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Published on Leave a comment on A to Z Blog Challenge: 7 Lessons Learned

A version of this post originally appeared in 2016.

If your writer friends seem unusually giddy with the advent of May, they are probably participating in the April A to Z Blog Challenge. Like many marathon-ish activities, as they say in Texas: "it's like hitting yourself in the head with a hammer - it feels so good when it stops".

I've participated in the A to Z challenge a couple of times. Compared to other blog challenges I've done in the past, A to Z seemed like a lot more work. In the interest of working smarter, not harder, next time, here are a few things I learned.

  • Writing the posts is only half the time commitment battle. And this is probably why other challenges I've done seemed like a comparative breeze - I don't recall doing diddly-squat about interacting with other bloggers during that challenge. I published my posts and sat back and waited for the comments to flow in. Which of course sounded vaguely cricket-like. I achieved my goal of writing a post each day, which is obviously the main point of the exercise. But this time I had an aha! moment. Now I know more about Google rankings and engagement and all that stuff. I easily spent as much time per day viewing other blogs and commenting on most. So if you're thinking of doing a blog challenge in future, estimate the time it will require to write the posts, and double that to allow for engagement.
  • I am so thankful for blog designs that make it obvious where and how to leave a comment. If I haven't been able to figure it out within ten seconds or so after I've finished reading your post, I've probably forgotten what I was going to say anyway.
  • Ditto on those of you who make it easy for me to follow you on other social media like Facebook, Twitter, and so forth. I really want to support and follow as many as I can, but I just don't have time to go sifting through the site looking for it - if it's there at all.
  • Opting in to a challenge last-minute just makes more work for me. Kudos to those who had done this particular challenge before and had the foresight to plan a cohesive theme and even prepare some posts ahead of time. Maybe that will be me next time.
  • A great post does not necessarily mean a long post. Save your magnum opus for non-challenge posts. This helps the writer as well as the readers. If they're doing the challenge right, your deathless prose is probably not the only post they'll be reading today.
  • If the words 'random' and 'thoughts' appear together in the blog title or description, my expectations regarding quality of content are very low. I really appreciate the bloggers who have a clearly envisioned niche and stick to it. I know from personal experience how tempting is to work without a theme or niche and just write about whatever pops into your head. Having a niche or narrow focus may seem limiting. But sometimes the niche can help you find a path, rather than obstruct it. 
  • The A to Z Challenge website includes a link to a spreadsheet listing all participants. It really helps me visit as many blogs as possible in a brief amount of time. Before I figured this out, I was bouncing around reciprocating with those who visited my blog or who posted links on various Facebook groups related to the challenge. This worked okay, but in retrospect seems a little haphazard. Plus, I have a feeling those bloggers who cross-post are just the tip of the iceberg of participants.

Thanks to all the organizers and congrats to all the participants of the A to Z Challenge. I enjoyed discovering so many new blogs, including a few that appear to be of my tribe. I made great progress, not only on engagement, but in defining my blog niche and developing some best practices to keep it a productive part of my platform.

The cool letter collage is just one of many amazing things I stumbled across while visiting random blogs. The artist is Mark Kelly and his blog is here. Check out his alternate challenge survivor badge when you visit.

Click-O-Rama

It only seems fitting to feature blogs in this week's Click-O-Rama. Some of my favorites:

  • Author and historian Pamela Toler's blog, History in the Margins. Women's history, in particular, which is why Pam's blog posts and tweets on little known facts, book reviews, and much more are some of my faves.
  • I first learned of Tim Urban when I saw his TED Talk on procrastination. Instant love connection! I can't decide which I enjoy more: his relatable topics, or the adorable stick figures that accompany many posts on his blog, Wait But Why.
  • Benjamin Hardy is my go-to guy for motivational observations. I freely admit, every now and then he gets a little too woo-woo for me. But his argument that willpower is a muscle that can and should be exercised, like a glute or a bicep, has stuck with me for many years. Many of his posts are also available on YouTube if you prefer watching to reading. I really enjoyed this one.
  • If you're a writer, you can't go wrong with Jane Friedman's blog. She has some tremendous content. But TBH, my favorite one of hers lately wasn't a writing topic at all. Well, it was, a little bit tangentially. A bunch of her readers chimed in on her request for black tea recommendations. Yum!
  • I recently stumbled across Introvert, Dear on social media somewhere and am really enjoying it. I never fail to find a couple of shareable posts every time I receive one of their newsletters.

Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed reading this, I hope you'll take a minute to subscribe to my newsletter.

2

Published on 2 Comments on The Goodreads Revelation

Like many writers, the lion's share of my marketing efforts is directed at Facebook and Twitter. But the focal point of my recent engagement efforts has added a third leg to the marketing stool: Goodreads. It's not as if I've mastered the other two - I certainly haven't. But when another writer friend mentioned I hadn't set up an author presence on GR (thanks, Matt!), I did some checking and realized I was overlooking an important piece of the marketing puzzle.

As an avid reader, I've been enjoying Goodreads for years. It's a great way to organize reading lists and find book recommendations. Turns out it's also a great way to network with other readers. More readers mean more reviews. More reviews (even if they're not five stars) are better than no reviews.

In the process of setting up my author presence there, I discovered I had never invited my Facebook and Twitter friends to befriend me on Goodreads as well. This was a simple click that grew my GR friends from 60 or so to 350+ and counting. Investigating some of these new GR friends' profiles, reaching out via GR's email function, and joining special interest groups has already led me to some wonderfully generous authors who have shared some great tips with me, like Susan May. Thanks to her cogent explanation of how and why to use Goodreads, I am committed to making GR an equal partner in my social networking efforts.

By now I hope I've convinced you to include Goodreads in your engagement strategy. How much time, you may be wondering? On a recent day, this is how I spent the time I apportioned to marketing/platform:

  • I selected a page of Goodreads friends, around 30 names or so.
  • I clicked on each name to view their profile. 
  • I reached out via GR and introduced myself. 
  • If they had written any books, I selected at least one as Want To Read. 
  • I noted their Twitter handle and made sure I was following them. 
  • Ditto their Facebook page. 
  • If they had a website, I visited it. 
  • If they had a blog, I read a few posts and commented if I had something relevant to say. 
  • I subscribed to their website. 
  • I shared any posts I thought fit into my platform. 

This cost me nothing in actual dollars and cents, and took about one hour of my time. With over 300 friends on Goodreads, working through one page of friends per day, I estimate it will take about two weeks to complete this project. Once I'm caught up, I hope to stay current as I add friends, rather than doing them in batches.

If there are any programs or apps out there that will show me the social media info of people I already follow on Goodreads or Facebook or Twitter, please let me know what they are. I know you can invite FB and Twitter friends to GR, but I don't know of any way to do the reverse other than manually.

Let me digress (and it just wouldn't be one of my blog posts if I didn't digress, now would it?) and thank all of you who place your social networking gadgets in a prominent place near the top of your website. Hunting and gathering for links is the number one time waster in this whole platform/engagement endeavor. I can't tell you how many times I had to go searching manually for authors' Facebook pages because there was no indication on their website they the had ever heard of FB, much less set up a page there. But when I clicked over to Facebook on my own, just to double check, and typed in the author's name in the FB search bar, lo and behold! There was a perfectly nice FB page, all up to date with current posts and lots of likes and everything, just waiting to be discovered. People, for the love of all that is holy, please keep your websites updated with live links. If I hadn't been in OCD mode, bound and determined to track them down, I would have done the BOTH and zoomed on to the next author's site. That is all.

The Brushing Of The Hands (BOTH)

Being engaged is a good feeling. Human interaction can be a lot of work, but also very gratifying. I'm enjoying working with Goodreads. It's a nice change of pace from FB and Twitter, which, let's face it, can be something of a cricket echo chamber. And here's the requisite CTA: I hope you will take a minute and follow me on Goodreads. I follow back.

Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed reading this, I hope you'll take a minute to subscribe to my newsletter.

6

Published on 6 Comments on 50 Shades of Pandering

A version of this post originally appeared in 2012.

If I have to experience 50 shades, let's do these, please

Yeah, I'm old enough to get a daily dose of AARP emails. The fact that I no longer mind admitting that should also tell you something about my age. So I'm giving the daily email a quick once-over and slam on the eye brakes at an article about book recommendations. I love to read. Since my escape from the mass produced, over-hyped tree pulp spoon-fed by the Doubleday Book Club, I freely roam all forms of media looking for my next favorite book. And here's how the AARP article started:

AARP's antireview of 50 Shades:

. . . know what's in store for you: paper-thin characters spouting middle-school dialogue during mechanistic scenes of sex, bondage, sex, punishment, sex, spankings and yet more sex in a "playroom of pain." But if, instead, you're a fan of gripping, well-crafted tales about complex relationships . . .


. . . and on it went to talk about other books. Not exactly a ringing endorsement. So, they apparently hate the book, but they lead their summer reading review mentioning it? Do they want us to read it or not?

Seriously, I get it. They want to cash in on the hype, but they don't want anyone to think they actually approve of it ,or (heaven forbid) might have even read the thing.

Man, someone's SEO geek is really earning her salary. I appreciate the cleverness, but their shameless bid for youthful relevance ticked me off. And I am totally ripping off the concept for future blog posts. Here are a few ideas in draft mode. Let's see if they benefit from this new strategy.

As per Branding 101, I am planning several blog entries about evergreen topics, including the Olympics. How's this for a cruelly misdirected lead?

The wonders of network broadcasting technology provide us with nearly limitless opportunities to watch athletic competition. But they are not without their pitfalls. An innocent search for tennis programming may land you in Kardashianville. Beware the segment featuring the gals and their mom taking to the tennis court for a little R&R. If you were looking for an environment of etiquette and courtesy, look again. After approximately the fourth minute of pedestrian on-court hacking, trowel-applied makeup and disrespectful adolescent mockery, you will be desperate for something less soul-killing - like the Olympics!

See what I did there? I casually name-dropped a hugely popular trend (whose appeal completely escapes me) that had ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO DO WITH MY PREFERRED TOPIC, and used it to shill for said preferred topic.

Genius! Let's try another one!

Maybe I should re-think the intro to a previous blog entry featuring a recipe for chicken salad:

Found here

Have a hankering for some chicken, but tired of standing in line for hours behind a bunch of intolerant ignoramuses? Consider dishing up this homemade wonder that will have your family cheering for more (and spare you the overpowering compulsion to shower as soon you leave the Chick-Fil-A parking lot). 


I think the trick is to find the broad generality one loves, like books or chicken or tennis, and pinpoint the inevitable handful of unbelievably annoying fringe elements who have tainted it with their 15 minutes of fame. Quick! Glom onto their media-bloated coattails before the trend passes like black beans at a vegan potluck.

It just wouldn't be a proper blog post published in the spring of 2020 without a nod to the 800 pound gorilla of news topics, now would it? I'll wrap this up with a shameless attempt at some SEO traction:

Welcome to Day Whatever of the Covid-19 shelter-at-home order. What initially appeared to be a blessing in disguise (no work commute! loads of quality time with loved ones!) has quickly morphed into a real-life version of a prison apocalypse movie. Ready to escape? Check out my latest book. It's set in the 19th century Texas frontier, so social distancing is a piece of cake. The only people wearing masks are the ones holding up your stage coach. And there are no toilet paper shortages, because it hasn't been invented yet.

No kidding. You can actually buy my book here.

Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this post, I hope you'll take a minute to subscribe to my blog (the subscribe box is near the top of the right sidebar).

8

Published on 8 Comments on 4 Things I Didn’t Learn From NaNoWriMo (And 3 Things I Did)

A version of this post originally appeared in 2015.

As National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) comes to a close, gird your loins for the usual flood of post mortem blog posts (like this one). You will see some of the same points made in many of them (like the ones following shortly). That's not to say they're not legitimate. They are - for first-time NaNo participants.  They're dying to tell you how they learned how to crank out a respectable amount of words per day, whether they felt like it or not. I learned not to edit and just write, they'll say. But I think NaNo veterans will agree with me when I say these observations fall under the category of No News Here. Yes, I did learn those things the first time I did NaNo. My writing discipline improved as a result. But I hope like heck I'm not snared in a writer's version of Groundhog Day, limited to learning the same stuff over and over. I like to think I come away with something new each time I participate.

Something else in the No News Here category: I am not great when it comes to planning ahead. This year I had grand intentions of using my Scrivener app to have my new novel all outlined and plotted and charted and ready to go, and all I had to do was fill in the blanks scene by scene.  But I fiddle-farted around until it was almost too late, and didn't finish my outline before November 1. This was not the end of the world, especially since I still don't know exactly how the story will wind up. Let's just say it's like motor oil: in a fluid state, very much subject to change.

Okay, so now you know what I didn't learn. Here's what I did learn.

  • As I mentioned, I became even more comfortable with Scrivener. I learned how to use the Label function for categorizing and the Corkboard for storyboarding. I used the split screen feature extensively, viewing my notes in one screen while composing in the other. I used the Inline Annotation feature to boost word count by letting notes to myself stay within the manuscript, but in such a way that is easy to spot and relocate when the time comes. I learned Scrivener has a Name Generator feature, which is pretty cool. Overall, I am really loving Scrivener. It's around $40, but they run a special during NaNo. I think I saw it was $25. Wish I had known this last year and I would've waited until November to buy it. I paid full price.
  • I have blogged previously about my Story Forge cards. I used the heck out of them this NaNo. Whenever I got stuck, out came the cards and I did a spread, usually a character backstory, which stimulated some very productive ruminations. The cards are $20 plus shipping, but they were worth every penny this NaNo. 
  • Speaking of which, this year is the first time I really gave much thought to character backstories. Thanks to the marriage of my stream-of-consciousness ramblings with the ideas suggested by the Story Forge spreads, I now have fully-formed backgrounds supporting all of my characters that informs their actions in what I think is a believable way. I feel I know them better. And knowing them better suggests all sorts of interesting plot twists and shadings and nuance that I may not have otherwise.

I don't do NaNo with the expectation of having a near-perfect project by December 1, which I edit and publish by the end of the year (the same year). Instead, I expect to have at least 50,000 words of hot mess that is the massive, shapeless mound of mashed potatoes from which I will sculpt my Devil's Tower (Close Encounters fans will get this. Others, that's what Google is for). I estimate around half of my 50,000+ word hot mess (and yes, I did finish, first time ahead of schedule, note blue badge of courage proudly displayed at upper right) is stream-of-consciousness stuff: me talking to myself about the story; spit-balling; spelling out various scenarios; why they have potential; why this might work but that probably won't; the pros and cons of adding or changing characters; tinkering with the setting; and so forth. Most of this material will be shifted to Notes and Research and other support folders and mercifully will not show up verbatim in my novel. I don't consider this cheating, or filler, and here's why: it's time and word count spent focused on the project and has a direct and productive connection to the finished product. Since this is a YA story, I estimate I am 60-70% finished with the first draft. Not bad for only 30 days' worth of my time.

There is one more observation I have on NaNoWriMo: this is the first time I've participated that I don't feel drained and exhausted and completely turned off by the thought of returning to my project any time soon. I can't explain it. Maybe because I've converted to self-publishing, and I know publication is definitely going to happen. Maybe because Scrivener really makes the mechanics of writing and publishing a breeze. I really don't know why. But I'm really looking forward to seeing it through.

Note: I have no affiliation with any products mentioned here. I just enjoy using them.

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Published on Leave a comment on More Research Required
Borg me up, baby!

Hello, my name is Lissa, and I am a knowledge-a-holic.

I have been thinking lately that I have an issue with spending way too much time online. I plan to troubleshoot this problem by applying what is left of my brainpower.

What exactly is the big draw? Initially, I blamed my love of technology in most of its forms. I love my smart phone. So handy for so many little tasks! I love my microwave, without which my family would starve. I love GPS. I loved maps before, but the time savings (and no need for folding skills) with GPS is ridiculous! I love my satellite dish. Think about how that works - up in space, whirling round and round our planet, invisibly delivering massive amounts of viewing choices to millions of people 24/7. Speaking of which, I love my TV's remote control. It's not that I object to walking over to the TV to change the channel. But with hundreds of channels all programmed to show commercials at exactly the same time, standing there with your finger on the TV's channel button until you find something worth watching is just not an option.

I love all of these things and more, but it's the Internet that is killing me. I love all of my smart devices, but if it were not for the Internet, I would definitely not have a dead booty and a permanent kink behind my right shoulder blade from sitting in front of a screen all the dang day.

Think about it: without the Internet, how much time would you spend on your laptop/phone/tablet? It's the Internet, with all of this more or less infinite knowledge within literal reach, that keeps me chained to the desk. I am a knowledge junkie. I cannot get enough. So I sit here and ruin my health ('sitting is the new smoking') when I should be out taking the air and otherwise interacting with Mother Nature or other human beings.

Do you know the scene from The Fifth Element where Mila Jovovich's character, Leeloo, is catching up on 5000 years of human history by absorbing knowledge as images on the computer screen zip by? My idea of heaven! But I fear another fictional scenario may be more likely. It's only a matter of time until I turn up like that dude in a Stephen King short story, who spent so much time on his computer that gradually its wires burrowed into his body, and they became permanently entwined.

There's no way I am ready to give up my addiction. I haven't hit bottom yet. If only you could see what I see every day. Recent bounty included these tidbits:


I love info like Smaug loves his gold

Random? Sure. And each factoid has oodles of factoid-lets oh so ripe for the plucking. Dig a little deeper and you will find more info, and more, and more, an endless supply, more than any human brain could ever process. And it's just about as close to 'free' as you can get. I can wallow in this stuff all day long without spending a penny. I know the economists among you are out there waving your arms and shouting 'opportunity cost!', but I choose to ignore you since this is, after all, my blog.

The flow of information is not going to stop, and I'm not going to stop wallowing. So my only alternative is to turn this vice into something productive, channel it, control it. That way, I can rationalize all that time I spend BIC (Butt In Chair), or even (dare I hope?) allow myself even more BIC time. Hey, maybe this blog thing could be part of the solution. Definitely needs more research!

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Published on Leave a comment on Rejected And Loving It

This is so not me. But it is the me I want to be.    
Photo by Lanakila McNaughton, part of a
series of great photos here.
 

I hate to admit it, but I'm a lifelong nerd/teacher's pet. I am an easygoing, rule-following, non-wavemaking, non-stuff-starting conformist. It's been ages since I got in trouble for anything, much less was kicked out of anything.

So I was a little nonplussed recently when a couple of my shares got removed from a writing community I joined. They were not spam. They were not of the Notice Me/Buy My Book ilk. They were relevant (IMO) links on the craft of writing, with my brief comments as to why they might be found interesting by the community. 

I'm a little embarrassed that I troubled them with inappropriate posts. But I'm also a little ticked. I went back and read their posts about what they did and didn't want submitted, and I can't for the life of me see why mine didn't pass muster. Particularly when I see some of the other posts flowing through unimpeded. The most amusing are the lame attempts to circumvent the community's 'no promotions' policy, such as this recent post:

"So far my free book promotion on Amazon has reached the rank of #169 overall and #4 in my genre (fantasy/epic). Is this pretty much par for the course in your experience with free books, or should I be excited?"

Oh, that's not self-promoting. No, not at all.

I dropped out of the community just to avoid any future misunderstandings. It was tempting to reach out to the admin for clarification and stay active in the group. But have you seen how many other writing and blogging communities I belong to? That would be like a drowning person asking the lifeguard to please add a little more water to the pool.

Still feeling all black-leather-jacket-and-motorcycle about my shares getting the boot. Wonder what I will get kicked out of today?

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Published on Leave a comment on Deadlines and Schedules: Blog Jail, Or Blog Heaven?

I promised you an update since I started using an editorial calendar for this blog. Before it was finished, I was already editing it. The process of creating the calendar pointed out some weaknesses in my blog strategy - it was too scattered, too general. By tightening the topic scope for my calendar, I was able to sharpen the focus on my blog. This in turn helped me tremendously in generating quality topic ideas for future posts.

Added bonus: thanks to the calendar, already some topic ideas are sorting themselves into best for tweets or retweets or Facebook posts, either because they don't quite fit into my editorial calendar topics, or they are somewhat duplicative. I don't want all of my feeds to be carbon copies of each other, so this is a good thing.

I find using the calendar more liberating from the perspective that the subject matter is narrowed. Does that seem backwards? Maybe, but consider this: if you tell me I can write about whatever I want, that freedom is deceptive. It often results in paralysis, as there is just too much to choose from. If you find yourself (like me) hitting up the internet just hoping for inspiration to stream by, you could probably do with some structure.

Compare that with another blog I used to maintain. I mentioned previously that I don't use an editorial calendar for that one because the niche is so narrow (junior tennis instruction tips and tricks). I rarely had trouble finding a topic to post, RT or write about, thanks to Google Alerts and my Twitter account for that niche. Also, I knew right away when looking through streams if a topic was right, because that niche is so specific.


photo from here

Think of it like this: Let's say your job is to report on how much traffic passes through a given intersection (the traffic represents the very broad blog topic of 'writing' that may be flowing through your social media feeds). So out you go, clipboard/laptop at the ready. Traffic passes. You start ticking off the cars as they flow by. But some cars have more than one occupant - do you count them as one car or multiple, one per person? Do you count just adults, or kids also? What about buses? Bicycles? Mopeds? There are train tracks parallel to the road. Are trains included? What about the guy who pulled an illegal u-turn and didn't quite go all the way through? The signal malfunctions at 3pm and traffic is redirected from the street you are monitoring to a side street you are not. How does that count?

In this example, the niche is huge. There are too many variables. Your data will be all over the place. No matter how hard you try, your results will be less than optimal because your data collection strategy (in our case, which posts shall we select for sharing/inspiration) is too broad.

Now, re-imagine that scenario when you are tasked to return to the same intersection the following day. But today you are told only to track any female motorcyclists that pass through the intersection. Or maybe only green four-door sedans. Or garbage trucks. The niche has narrowed, making the job infinitely easier, allowing you to provide a higher quality report at the end of the day.

I am really glad we are not standing at an intersection counting cars. But sometimes I feel like I am, watching the 'traffic' flow through in my social media streams. Which ones are right for blog inspiration? The editorial calendar is helping me decide.

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Published on Leave a comment on Editorial Calendars – Getting Your Blogging Stuff Together

And by 'stuff', you probably know what I mean . . .
image from Amber Warren's
EmpowermentYoga.wordpress.com
blog

This post was originally published in 2014.

Here we are on the downhill side of the January 2014 NaBloPoMo challenge. I am doing pretty well with it. I have missed a day here and there (like yesterday), but not many. I find myself getting into a blogging rhythm. This month's writing prompt/theme is 'pressure', and I do feel some pressure to blog every day, as intended. It's a good pressure, though, like a great deep tissue massage right under the pointy part of the scapula, where all of us writers feel tight from being hunched over the keyboard all day.

Until now I have been 'pantsing' the topics. I abandoned the daily blog prompts relating to pressure early on, in favor of challenging myself to include the word 'pressure' in every post. Writing to topic just wasn't my thing, for two reasons. One, at the beginning of this challenge, I had lots of random ideas I wanted to riff on. Two, I found after reading the blog posts of others participating in the challenge, it gets a little dry reading posts about the same topic over and over again. This is definitely not a knock on the posts themselves. Of course they were all unique and I enjoyed reading them. But after eating soup for lunch every day this week, sometimes I feel like having a pizza, amirite?

Three weeks in, my random ideas are put to bed and it's time to grow up, stop pantsing and start planning. Some time ago I saw some posts about editorial calendars for blogging and loved the Type A linear discipline of them. Here's a link to one of the articles by Mike Stelzner. I don't know about you, but these suggestions are a little too high powered, and frankly, pricey, for me at this point in my blogging career. This second article by Andreea Ayers is a little more my speed. It's good advice that will cost nothing but your time.

So today, having an unexpected morning off, I am going to town on my editorial calendar. Look for a first draft of it in a future blog post.

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Published on Leave a comment on And The Winner Is: MailChimp

A few posts ago I mentioned one of the things I was slowly coming around to (against my better judgment) was reverting to email as a communications tool. I prefer social media, but the numbers don't lie - more interaction occurs from email than just about any other online tool, even Facebook.

I am of an age that email is a faithful companion. I don't mind going back to it if it means improving communications. I'm on the fence about it mainly because I don't like having an overstuffed inbox myself and am constantly looking for ways to cut down on receiving them. Whenever I see advice urging us to use email more as part of our branding/marketing, I want to say, 'Didn't you get the email? People HATE email!' Maybe I'm in the minority, so I'm willing to keep an open mind.

The two email managers I tried out were FlashIssue and MailChimp. I chose them mainly because they offer free versions. In addition, I wanted to spruce up the weekly email into a more professional-looking newsletter.

Please note:  features may have changed between the time I tried these products and the publication of this post.

FlashIssue
FlashIssue is an app that works within my Gmail program. Once installed, it appears as one of the mail folders. When you want to send a group email, you just click on the FlashIssue folder. A screen within Gmail opens with all the gadgets you need to create or replicate a quality newsletter.

FlashIssue has several templates to get the process started. You can move bits around, play with fonts, add photos, and so forth. I also really like the feature of clipping articles as you browse the Internet, then saving them for plugging them into a future newsletter. Once plugged in, you get a nice-looking preview of the linked article including a photo if the article has one. FlashIssue also makes it easy to create and manage email lists, including hints on how to avoid spam filters. And of course you can schedule emails in advance.

However. A couple of weeks into using and enjoying FlashIssue, I got the dreaded warning that my free period was up and it was time to start paying for the service. That means it's time to start looking for another program!

MailChimp
MailChimp is a standalone program. It had more of a learning curve. I had to import or input my contacts. There are more templates to choose from. They also offer a scheduling feature in the free version. Unfortunately it doesn't have the cool web clipping feature, or if it does, I haven't discovered it yet - it may be offered in a paid version. However, it does have some amazing analytics. I know when someone opens their weekly email. I know when they unsubscribe. I  know exactly what percentage gets opened each week (around 50%). I know when emails bounce. I know when I have entered a duplicate contact. It is really quite amazing considering I have the free version.

Both programs create a much more polished newsletter than my amateurish emails. And I like using a program that helps me stay out of the spam filters. If FlashIssue had a truly free version, I would probably still be using it. But MailChimp just feels more solid and reliable, so I am glad I was motivated to look beyond FlashIssue. Plus, I love the little Rock On! graphic whenever I schedule a newsletter. It's the little things.

Now that I have the means to create some regular emails, on to generating the content that will attract subscribers. Who wants to be first?

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Published on Leave a comment on Are You Trying? Or Doing?

When I first dipped a toe into the social media pool, I chose what I thought was a clever moniker for my brand: 'trying2write'. Now of course at that time, I had no idea what a brand was. I was more focused on how clever I seemed by wordsmithing that puppy like a boss.

Most of my writer friends were beginners like me. Finding the time to write was something we constantly fretted over. I was pretty proud of myself for grabbing that handle first. In hindsight, it now appears to be a self-fulfilling defeatist prophecy. As Master Yoda says:

However, being a Glass Half Full kinda gal, I don't view trying as failure. To me, trying is doing. Lack of trying is failure.

I suspect that for many of us, 'trying' is a euphemism for 'thinking about [fill in your unfulfilled goal here - in my case, writing] while procrastinating and doing just about anything else including scrubbing the bathroom grout with baking soda and a toothpick to avoid actually [writing]'. So the ugly truth is this: I am not further along in my writing process because I am decidedly NOT trying.

For someone (me) who professes to enjoy all aspects of writing - the solitude, the goal-setting, planning, plotting, brainstorming, organizing, publishing, marketing, networking, promoting, payday, and oh yes, THE ACTUAL WRITING  -  I certainly don't set aside much time for this thing I supposedly prize so highly. And I don't even have the formidable obstacles many aspiring writers have to overcome. I don't work a full time job. I don't have young kids to carpool. So what's the issue? The issue is the Not Doing. If I put as much time into my actual unfinished manuscripts (7 at last count) that I do into all the other stuff I just listed, they would be finished by now.

I've since changed most of my social media accounts from the clever to the practical - most of them are now some version of my name. Pro tip: at around the same time I did this, I deleted the word 'aspiring' from all of my author profiles.

So as much as I would love to continue blogging and surfing and tweeting, I need to unplug and devote the precious next two hours I have available today to working on an important scene in the middle build of my current WIP.  If you need me, I'll be trying2write.

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