
Find her at www.tinagayle.com or pick up her free read at https://www.instafreebie.com/free/EwL6x


Monday, August 6, 2018

RT #MFRWauthor and #MFRWorg Sharing #RomanceNovels and Follow @MFRW_Org

It's Retweet Day for MFRW on Twitter. All Marketing for Romance Writers are invited to set up tweets for their books.

Go into Twitter and create a tweet. Make sure to use #MFRWauthor or #MFRWorg You can now share up to 280 characters per tweet -- twice as many as before.

Once the tweet has been posted, click anywhere in the white background of the tweet. This will open it and allow you to highlight and copy the URL.

Now, navigate back to here and paste the URL in the comment section of this post.

Remember to visit the blog on Second Monday of the month. You can post your tweet until Wednesday of the same week.

Retweet Day is on the second Wednesday of each month. Retweet everyone on the list.

To help people find your tweet, click the the white background and then the down arrow (found on the right side). Choose "Pin to Your Profile Page." This will keep it at the top of your Twitter feed so more people can find it.

Retweet Day Rules

1. Have #MFRWauthor or #MFRWorg in the tweet. (This retweet day is to promote each other and our group.)
2. Do not use profanity or sexual explicit graphics. Keep it for all age groups.
3. Please do not use adult topics for your blog post. Keep it general for all ages.
4. Return on Retweet Day and click each link in the comments.
5. Click the heart on the tweet and then the retweet symbol and the Retweet button.
6. Click the G+ symbol on the comment so you can see where you left off, and to add a little more visibility to the post.
7. Limit hashtags to three (3) per post.

Here's to a great day of retweets,

Tina Gayle
Tina Gayle enjoys writing contemporary romance and stories featuring strong women, as well as tales that touch the heart. Her writing started at a young age when she created stories to put herself to sleep. Now, she spends her days living her dream.
Find her at www.tinagayle.com or pick up her free read at https://www.instafreebie.com/free/EwL6x


Friday, August 3, 2018

9 Easy Tips for Using Google by Kayelle Allen @kayelleallen #MFRWauthor #Authors


9 Easy Tips for Using Google by Kayelle Allen @kayelleallen #MFRWauthor #Authors
Is Google your friend? It can be. Here are tips on how to use the search engine. http://google.com Anything can be researched from the Google website. It's the world's biggest help menu.

Google Account

If you don't have a Google account, create one now. This will give you an email and much more. Once you create the Google account, set up your search preferences. I suggest opening new results in a new window (or tab). This way, when searching for an item, if you click a link, after you finish reading you can close the window and your search results will still be there. This saves you having to go back a page or six or twenty if you start clicking forward in your article. Be sure to save your preferences.

Search by Image

Click on the Images button and you can then drag an image to the search bar to search for a similar image. Try it with a book cover! You can also type in the name of an item to find images of it. Try typing in the name of a character in one of your books. You'll be surprised what you find.

Find Exact Matches

Type quotation marks around a phrase to find the exact match. "Bringer of Chaos" is the title of one of my books. Typing it this way will make sure the results put all the words together in that order.

Exclude or Include Words

Let's say you want to find the phrase "marketing tips" but don't want to read material written for entrepreneurs. Type "marketing tips" -entrepreneurs (using a hypen for the minus sign). Google will eliminate articles with that term from your search.
To include a specific word add a plus sign and then the word. Google will show you only items that include that word.

Search a Specific Website

This search is super handy for finding a specific reference on a large site. In the Google search bar, type: site:domain.com (where domain is the name of the site you choose). Example - site:kayellallen.com Do not put a space between site: and the domain name. Then type any word you choose to search for. Example - site:kayellallen.com Pietas would bring up all the references to my character Pietas on my site.

Get a Definition

Type Define: then the word you want defined. A box pops up at the top with a dictionary entry including a speaker that will let you hear the word pronounced.

Translate Text

Type translate in the search bar. At the top, a box pops up with Enter Text on one side and Translation on the other. Paste in the foreign word you want to define. Google will attempt to determine language for you, but you can also tell it what language you want. Paste in the text, and it will guess the language and pop up a small bit of text saying "translate from ___" and what it thinks is the language. Click the name of the language and another drop down menu appears above. You can choose from dozens of languages in the drop down.
There is a speaker icon as well. Click that to hear the word/s pronounced. Click the square in the translation box (next to the speaker icon). It will copy the translation for you. You can then paste it into a document or other site.

Search Different Types of Responses

After you enter an item to search and hit return, you'll see tabs appear at the top of the search screen. They are titled All, News, Images, Videos, Maps, More. Click those to see other aspects of your search.

Find Food

This is one of the most useful search tips and is handy for using on your phone. If you decide you want Mexican food but don't know the location of a place nearby, type: mexican food near me. You don't even need to put quotes around it. Google will show you the names of places and even include a map. This assumes you allow Google to know your location. Because I use Google Maps to navigate, this is true for me. It's handy for finding all sorts of places. If I get lost, I can just ask for directions.

Speak Up

On your phone or your computer, click the microphone icon and then ask your question. Very handy for searching when you get hungry --or lost-- while out and about.

Hear about Updates

Follow Google on Twitter for news and updates. https://twitter.com/google

Google Queen

People say I'm the Google Queen. I doubt that, but when people ask me a question, most of the time I can find the answer on Google. You can too, now that you know how to look.
Have any good tips for using a search engine? Leave a comment below. You are welcome to share this post with friends.

About Kayelle Allen


Kayelle Allen writes Sci Fi with misbehaving robots, immortal gamers, and warriors who purr. She's a US Navy veteran who's been married so long she's tenured.
https://kayelleallen.com
Twitter https://twitter.com/kayelleallen
Facebook https://facebook.com/kayelleallen.author
Join one of Kayelle's Reader Groups. You can download four free books and get news about books coming soon. You can unsubscribe at any time. https://kayelleallen.com/reader-groups

Tuesday, July 10, 2018

RT for #MFRWauthor and #MFRWorg Join Us to Find Romance #Ebooks - Follow @MFRW_Org

It's Retweet Day for MFRW on Twitter. All Marketing for Romance Writers are invited to set up tweets for their books.

Go into Twitter and create a tweet. Make sure to use #MFRWauthor or #MFRWorg You can now share up to 280 characters per tweet -- twice as many as before.

Once the tweet has been posted, click anywhere in the white background of the tweet. This will open it and allow you to highlight and copy the URL.

Now, navigate back to here and paste the URL in the comment section of this post.

Remember to visit the blog on Second Monday of the month. You can post your tweet until Wednesday of the same week.

Retweet Day is on the second Wednesday of each month. Retweet everyone on the list.

To help people find your tweet, click the the white background and then the down arrow (found on the right side). Choose "Pin to Your Profile Page." This will keep it at the top of your Twitter feed so more people can find it.

Retweet Day Rules

1. Have #MFRWauthor or #MFRWorg in the tweet. (This retweet day is to promote each other and our group.)
2. Do not use profanity or sexual explicit graphics. Keep it for all age groups.
3. Please do not use adult topics for your blog post. Keep it general for all ages.
4. Return on Retweet Day and click each link in the comments.
5. Click the heart on the tweet and then the retweet symbol and the Retweet button.
6. Click the G+ symbol on the comment so you can see where you left off, and to add a little more visibility to the post.
7. Limit hashtags to three (3) per post.

Here's to a great day of retweets,

Tina Gayle
Tina Gayle enjoys writing contemporary romance and stories featuring strong women, as well as tales that touch the heart. Her writing started at a young age when she created stories to put herself to sleep. Now, she spends her days living her dream.
Find her at www.tinagayle.com or pick up her free read at https://www.instafreebie.com/free/EwL6x


Tuesday, July 3, 2018

What is a Hashtag? by Kayelle Allen @KayelleAllen #writerslife #MFRWauthor

What is a Hashtag? by Kayelle Allen @KayelleAllen #writerslife #MFRWauthor
Do you know what this abbreviation "etc." means? It's the word et cetera which is Latin for "additional unspecified odds and ends; more of the same." It's intended to reduce the number of characters (or sentences) needed to explain an item.
That abbreviation is a perfect example of not wasting time. We don't write an entire list, or even the entire word. Although, here's a question: why is the word abbreviation so long? Hmmm. Another post for a different day.
Since 2012, I host over 350 authors a year on my Romance Lives Forever blog, and I've seen trends come and go. One that's endured is adding hashtags to the subject. Why is this valuable? Because when the post is shared on social media, those hashtags will enable people to find it. Here's an analogy that might help you understand.

What is a Hashtag

This symbol: # is called a hashmark. It's also the abbreviation (there's that word again) for number. On Twitter (and most other social media) when you add that symbol in front of a word, it changes the word to a search program.
Let's say you want to look up the word "tweet" on Twitter. In the Twitter search box, you type #tweet. The URL that pops up is this:
https://twitter.com/search?q=%23tweet&src=typd and all the tweets with that hashtag are listed.

Why Do I Need Hashtags

I'm a busy person. I know you are too. Imagine if you needed to pick up something at the grocery store, so you run in, grab a cart, and head for the produce department. When you get there, you discover a case for milk next to the lettuce. Not the milk you buy, unfortunately. Then next to the milk is a shelf with bread, but the brand you prefer isn't there either. Then comes oatmeal. The quick cooking type--but your kids like the instant version.
At this point, you stop, look around, and realize the entire store has been completely rearranged. There is no rhyme or reason to its layout. It's just whatever the store received that day in the back went out onto the sales area. No more aisles with bread, or aisles with canned veggies, or aisles with cereal. You have to walk up and down every aisle hoping to find what you need. How fast would you push that cart back to the exit and go elsewhere? Yeah. Me too.
Twitter is a store for information, news and opinions. It puts out whatever comes in as the info arrives. There is no order. You get what you get. If you want to find something on Twitter, you either look for a person who interests you, or a hashtag that does.
Hashtags are to Twitter what aisles are to a store. They are the "departments" where you can find what you need and what you're looking for. I recommend having 1-2 hashtags in the title of a blog post, near the end of the subject. Use 1-2 in a tweet also. Generally, using over 3 hashtags is considered "spammy."
You could just scroll on Twitter and read, but what if you went there to find out if others are watching the same TV show you are? What is the show's hashtag? Enter that in the search box and pow! There are all the show's tweets. How cool to discover the cast is live tweeting! You can actually interact with fans, actors, and writers. Without a hashtag, you'd be lucky to stumble across even one tweet.

What hashtags are best for writers?

Find out which hashtag is being used most in your genre and use it. There are Twitter bots (legal) that pick up certain hashtags and retweet them to their followers. #SciFi is one of them. Make sure you're using a hashtag that is actually in use already. If no one is searching for it, the hashtag is pointless. My favorite place to discover whether a hashtag is popular is www.ritetag.com It's free. I don't use any hashtags till I've checked them out there.
Generally, use the single version of a word vs. the plural #book is better than #books for example. Check out this RiteTag listing of results for the word #romance:
Other good writer hashtags include #amwriting #amediting #MFRWauthor #writerslife #author -- share yours in the comments.

A word about Triberr

First, let me say it's Tri-berr not Tribb-er. It's has 1 B and 2 Rs. Not Tribber - Triberr. Okay, stepping away from the soapbox...
The site Triberr is a blog amplifier. What that means is when you link your blog to the site, it allows other people to share your post with their social media. Try it for 30 days and you will not want to go back.
On Triberr, hashtags matter. You will gain a hundred-fold more readers with Triberr, so leverage that by using appropriate hashtags. Don't add your own @name to the title. It will be included in every tweet that Triberr sends, even though you can't see it on the site. Look at your mentions on Twitter and you will.

Should I use my name as a hashtag?

Is it better to write #KayelleAllen or @kayelleallen in a tweet? (fyi - the @kayelleallen is also called your at-name and is written as @name). These are referred to as mentions. (Mary mentioned you on Twitter means that Mary sent out a tweet that had your @name in it)
I don't recommend using your name as a hashtag. Why not? You will get far more mileage from the @name because when anyone clicks that, it pops up a link so they can follow you. If they click it again, it takes them to your profile page. A hashtag with your name is only going to open a search for the name. It will not necessarily show your profile, which means it's less likely to get you followers.
When you tweet, don't add your own @name either. Obviously, if the tweet is from you, then the person can click your name since you are the sender. If your publicity person is talking about you, then yes, they should use your @name.

Hashtag Research

Here are three good links to check out for hashtag dos and don'ts:
Now that you know what a hashtag is and how it works, what are you going to do with them? Do you have questions? Please share in the comments.
---
Kayelle Allen writes Sci Fi with misbehaving robots, mythic heroes, role playing immortal gamers, and warriors who purr. She's a US Navy veteran who's been married so long she's tenured. https://kayelleallen.com  Join the Romance Lives Forever Reader Group Download four free books and get news about books coming soon. You can unsubscribe at any time.