Do You Know What Time It Is? It's Book Proposal Time

When summer I hit, I threw all my blogging, pinging et al into the swimming pool.

But now that school is back in session (hint, hint I have a school-aged child), I have turned my attention back to work.

I still have plans to blog and increase my blog traffic, but first things first.

I've got a book proposal to write. My editor and I are working fast and furiously on my next book. It's tentatively titled: Living Happily Ever After with Your Daughter Today. Now that we have three chapters finalized, I am ready to pitch to agents and publishers.

Thank goodness I had played this game before. I returned to the book proposal I drafted for the my first book, Grab the Queen Power, and started there.

Then I ordered and read front to back two offerings from Carolyn Howard-Johnson. I must say, and yes I'd say this even if she wasn't a friend of mine, that I could not have done it without her Amazon Short on book proposals and The Frugal Book Editor.

In a few days I'll start blasting out my proposal. Lions, tigers and bears, oh my.

Next time I'll talk about sell sheets, media kits and other things Carolyn and others told me to include!

http://www.allynevans.com/
http://www.allynevans.blogspot.com/

It's Del.icio.us! More on Social Bookmarking

The blogging experiment continues...

I picked Del.icio.us for starters. Next I'll move to StumbleUpon and then Ma.gnolia. I decided not to sign up with Digg. And here's why. I read that it's a little more for the techies. From my own observations, it looks to me as if Del.icio.us and StumbleUpon are gaining ground. And supposedly StumbleUpon is user-friendly. Yes, I like that.

Why Ma.gnolia? It doesn't have anywhere near the volume of the other three mentioned. All I can say is that I'm a sucker for anything southern. I might change my mind before it's all over.

Del.icio.us

First thing you need to do is sign up. Go to Del.icio.us and create an account. After you finish this job, then click on "settings". You'll find it next to your login information at the very top of the right hand side. Once there, click on network badges. Here's where you'll copy the HTML code needed to put on all your blogs. Do this first and then return to this article.

Now what? Good question. It's a little confusing to me, actually and I'm going to do a little more research.

Interestingly, as I was digging and stumbling through (so that's where they got the names for two of the sites), I found something else called: ShareThis.

And being on a mission without much of a plan, I stopped and signed up. Why don't you do the same? I'll return to it and examine a little more to let you know what I think. I am starting to think my blogs are getting crowded with all this extra stuff. More to think about and investigate. No worries, I'll let you know what I find out.

Back to ShareThis...
Go to the site. To the right (at the top), you'll see where to click to create an account. If you want to import your contacts on the listed sites, you can go through the process of importing. If you don't or don't want to add your address book, then skip this step. You'll see at the bottom of the page how to do this. You'll be taken through the registration process.

After that you will be asked to add the widget to your blog. It's super easy. If you use blogger.com (and I'm assuming others like Wordpress, MySpace, Facebook allow for a similar installation), it's a one-two-three process. And you don't have to copy and paste HTML code yourself.

Here's what others are saying about ShareThis.

Okay, I'm getting closer to understanding. But frankly, I have more reading to do before I continue this experiment. I did notice at the end of the article above (about ShareThis) that the poster didn't include "sharethis", but did include Digg, Del.icio.us and Reddit.

Now, after posting this article, I'll go pinging before I return to working on my next book.

http://www.allynevans.com/
http://www.allynevans.blogspot.com/

http://www.momsandgirls.ning.com/

Social Bookmarking

I saved my "Author Marketing Expert" email from early February. It had information to help bloggers and I planned to return to the article. Today I revisited.

The first tip told us to "write articles." Check. I do that. The second tip said, "social bookmark everything."

Okay. I continued to read with the hopes of finding a definition. Penny didn't tell us. And, I had no clue. I consider myself up on "tech talk." But this one had escaped me.

I decided to google social bookmarking. About.com's definition is this: "Social Bookmarking is a way to store and organize bookmarks (websites) as well as sharing bookmarks with friends. Social Bookmarking websites are also used to search for relevant information on a particular topic."

Oh, that. So I knew about it. And had seen some of the more common social bookmarking sites popping up on the blogs of others. Now I had a name for it.

Penny of Author Marketing Expert told us, "Social bookmark *everything* - and I do mean everything - you can bookmark each page of your site and each blog entry you post. While this might seem tedious, it's worth it. You'll see a strong increase in traffic if you social bookmark each page on your site and each of your blog entries."

The ones I've seen the most are: De.licio.us and Digg. Just the other day I saw Ma.gnolia. Turns out there are many!

For a listing of sites, click here.

I found the article below that provides a breakdown of demographics for the different sites:
http://social-media-optimization.com/2008/03/top-10-social-bookmarking-sites/

Enough for the moment.

Next time, I'll select two or three social bookmarking sites and go from there. What fun! Before going outside on this beautiful spring day, I am going to do a little pinging!

http://www.allynevans.blogspot.com/
http://www.allynevans.com/
http://www.momsandgirls.ning.com/

Some of the information provided in this article was reprinted from "The Book Marketing Expert newsletter," a free ezine offering book promotion and publicity tips and techniques. http://www.amarketingexpert.com

Do the Zimbio

The Blog Experiment Continues....
The point: to increase blog traffic.

Want to start from the beginning of the experiment? Click here.

Zimbio is another site that can help you promote your blog. Click here to see what others are saying about it.

Although, I am taking the time to sign up, I doubt that I will play the game enough to provide me much benefit. However, I can manually ping. Okay, so I'm stopping right now to add their ping page to my favorites.

They also allow you to create Wikizines, which then will have back links to your website. Maybe I'll use this more than I think?

You can also write articles (or use your blog posts). Then you have the option of deciding where to load them. I'm assuming again, this simply leads back to you.

Signing up is easy. Visit: Zimbio

Next, locate the "Submit Blog" button. Click on it. You'll then be taken to the blog page. You'll be required to register. It's all user friendly. Allow enough time to load a picture and fill in some profile information about yourself.

After that, you can return to the main menu and check out the other features:

Pinging (Please note: The "pinging" link takes you to the home page. Once they have your blog submitted, then you simply hit the "Ping Your Blog" link to the right.)
Creating a Wikizine
Writing Articles

www.allynevans.blogspot.com
www.momsandgirls.ning.com
www.allynevans.com

It's a Keyword World

If you are not already using keywords in every post, you are missing a major opportunity to be noticed. It's a keyword world and we live in it!

I have monitored posts with and without keywords. The ones with keywords do pick up more random traffic. One time, a post I wrote about American Idol contestants ended up being discussed on their forums. How do I know. I use Google Alerts. My friend, Joyce Faulkner, received a thank you note from the celebrity subject of one her posts. She wrote an article about the reality TV show 90210. Dr. Robert Rey found her post using keywords.

Another topic later will be how to pick the 'right' keywords. I don't think I'm there yet! :)

BTW, if you want to add to my Zimbio Wikizines, please feel free. It's a way to get links to the blog while possibly drawing attention to your work.

The Wikizine for writers: http://www.zimbio.com/Talking+All+Things+Write
A Wikizine for parents of girls: http://www.zimbio.com/Moms+and+Girls+Network
Another Wikizine for parents of girls:
http://www.zimbio.com/Mom+Alerts-News+for+Moms+of+Girls

If you want to know more about Zimbio, visit the previous post.

http://www.allynevans.blogspot.com/
http://www.allynevans.com/
http://www.momsandgirls.ning.com/

Do the Google Dance

Please note:
If you are interested in a step-by-step guide to amping up your blog, then I suggest you start at the beginning of our experiment, click here.

Let's now turn our attention to Google Blogsearch.

When you first click on the link, it simply takes you to a 'search' window. Before moving on, add your blog's URL to see if you are already being picked up by Google Blogsearch.

Next click on the "About Google Blog Search" link. You'll find lots to investigate. I'll walk you through my experience and what I ended up doing as a result.

You'll see a list of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ's). Click on: "How do I get my blog listed?"

Then check out: "Google Blog Search Pinging Service".

Keep in mind that Google Blog Search might be picking you up automatically. I believe all my posts are picked up because I receive Google Alerts within 24 hours or less. If you don't know what a Google Alert is, check out a previous post on the topic, titled: Google Me Happy.

It's my understanding that with some of the bigger blogging services, like Blogger.com, Google Blog Search is already receiving notification. Google owns Blogger.com, which also tells us this is probably already happening.

But...if you want to add it to your manual list of blog crawler sites to ping after you post, then bokomark this URL: http://blogsearch.google.com/ping.

Remember manual pinging requires consistent efforts. You must go to the sites, like Technorati, Ice Rocket, and Google Blogsearch and ping every time you post.

Do you know what time it is? Yep, you guessed right. It's pinging time!

Shooting an Ice Rocket. It Sounds Like: PING

The amping up your blog saga continues....

But first, if you' d like to start at the beginning (click here).

Next is Ice Rocket. It's very easy to add your blog and then to ping once you've posted. I suggest creating a favorites folder for yourself with all the sites you'll want to ping after posting. There is a way on Ice Rocket to implant HTML code for immediate pinging notification, but I am not savvy or patient enough to figure it out.

I'll have to do it the old fashioned way. Yep, I'll have to go to their site and use their pinging form. Ice Rocket actually describes it as, "pinging from the web."

The process is easy. First you visit their site (http://www.icerocket.com/). Then look to the right hand side of the page and locate "Submit Blog". Below "Submit Blog," you'll see a place to include a URL. That's where you'll type in your blog's URL. One of mine is: http://www.allynevans.blogspot.com/.

Then hit the "Go" button.

From there you'll be taken to a page that will give you the opportunity to ping the URL (or blog) you entered. Hit "Submit" and you are on your way.

To return to Ice Rocket to ping additional posts, bookmark this page: http://www.icerocket.com/c?p=ping

Next time, we'll still be pinging! Yes there are more sites to investigate.

http://www.allynevans.com/
http://www.allynevans.blogspot.com/
http://www.momsandgirls.ning.com/