Promotion Via the World Wide Wild - USENET News Groups

About USENET and Posting

One of the earliest Internet applications, USENET was originally conceieved in 1979 as a forum for an organization called "USENIX," a UNIX users group now called the "Advanced Computing Technical Association"; hence the name (it does not stand for "Users Network"). USENET is now a wild and crazy place. Newsgroups are unmoderated for the most part, and are often little more than spam-fests. Although unfamiliar to many Internet users, USENET hosts tens of thousands of newsgroups which are browsed by millions of people from all over the world. Google and some other search engines also index these groups to some extent, so news releases posted here are likely to generate at least some additional interest.

Although officially unmoderated, USENET newsgroups have certain generally accepted rules of decorum. These are enforced by flaming those who violate them. To avoid flame attacks, or being seen as a spammer or an ignorant novice, do not ignore these rules. Because USENET is a great resource for spambots, never include your real name or email address, either in the header or body of your post. Provide only a link to your website. Your news reader will probably not send posts without a valid-looking email address. Rather than make up something or munge your actual address, reverse its username and domain name components - for example, I would change gwarner@boysmindbooks.com to renrawg@skoobdnimsyob.com. That will look less philistine, and is not likely to inadvertently produce anyone else's actual email address.

A post that is just advertising or hype will probably not get anyone's attention. Your modified press release should work fine here, with its regular title used as the subject line. Post it only in groups where it is likely to be relevant and appropriate. For example, to post notes about my SfS book (a book for secretaries of nonprofits), I found only the following nine groups among the 56,000 newsgroups available on my server:

     • alt.books
     • alt.business
     • alt.business.ads
     • alt.business.home
     • alt.business.misc
     • alt.business.seminars
     • alt.christian.businessmen
     • alt.marketplace.books
     • soc.org.nonprofit

For The Manitou Passage Story, a book about a particular aspect of Michigan history, and a story of interest to Northwest Michigan tourists, and visitors to Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakershore (NPS) in particular, these newsgroups seemed appropriate:

     • can.rec.boating
     • alt.books
     • alt.coast.guard
     • alt.marketplace.books
     • alt.support.lonliness.lighthouse-keepers
     • alt.travel.lighthouse
     • rec.boats
     • rec.boats.cruising
     • rec.outdoors.national-parks

For Mind Over Monster, s self-help psychology book for preteen and adolescent boys, the situation gets a little dicey. Some of the following newsgroups contain pornographic content, and to the extent that some of it involves underage boys, it would be considered child pornography. One would naturally be reluctant to post anything in these groups, but on the other hand, it seems likely that some of those who do are probably prime candidates for the message this particular book attempt to get across. I decided that I a post in these groups turn out to be to be the spark that helped just one boy, that would be worth risking my reputation for. I did avoid the most atrocious examples of bad taste, however. The groups remaining on the list were these:

     • alt.binaries.boys
     • alt.binaries.boys.choir-and-soloist
     • alt.binaries.multimedia.treblevoices
     • alt.binaries.pictures.boys
     • alt.books
     • alt.fan.prettyboy
     • alt.fan.utb.naughty-boy
     • alt.gayteen.personals
     • alt.marketplace.books
     • alt.news.boys
     • alt.parents-teens
     • alt.psychology
     • alt.psychology.personality
     • alt.psychology.psychotherapy
     • alt.suicide.methods
     • alt.support.boylovers
     • alt.support.depression.teens
     • alt.support.personality
     • alt.teens.gay
     • ... etc.

News Servers

Most Internet service providers include at least limited access to the USENET system. These news servers usually leave a lot to be desired, but are good for gaining some experience if you are new to this aspect of the Internet. There is also always an assortment of free news servers. These services are also usually limited, however full-featured systems undergoing testing are sometimes temporarily open to anonymous users. Search Google for "free news servers," or check the NewsParrot for an up-to-date list of what's available.

To appreciate the full power of the USENET system, a subscription service is usually the only real alternative. Here, the situation is much brighter; there are several very good and reasonably priced services to choose from. Here are a few that come highly recommended by USENET users:

     • UseNetServer.com $14.95/Mo (no limits)
     • NewsHosting.com $10.00 for 10Gb/Mo
     • EasyNews $9.98 20Gb/Mo (unused gigs roll over)
     • Giganews $7.95 2Gb/Mo (rated as "a premium service")
     • Newsfeeds.com $4.95 2Gb/Mo (promoted at easiest for newbies

These services all host a full complement of USENET news groups, which currently number upwards of 120,000. Many of those are inactive for one reason or another, so the number of groups in a service's list does not necessarily indicate the quality of their service. Most offer a link where you can review the groups they cover in advance. Sign-up is completed using your credit card, and rebilling occurs automatically each month until you cancel your subscription. If your usage is limited, unused gigabytes are sometimes continuously rolled over. If you use up your bandwidth before the month is out, it's usually very easy to immediately renew your subscription at that point and continue with whatever you were doing when you reached the previous limit. I've been using EasyNews for the past several months, and have never had any complaints. EasyNews offers a web-interface, making it easy to access their system from any computer.

Readers

Windows Outlook Express, which comes with all versions of the Windows operating system as a companion to Internet Explorer, is adequate for text messaging. Otherwise, the only free newsreader that can be recommended is XNews.

XNews is fairly easy to use out of the box. But it also has a lot of capability, so that naturally introduces the possibility of complexity if you wish to change the default configuration in some way. XNews has no help file, as it were. Clicking on "Help" brings up its manual, which isn't always that helpful. Download and install XNews, then browse the tutorials provided by Slyck's Guide to XNews and newZguide, and you will quickly be cruising USENET like a pro.

[-=glw=-]

News Releases & Where to Send Them

News Release Templates

The first step in marketing anything is to make people aware that it's available. A news release (also called "press release") immediately comes to mind. Submit a write-up to your local papers, if only as an ego-trip - "New book by local author/publisher shows how anyone can ...". Submit a non-local version of the same press release to the various free online PR-distribution sites to drive traffic to your website, and your booksellers.

Press releases are not difficult to prepare. The following templates conform to what most "how to" articles deem appropriate. The "cut 'n paste" version is useful when submitting your information online. Save a copy for each site as a record of your your logon information, and what you submitted there.

          • Example Press Release for online press release submissions
          • Cut 'n Paste template for online press release submissions


Suggested Media Kit

Provide downloads useful to editors on your website, and provide a link to these materials in your publicity. Your media kits should include at least the following items. Provide images in TIFF format at 300 DPI, and in assorted sizes.

          • Author Image(s)
          • Cover Image(s)
          • Logo Image(s)
          • Press Release, .doc format
          • Press Release, .txt format

Here's an example. Download the media kit to see how that works.


Press Release Sites (23+ Free Services)

At the time of this writing (August 2007), the following free services were available:

          • local newspapers
          • 24-7pressrelease.com
          • 1888pressrelease.com
          • clickpress.com
          • express-press-release.com
          • freepressrelease.com
          • free-press-release-center.info
          • freepressreleases.co.uk
          • i-newswire.com
          • malebits.com
          • mediasyndicate.com
          • pr9.net
          • pr.com
          • prbuzz.com
          • pressabout.com
          • press-base.com
          • pressbox.com
          • prleap.com
          • prurgent.com
          • przoom.com
          • seenation.com
          • theopenpress.com
          • xtvworld.com

The submission process is similar among these services, requesting a title, summary, and body text in separate fields of the sumbission form. (Hence the "cut 'n paste" version of your your news release.) Most services require you to register and log on, and will review your submission prior to publishing it. When composing your news release, avoid hype and address the prospective readers' interests - what's in it for them. Press releases should be news, not simply an advertisment for your book. Editors will not be eager to publish what is essentially an advertisement.

[-=glw=-]

Using Bookmarking, Blogging and Social Networking Sites

The first step in marketing anything on the Internet is making prospective buyers aware that you exist. Just launching a website does not accomplish that. Your website could exist for months without anyone ever becoming aware of its existence. You can spread the word among your family, friends and associates, and even request that they provide links to your site from there's. But that probably won't help much, if at all.

Advertising is another alternative - if you have a lot of money. If you had a lot of money, you probably would not be trying to self-publish and sell books.

That leaves search engines, a means by which millions of people can eventually discover your website and check out what you have to offer. Search engines will, one way or another, eventually discover your website, or you can submit its address and hope they'll more quickly get around to indexing it. Then when someone happens to submit a search request for something relevant to what your site is all about, a link to your site will, hopefully, be included in the results.

But search services also have a product to sell. The value of their product is defined by the relevance of the results they return in response to the search terms user's submit. The various search services each have their own proprietary ways of trying to achieve that. Articles about how search engines work usually talk about page ranking, but the only people who really know the facts about that are not telling. It's a competitive business, and search services do not reveal that proprietary information. It is clear, however, that content is ranked, in part, according to (1) the number of links pointing to that particular content, and (2) the number of times links to that content are selected on the search engine's results pages. Even after your site is spidered and indexed, your rankings are going to be so low that your position on results pages will be so far down on the list that the link to your site often will never be seen, and therefore will never be selected.

You need some way get other sites to link to yours. One way is to provide some content worth linking to. The availability of your wonderful books probably will not be enough. One way that has proven successful is blogging. After you have something going in that department, you need to make people aware of your blog's existence. Same problem. How will anyone find your blog if the link to it always appears towards the end of 64-million results?

One answer is to seed the process. Book marking, blogging and social networking sites will permit you to create links from their site to your site, your books and your blogs. Here is a list of over three-dozen such sites that are relevant to what you are trying to do. MySpace, of course, is the leader of this pack, by far, so that's the place to concentrate on first. But register at each one, create a personal profile, then find the appropriate place to provide links to your website. Ideally, you will be able to create links to your home page, your blog, and to the promotion page for your books (individually or collectively). On book marking sites, you can appropriately enter these links as a list. On social networking sites, that sort of blatant self-promotion is usually not considered appropriate, so you will want to be a little bit more subtle about it. You can work links into your profile items, and most such sites offer space for a blog. Write a story for that space indicating that your personal blog is hosted on your own website (example provided below). Here's the list:

     • 43Things
     • Bebo
     • BlackPlanet
     • Blogger
     • Bloglines
     • Classmates.com
     • del.icio.us
     • Digg
     • eBay
     • Facebook
     • FaceParty
     • Friendster
     • hi5
     • Hover Spot
     • LibraryThing
     • LinkDoozer
     • LinkedIn
     • Listible
     • LiveJournal
     • Ma.gnolia
     • MetaxuCafe.com
     • MoTime
     • Multiply
     • MySpace
     • Netvouz
     • Orkut
     • Shelfari
     • ShoutLife
     • Spurl
     • StumbleUpon
     • Tagged
     • Tagworld
     • Technorati
     • Tribe
     • Tumblr
     • Vox
     • Wordie
     • Wordpress
     • Xanga
     • Yahoo! 360
     • Zaadz

Registering on all these sites is going to be a time-consuming process. Since the applications are all very similar, you can expedite it by preparing all the information you will need in advance. Type it up in a plain text file. Then select and copy the needed information and paste it into the appropriate boxes as your create your profile. Here is a copy of the page I have used; open your text editor, then copy and paste this section, save it as plain text and then revise the information under each heading for your own use:

Standard Data for Registration Forms
====================================

ABOUT:
I've worked as a self-trained, self-employed electronics engineer/entrepreneur for over thirty years. I am the founder of Warner Instruments, provider of special purpose temperature controls and alarm systems to industry under the well-known FireRight Controls brand name, since 1976. Now semi-retired, I have turned my attention to volunteer work, serving during the past few years on boards and committees of small nonprofit organizations, and lending my experience as a practical and resourceful innovator to show how these small groups can more effectively leverage their limited financial and experiential resources. I've also become a self-publishing author, writing in a broad range of topics. See http://www.boysmindbooks.com to see what I've done and what's in the works.

MEET:
Anyone interested in the topics I write about, who has opinions or experiences to share. Users of FireRight Controls are also welcome to contact me through this venue.

INTERESTS:
Nonprofit organizations, philanthropy, writing

BANDS:
Ottawas, Hurons, Iroquis (This was supposed to be funny. I'm not interested in any music groups, per se.)

VIDEO GAMES:
Combat Parcheesi (Ditto)

TV SHOWS:
Boston Legal, The News Hours with Jim Leaher

MOVIES:
On Golden Pond, It's a Wonderful Life, The Quiet Man

MUSIC:
Show Tunes, Trebles

BOOKS:
My Own, Albert Ellis, Aaron Beck, George Soros, Eric Kandel

QUOTES:
The end never justifies the means.

SCHOOLS ATTENDED:
Grand Haven High School, 1954 - 1958
Missippi State University, 1961 -

"The Manitou Passage Story" BOOK DESCRIPTION:
Learn about the natural and human history of the Manitou Passage, from glacier to National Park! This small book offers a light, sometimes romantic, conspectus written in the conversational style of the popular broadcast series, "Alistair Cooke's America."

"Solutions for Secretaries" BOOK DESCRIPTION:
A guide for nonprofit corporate secretaries and administrative assistants. Learn how to build a first class image on a third rate budget.

"Mind Over Monster" BOOK DESCRIPTION:
Psychological self-help for boys. A simple approach to becomming a happy, well-adjusted man.

BOYSMINDBOOKS COMPANY DESCRIPTION:
BoysMind Books publishes print-on-demand titles in wide ranging subject areas. Offerings include books on nonprofit management, historical narratives, visitor guides, common sense psychological self-help books, and personal memoirs. BMB books are sold through ordinary trade distribution and are ordinarily available through any bookseller.

MAIN BLOG URL and DESCRIPTION:
http://www.boysmindbooks.com/rss/labels/bloghome.html
News, views, whims, rants, and notes about things learned the hard way at HKU (Hard Knocks University) about authoring and publishing print-on-demand books.

BLOG RSS FEED:
http://www.boysmindbooks.com/rss/rss.xml

SPLOGGING MESSAGE FOR USE ON BLOGS ASSOCIATED WITH PROFILES
===========================================================
BoysMind Blog

In the interest of housekeeping, and to avoid any hint of splogging, I've moved all my stories to my own website.

For news, views, whims, rants, and notes about things learned the hard way at HKU (Hard Knocks University) about authoring and publishing print-on-demand books, visit <a href="http://www.boysmindbooks.com/rss/labels/bloghome.html">BoysMind Blog</a>.

Click here to hook up to the <a href="http://www.boysmindbooks.com/rss/rss.xml">RSS Feed</a>.

[-=glw=-]

Is this legit, or is it really just "splogging"? After you've been registered at MySpace for a day or two, you'll find out what splogging really is. You'll receive lots of friend requests from unsavory characters who are really trying to sell you porno, sex toys, or sex partners. Occasionally the pitch will be more mundane, perhaps for penis or breast enlargement pills or creams, or offshore prescription drugs. If they provide any profile information at all, it'll be scant. Another consideration is this; these sites are in business to make money, mostly through advertising. As you can see from the above "the leader" link, you saw that the basis of the ratings was mainly the number of unique visits these sites logged per month. By registering and visiting, you are therefore doing them a favor. You are also making it possible for others to find you and get acquainted, and these associations can sometimes prove very helpful. That's the whole point of networking.

When you register at these sites, most will provide you with a special URL to your own sub-domain or webpage. To keep these registrations active, you will need to log in at these sites periodically. To make that easy, create a local html-coded page with links to each site where you are registered, and showing your logon information. You can then open this page in your browser to quickly and easily access each site. Here's an example you can copy and paste as a template:

<html>
<head>
<title>Blog/Bookmark/Social Networking Site Subscriptions</title>
</head>

<body>

Blogging/Social Networking Site Subscriptions<br>
=============================================<br>
43Things | username::password | <a href="http://www.43things.com/person/genwar">login</a><br>
... etc ... <br>
Zaadz | username::password| <a href="http://www.zaadz.com/genwar">login</a><br>
&nbsp;<br>
&nbsp;<br>

</body>
</html>

There are many other networking sites. The following were excluded from my list for the reasons indicated, but might be of interest to you if they target a relevant audience:

     • AIM [messaging system]
     • BoardGameGeek [about games]
     • BookCrossing [book swapping system]
     • BookMooch [book swapping system]
     • Buzznet [photo, journal, and video-sharing ]
     • Clipmarks [web page clipping using special toolbar]
     • Coastr [beermaking]
     • Cork'd [wine reviewing and sharing]
     • deviantART [for artists]
     • Diigo [web page clipping using special toolbar]
     • Dopplr [travel blogs (currently invitation only)]
     • DVD Aficionado [DVD interest site]
     • DVDSpot [DVD interest site]
     • Flickr [photo sharing site]
     • Flixster [movie database site]
     • Fotopic.net [photo sharing site]
     • FrugalReader [book swapping system]
     • Furl [web page bookmarking and commenting using special toolbar]
     • Geobirds [social networking for birdwatchers]
     • h2g2 [collaborative online encyclopaedia project]
     • I Heart Movies [social networking and personal databases for movie lovers]
     • iMeem [for music and video enthusiasts]
     • ICQ [instant messaging system, now part of AOL with social networking]
     • Lala [music]
     • Last.fm [internet radio - music networking]
     • List of Bests [part of ideas.43things.com ,ideas.43places.com, etc.]
     • MetaFilter [poorly run - sign-up fee - product promotion not allowed.]
     • Mog.com [music sharing and discussion]
     • MSN Messenger {messaging]
     • MyFilmz {networking with a movies theme]
     • Gaiaonline [teen-oriented social networking]
     • Live Spaces [Microsoft friends networking - MSN Messenger/Hotmail extension?]
     • Buzznet [networking with a music and pop culture emphasis]
     • Sconex [networking for high school students]
     • MiGente.com [networking for latinos]
     • myYearbook [networking for high school students]
     • NaNo [unknown]
     • Pandora [internet radio - music]
     • RawSugar [bookmarking - but links addable only with browser button]
     • PaperBackSwap [book swapping club]
     • Piczo [photo based networking for teens]
     • pbase [photography sharing for the professional and serious amature]
     • PoemHunter [poetry and quotations]
     • Rate Your Music [music enthuiasts]
     • Ravelry [a knit and crochet community]
     • Second Life [a virtual world - subscription service]
     • Skype [peer-to-peer internet telephoning]
     • Slashdot [scoemce and technology-related news; science-fiction]
     • SmugMug [digital photo-sharing]
     • SocialCatalogers [not found]
     • SongMeanings [song lyrics]
     • SourceForge.net [Open Source software development]
     • Squirl [cataloging site for collectors]
     • Stashmatic [cataloging site for collectors]
     • Title Trader [book swapping]
     • Twitter [mini-blogging, usefulness not understood]
     • TypePad [a subscription service - 14 day free trial]
     • WhatsOnMyBookshelf? [book swapping]
     • Wikipedia [encyclopedia project]
     • Windows Live Spaces [Microsoft friends networking - MSN Messenger/Hotmail extension?]
     • WineLog [online wine community]
     • Writing.com [online writing]
     • Yelp [reviews of local businesses]
     • YouTube [video clip sharing]
     • zoominfo [[business information search engine]

This is going to be a lot of work. But, hey; whoever said the marketing part was going to be easy?

[-=glw=-]

Book Signing? - What's Up With That?

There are lots of articles about book signings on other blogs, so I'm not going to add to that glut. Here are some of the good ones:

     • 40+ Ways to Make Your Next Book Signing an EVENT - Larry James
     • How to Have A Successful Book Signing - MaryJanice Davidson
     • Signing Protocol - Nora Roberts
     • Celebrity Book Signing - Tommy Yan
     • Getting a Book Signed
     • 35 Ways to Make Your Next Book Signing an Event!

I wasn't really wondering about how to conduct a book-signing event. I just wondered where a book should be signed; on what page. Would you believe I couldn't find one article that could say definitively where a book should be autographed? This question came up because I wanted to give a copy from the first printing of one of my first books to someone who had helped promote it to its prospective audience. This was a somewhat influential person whom I was only casually acquainted with, so I also wondered about the inscription - what would be appropriate, under the circumstances. I only found one article that had anything to say about that, and it wasn't talking about books.

So, if you're wondering about these same things, here's a report on my research.

Where to Sign

Although there appears to be no formally adopted standard or rule, authors usually choose to autograph the title page of their books. Some books have a "half title" page. The title page is the recto side of the copyright page, not the half-title page, which is usually blank on the verso side. Since the author's name is already printed on the title page, signing there is similar to placing their signature on a typed letter. So that makes sense.

Although it often isn't adhered to, there is a generally-accepted standard for book organization. The location of an author's autograph should be as predictable as the location of other content. If a book has an index, you would expect to find it at the back of the book. If you are wondering if the book has been signed by its author, you should be able to expect to find that on the title page.

A notable exception to this convention was Ian Fleming, famous author of the James Bond series. He evidently had some aversion to defacing title pages, so usually autographed his books on the front flyleaf (the blank page immediately inside the cover). An author like Ian Fleming is like the proverbial 500-pound gorilla; he signs wherever he wants.

What to Say

If a book ever achieves any status as a collector's item, an autographed copy will have greater value, and sometimes much greater value. Prominent authors are therefore sometimes reluctant to autograph their books for people other than close friends and associates. Fleming was also an example of this, and looking over some of the signings he provided gives some insight into what is appropriate for various associates.

It turns out this isn't much of a mystery. The inscription in a book can be writted using the same protocol one would use when writing the complementary close for a letter. It's helpful to have the range of possibilities established in advance. My suggestions are these:

• Perfect strangers - flat sign (meaning to simply sign, signature only): "GWarner"
• Acquaintances less than friends - reservedly personalize it: "For Margaret - GWarner 9/23/2007"
• Friends and Associates - personalize it: "For my old chum, Margaret - GW 9/23/2007"
• More than friends (family members, etc.): "With love, for Aunt Mary - GW 9/23/2007"
• Dignitaries: "Respectfully for Judge Albert Burton - GWarner 9/23/2007"
• Special Requests: see below

These involve some subtleties. If the book ever becomes a collector's item, the mention of a name might increase its value if the person named is identifiable as someone important in their own right, or someone with a special relationship to the author. Otherwise the name would be more likely to impair the value of that particular copy. The signing date, written in the author's hand, is a touch that adds value to the autograph since such dates are always of interest when books wind up in collections. Omitting the date lessens the potential value of the autograph, and is appropriate when signing for strangers.

Honoring Inscription Requests

Books make great gifts, and the value of the gift can be greatly enhanced by a personalized inscription written in the author's hand.

Human nature being what it is, there are sure to be occasional request for personalized inscriptions which are not honest or appropriate. The value of such inscriptions depends on your integrity, so were you to condescend to such requests, your autograph wouldn't be of much value anyway. Furthermore, doing so would lessen the worth of inscriptions provided to others containing sentiments that were honest and genuine. Reputation is collateral. It is therefore entirely appropriate to refuse.

Virtual Signing

Virtual book signing ranges from something as elaborate as a live, interactive videoteleconference (VTC), to simply accepting requests by email and returning signatures or personalized inscriptions on sticky labels by regular mail.

The VTC approach involves offering books for sale, taking orders and inscription requests live, and showing the actual signing of the books on-camera. The idea is to simulate an actual book-signing event. Downloadable handwritten labels are also sometimes provided, which recipients can print out and attach to previously purchased copies of the book being promoted.

To offer the simple approach, buy some labels and create a template showing the name of the book and your imprint.

Penmanship

Did that word strike you as odd? Whoever hears anything about "penmanship" any more? Exactly! Elementary students spend very little time learning how to write these days. Perhaps you have never been able to write nicely, so when you impose your signature even on a credit card slip, you feel a little tinge of ambivalence.

It has been said that you can trace a person's career by their signature. When they start out in life, it's clear and legible. The higher they climb, the worse it gets. At the bottom of the ladder, they're considerate, conscientious, hard-working, anxious to make a good impression - qualities reflected in the care they take when signing their name. Later on, for whatever reasons, they are less willing to take care with such basic details. Fixing the problem can elevate one's self-esteem. If you make a conscientious effort to be considerate of others by writing more neatly and legibly, you will find yourself acting more courteously and thoughtfully in other matters also - at home, on the job, and even on the highway.

As a rule of thumb, I have always thought you can quickly take the measure of a business by the look of the place. If it is messy and disorganized, you can safely assume that is the way it does business too. It's probably not a very successful operation, but even if it's managing to succeed in spite of its messy and disorganized style, it's not measuring up to its real potential. Your signature suggests the same sort of imagery to others, and maybe even worse. Doctors are famous for scribbling; its not only accepted by actually expected of them. For others, people are not always likely to be so understanding. Your scribbled signature might very well leave the impression that you think you're "all that."

We're writers, for goodness sakes! Shouldn't handwriting be an essential skill for someone who assumes that title? With a little practice and care, all of us can write more clearly, showing that we respect the written word and, above all, the reader. Some of the fundamentals are only common sense: (1) assume a comfortable position, (2) take your time and write carefully, and (3) practice writing neatly and legibly. Make up your mind to spend as little as just five or ten minutes a day practicing your signature.

If you need a little more help, you can find a wealth of interesting and useful resources at Lessons in Calligraphy and Penmanship. Or go back to school at DonnaYoung.org and learn to write as your teacher's should have taught you to write when you were in the third grade.

[-=glw=-]

What's all this RSS Stuff, Anyhow?

Blogs and RSS Feeds

A good way to draw attention to yourself and your books is to include a "blog" on your website. The term "blog" derives from web log, which originally referred to a regularly updated journal or column published online. (See LiveJournal and The Drudge Report.) The term is now popularly, if not always accurately, applied to any collection of articles and stories, including even collections of photos, videos, and music files. The defining aspect has become the blog's vitality, rather than the nature of its content. Blogs that provide useful information, or articles that are interesting or entertaining, are likely to draw visitors and links to your site. That traffic works like word-of-mouth advertising, and eventually results in your pages winning higher rankings in search results.

"Syndication" is a term that originated in journalism, referring to the simultaneous publishing of proprietary content in a number of newspapers or other periodicals. Syndication is handled by agencies that buy articles, stories, columns, photographs, comic strips, or other features and distribute them for simultaneous publication by subscribing clients. Similar arrangements are found in radio and television broadcasting.

"RSS" stands for "Really Simple Syndication." It is a way to distribute designated web content to particular subscribers. The subscribers are people who have an interest in your website which is keen enough that they want to be informed about changes and newly added content. RSS is also useful for linking to your blog from other websites. For example, if you register at several social networking sites, it makes sense to host your blog at a single location, preferably your own website. You can then link to your blog from the profiles you set up on all the other sites. This avoids duplication, which might be interpreted as blog spamming, which is also called splogging. It also eliminates any chance that search engines might link to your articles at sites with a higher ranking that your own, your hard work thereby serving to direct traffic to someone else.

If your website is static, containing material that doesn't often change, there would ordinarily be no reason for anyone to be interested in a RSS feed from it. Therefore if you have no intention of becoming a "blogger," you know as much about this subject as you need to know, and there is no reason to continue beyond this point.

The syndicators on the web are called "aggregators." That will be you, but you'll will need some help from Google, or someone else. Blogs can be just blurbs (one-sided commentary), but are at their best when interactive. That means you should permit your readers to respond by entering comments of their own which other readers can also see and respond to. That immediately raises the probability of your blog's being open to spam and abuse. Special blog management software is used to help prevent that, and to permit you to manage your system. A couple of free applications that you can install on your own website are DasBlog and WordPress. If your main interest is blogging, you might be willing to become a blog site manager. Otherwise you can leave all that complication up to someone else. There are lots of sites that host blogs, but only a few who do that as their primary business. The leading free blog hosting provider is Google's Blogger. WordPress also provides free hosting as an alternative to the do-it-yourself approach.

Setting Up Your Blog

Blogger is very easy to use and usually works well. The following assumes that you have an existing website with your own registered domain name, and the usual FTP access to your space on the web server. While you actually manage your blog on Blogger, Blogger can be set up to automatically transfer it to your website via FTP. Your blog will therefore be hosted at your own URL, with all links and RSS connections pointing to your web address. Here's how to do it:

1. Before you begin, log on at your website via FTP and create a folder named "rss" in your root directory. Then make note of these items:

     • FTP server address: yoursite.com
     • FTP path: /rss/
     • Blog filename: index.html (need not actually exist)
     • Blog URL: http://www.yoursite.com/rss/
     • FTP username: joeuser
     • FTP password: ••••••••

2. Unless your blog is going to be about a single subject with chronological entries, you will probably want to organize it in some way. Unless you provide otherwise, visitors will see your most recent post when arriving at your blog, unless they clicked on a link to a particular article. You can organize your blog according to categories, as shown at the right (scroll up to see the navigation list):

     • Blog Home
     • Religion
     • Politics
     • Culture
     • ... etc.

Prepare the text for a "Welcome" or "Introduction" for your blog. When you provide links to your blog on other websites or in emails, you can point to this article as a more appropriate entry point than your last, most recent post. This article will wind up as the only item in your "Home" folder, so will appear whenever anyone clicks on your "Blog Home" link. Here is an example:

FireRight Customer Support - Welcome

FireRight Controls is a division of Warner Instruments. We design and manufacture electronic temperature control systems for environmental and reliability test chambers, glass annealing furnaces, and ceramic kilns.

This is the portal to a variety of helpful information for users of FireRight products. Information of a more general nature is also available. Please notice the links on the left to find the support information you need.

If you are not able to locate the information you're looking for, we invite you to contact us directly. We'll be happy to provide further assistance.

Thank you for visiting fireright.com

3. Go to Google's main page site and click the "Sign In" link. If you already have a Google account, sign in. Otherwise click the link provided to create a new account, fill out the form, then retrieve and respond to the verification email. That will bring up your personal Google "Manage Account" page.

4. Click the "Personal Information" "Edit" link and fill in the form. If "Blogger" doesn't appear under the "Try Something New" header, click the More " link under that header, then click "Blogger." The Blogger start page appears; click the CREATE YOUR BLOG NOW link to continue.

5. Fill in the forms to create a blog on Blogspot. On the second screen, enter a Blogger address if your wish, but DO NOT click "Continue"; click the "Advance Blog Setup" link instead to bring up the "Advance Blog Setup" form. Fill in the form using the information you collected above. Click "Continue" to save your information and bring up the "Choose A Template" page.

6. Choose the "Minima" template for now. Page templates can be tweaked to some extent, and you can also change templates whenever you wish later on. You can even create your own template if you need to have your blog exactly match the look and feel of the rest of your site. Click "Continue" to finish the setup process. Then click the "Start Posting" link.

7. Before posting anything, click on the "Settings" tab, and select its "Basic" section. The "Title" shown will appear at the top of your blog pages, and the "Description" will appear just below that. Enter a short description or tag line, answer the questions that follow as desired, then click the "Save Settings" button.

8. Select the "Formatting" section and change the default selections as needed or desired. Items of special interest here are "Time Zone" and "Convert line breaks." For everything else, the defaults are usually appropriate. Save your settings.

9. Select the "Comments" section, and indicate your preferences. "Show Comments" is recommended, as is "Show word verification." If you allow comments, you'll need to monitor that activity to ensure that what others share is tasteful and appropriate. Therefore be sure to enter a "Comment Notification Address" before clicking "Save Settings."

10. Return to the "Create" section under the "Posting" tab, and enter the title and text for your "welcome" page. Before entering your text, notice the "Labels for this post" box; type "home" in the box to create a unique category for this particular item. Whenever you create a new post, be sure to label it before you publish it. You can create a new category simply by typing its name in the label box. Existing categories will be displayed beneath the label box if you toggle the "Show all/Hide all" switch at the right end of the box. You can assign a post to more than one category by separating two or more labels with a comma.

11. Also notice the "Post Options" link. Click this to ensure that "Allow Reader Comments" is checked. You can also change the "Post time and date" if needed, which is useful when correcting errors in, or otherwise revising an existing article.

12. Then enter your title and text, using the "Preview/Hide Preview" switch to review and revise your post. When satisfied with your work, click the PUBLISH POST link.

13. If everything goes right, the "Publishing files to your blog ..." screen will momentarily appear, then the "Your blog published successfully." page will replace it. Click the "View Blog (in a new window)" link to see what others will see. If needed, click the "Edit post" link to make corrections and adjustments.

14. Notice the sidebar on the right side of your page. All of these items can be edited by switching to the "Template" tab and selecting the "Edit HTML" item. To add a navigation list to your template, scroll down to the <!-- Begin #sidebar --> section near the bottom of the code and find the "Edit-Me" links. Replace these with links to your content, which will look something like this:

<li><a rel='tag' href="http://www.yoursite.com/rss/labels/home.html">Blog Home</a></li>
<li><a rel='tag' href="http://www.yoursite.com/rss/labels/Religion.html">Religion</a></li>
<li><a rel='tag' href="http://www.yoursite.com/rss/labels/Politics.html">Politics</a></li>
<li><a rel='tag' href="http://www.yoursite.com/rss/labels/Culture.html">Culture</a></li>
... etc.

15. To simply link to your blog, the URL is:

http://www.yoursite.com/rss/index.html.
To set up an RSS connection to your blog from another site, you will be asked to provide a link to your blog's RSS feed. The URL for that is:

http://www.yoursite.com/rss/rss.xml
... or:
http://www.yoursite.com/rss/atom.xml
... depending upon the protocol that site prefers. Users who desire to do so may subscribe to your blog simply by clicking on the link at the bottom on any of its pages.

I hope this has proven helpful to you. Happy blogging!

[-=glw=-]

Nothing Sells Itself

As a person with an "engineering mentality," I've always leaned towards the "better mousetrap" philosophy, "Build a better mousetrap, and the world will beat a path to your door." claimed Ralph Waldo Emerson, I generally thought of marketing and sales people as expensive excess baggage.

But during my career, I built some better mousetraps, and the world never showed up. That turned out to be the story of my life. I eventually realized that my disrespect for marketing was actually an ego defense. People with low self-esteem hate having to sell themselves, and can't stand rejection. Were it not for that, I might now be very well off.

So now I've become a self-publishing author. I began this adventure thinking, "Why not me? In today's print-on-demand world, any idiot can publish a book." That's true of course. If anyone has the patience to fill several pages with content, it's easy to have it nicely printed and bound in a shiny cover, and even put up for sale on amazon.com. But that doesn't assure that anyone other than the author/publisher will ever know it exists.

Luckily, there is literally tons (okay, jillions of gigabytes) of free information online about marketing self-published POD works. What a great learning opportunity! Too bad this stuff wasn't available to me years ago, since much of it would be equally applicable to the marketing of any other product. But like "W" apparently found out soon after being put into the White House, "Hey - this is hard work! Really hard work."

However, I am determined to see it through to a successful outcome. I'm not yet quite sure what that means. According to a recent article in the Wall Street Journal, 80% of the 1.2 million books BookScan listed in 2004 sold fewer than 99 copies, and only 2% sold 5,000 or more copies. The average was about 500 copies. But that figure obviously includes a handful of best-sellers, and truckloads of books whose sales could be counted on their author's fingers.

So I guess anything over 500 copies would be "above average" and could be considered a success as far as marketing is concerned.

I'm going to do myself a favor and not think about measuring success in terms of earnings. On that basis, my earnings for the "above average" situation would probably amount to about $2 per hour.

[-=gw=-]

Idiots and Self-Publishing

"Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them." That's what Henry David Thoreau thought.

Well, I am not like most men. I live a small, pathetic life, and will go the the grave with nothing. The only song that'll go down with me will be whatever funeral dirge the celebrants choose to sing. I like this one (Mary Frye - 1932):

Do not stand at my grave and weep,
I am not there, I do not sleep.

I am a thousand winds that blow.
I am the diamond glint on snow.
I am the sunlight on ripened grain.
I am the gentle autumn rain.

When you wake in the morning hush,
I am the swift, uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circling flight.
I am the soft starlight at night.

Do not stand at my grave and weep.
I am not there, I do not sleep.
Do not stand at my grave and cry.
I am not there, I did not die!

Total crap, of course, but it's a pretty song, at least the way Libera does it. (Hint: hold your Shift key down when you click these links.)

I'd like to die rich, and that can easily happen if everyone on the Internet would go to my site and order one of my books. I've never been much of a salesman, but I've read that once you get 'em hooked, you have to press for the sale. So okay, before you dry those tears, click that link and get yourself a book right now.

[-=glw=-]