Email Spam 2018

 Recently I received an email from a person I didn't know who was promoting his relatively new self-published book. As a self-published author myself, I wondered how this person knew about me. Had he perhaps read my CreateSpace-published books—Patches on the Same Quilt, Them That Go, or Miracle of the Concrete Jesus & Other Stories?

I'm pretty sure he hadn't. Since his email had also been sent to several others, it looks like he harvested my name and contact info from the website of a group where I am a member. 

Here's what he wrote—with name, title, etc., redacted. While I consider any email that hits my in-box fair game, I do not wish to embarrass those who don't know better. Hence, the redacted info in the email I'm publishing here for educational purposes:

I'm new to [BIG WRITING GROUP], having authored a non-fiction book on [Title redacted] available on Amazon in Kindle for $20 and a paperback version for $24.65, and soon a smaller paperback. 

There is no way that I would ever spend over $10 on an ebook by a well-known author, so I'm unlikely to buy an ebook by an unknown author on a subject that doesn’t interest me. I don't think I'm the target audience for this book. Plus, the following paragraph isn’t a book summary, nor is it a hook to entice folks to buy the book. I’m not sure what it is:

The current "batch" of Justice, FBI and Congressional "silence breakers" is for . . .  [employees who reported waste, fraud or abuse] who usually "blow their whistles seemingly too late", while really they are held in silence by government agencies. These were started by the First Continental Congress in 1777. That didn't work well, as 90 years later government fraud almost lost the Civil War for the Union until Congress passed and Abraham Lincoln signed the False Claims Act in 1862, "deputizing and rewarding all citizens reporting fraud". 

Commas and periods belong inside end quotation marks. Writers know that. Writers also know that over-use of quotation marks (unless quoted material is being cited) is really annoying to readers.

I left out some stuff in the next paragraph (which also isn't a book summary or an effective hook):

The threat and quick governmental legal action worked until WWII when public sources enabled hundreds of civilian [. . . ] cases to be filed [. . . ] on military contractors that were settled in courts before the Justice Department even knew about them, too late the Attorney General claimed to pursue criminal action, against large influential Corporate political contributors. So Congress made cases "secret", keeping them "under seal" in Federal Courts, where most stayed uninvestigated and untried in Courts. A few are settled after 5 years or so "under seal" but recovered less than 1% of what was accused of having been stolen from taxpayers. Mine was filed in 1998 [. . . ] It was supposedly "dismissed", I believe illegally [. . . .] Over $1 billion unpaid in Virginia!

From that paragraph, even with the deleted info included, I had a heckuva time figuring out what the book was actually about. Plus I'm even more annoyed by the comma/quotation mark misuse. The spammer changes tone in the next paragraph, though:

Being a novice, I thought libraries bought books, especially by local authors, and especially in eBook formats that take no room on shelves.

No, that isn't how it works at all. Libraries subscribe to a service that provides access to ebooks. The service gets to pick which ebooks. Your local librarian could have told you that. As a fomer member of my county's library board, I know that some libraries will buy print copies of books by unknown authors if several of library patrons request the book, but libraries have fixed budgets and must use their funds to buy books that will be checked out by more than a few card-holders.

However, if a library allows you to do a presentation about your book (which includes your selling/signing your book), you should donate a copy of your book as a way of thanking that library.

Since that is not the case, I next thought that joining writers groups who are non-profit and giving them half the profits would work, If I could stimulate sales of their books as well, in return.

I have no clue how that would actually work—and I've been a member of various writers groups since 1994. But I can tell you—from personal experience—that self-published authors have doggone few profits. Factor in costs to get to venues that aren't close to home and you could even end up with negative profits.

If you can't stimulate sales of your own book, you are unlikley to stimulate sales of others' books.

The basic concept is to "leapfrog" libraries who can't purchase anything and go directly to "Book Clubs", who I believe are not only looking for "local stories", but are or have contemplated writing one themselves. My experience is in order to complete a book you have to be persistent and are best served "buying from local experts".

There's that doggone comma/quotation mark error again. Arggghhh! I'm not sure what " 'leapfrog' libraries" means. As for book clubs (or, as you put it, "Book Clubs"), they are for readers—people who enjoy reading and discussing books with like-minded folks. People in writers groups are the ones who have contemplated writing books.

Many "Book Clubs" book clubs in my area choose their selections a year or so in advance. Most that I'm familiar with meet monthly, so they don't choose more than a dozen books a year. 

At my website, [title redacted] you'll see my target is a big one "the $20 Trillion National Debt" that shows it is "costing each American over $62,000" for which none received anything of value. Buyers do receive something of value in seeing all the information [. . . ], and $10 if they buy [my book] at my website to their charity of choice, which I will inform them [BIG WRITING GROUP] qualifies as, and I will target to each [BIG WRITING GROUP] Chapter areas and give names in my marketing to those who make presentations.

 My full information is on our [BIG WRITING GROUP] site.

Only basic information—not "full information"—for all members is on the writing group's site (where he found my contact info). And anyone accessing the site has to know an author's name to be able to look up the info. But—since I intend this post to be educational—let me digress into giving a bit of info that might be helpful to self-publishing novices:

Go to writing conferences and symposiums. I've blogged in the past about some writing events  I've attended, such as this symposium and this publishers' day at Virginia Festival of the Book.

Read books about writing. Your library should have some. Start there, but be aware of many articles, blog posts, etc. that exist online. Over a decade ago, I blogged about "Books that Every Writer Should Read." On this blog I've also reviewed some writing books—like Shut Up and Write and The Writer's Essential Tackle Box.

Read about promotion and marketing. Lots of online articles and blogs address marketing. The Behler blog is a good place to start. I've previously blogged about what I didn't want to do for book promotion ("Book Promotion—NOT") and what I might do ("Book Promotion—Maybe").

Join a local writers group. Members who have been there/done that can help you with your concerns and questions.  They can explain hat works and doesn't work for book promotion. But, please—don't spam them.

~

VWC Symposium 2014

A week ago Saturday, I attended the 4th annual Virginia Writers Club "Navigating Your Writing Life" Symposium. I've attended all four, but I have bad memories of things that have happened on two Symposium days. In 2011, Cupcake died shortly after I returned. In 2013, a girl went missing a few hours after I drove past the place on 29 where she was last seen. But this year was OK. While I'm still having mobility problems, I hitched a ride so I didn't have to drive. That helped a lot. And nothing bad happened this year.

This year's program consisted of three sessions with three choices for the two morning sessions. After the morning session was a keynote speech, followed by lunch, then a book fair, and then a final session.

The first session I attended was called "Stranger Than Fiction: Non-fiction Writing, Research, and Investigative Journalism" in the program but "Crafting and Publishing Non-Fiction" on the back of my name tag. Since I'd sold a few feature stories to regional markets some years ago, I'd hoped to learn how to research and put together stories that magazine editors would buy, and I'd hoped to learn about some paying markets. I was particularly interested in learning what went into investigative journalism. However, the session was mostly about creative non-fiction and ways to structure books about historical subjects. While I enjoyed the session, I didn't learn anything I could actually use. There was no mention of investigative journalism and little about paying markets. The highlight was listening to Michael Signer tell about the different ways he approached writing Becoming Madison: The Making of An American Statesman that will be out in 2015. Virginia's colonial period is one of my favorite historical periods, so I look forward to his book.

The second session I attended was "Writing for Young Adults." Because of the vague title, I didn't know what to expect. However, presenters  Kristen-Paige Madonia and Debora Prum gave an excellent overview of what should go into writing for YAs, with a lot of emphasis on developing character and voice. I took a bunch of notes, which I unfortunately lost. However, the handout included a list of recommended books, and I look forward to reading some of them. A real plus was that Madonia  and Plum both read from their works (Fingerprints of You and Fatty in the Backseat ) and thus showed how they'd into practice what they had told us. I really enjoyed this session, and I learned a lot.

The keynote speaker was Kathryn Erskine, a YA writer whose works I enjoy. So far, I've read Mockingbird, Quaking, and The Absolute Value of Mike. All three are excellent, and I look forward to reading her other books.

 Her speech was also excellent and featured a powerpoint display of her writing process. One of my favorite parts was a picture of her giving "the look" to anyone who disturbs her while she's writing.

Lunch was OK. We'd been given a limited choice of three sandwiches, so I opted for turkey. Because I'm gluten-sensitive and diabetic, I ditched the large gluten-rich, high-carb bun and added lettuce, cheese and tomato to my plate. I averted my eyes from the other gluten/carby choices (cookies and pasta salad) and added a bit of fruit salad (carby, but not as bad as pasta or cookies) to my plate.

After lunch, we assembled for announcements of who'd won which categories in the "Summer Shorts" contest. I thought the raffle drawing might be held then, but it wasn't. Then there was a 45-minute book fair during which the presenters would sign books. For most of us, this was a long bathroom break or a period of sitting around without much to do. I noticed several people leaving. I don't know why the signing wasn't at the end of the day as it had been in previous years.

The third session was the one I'd been waiting for—"The Basics of Creating an iBook." Deborah Prum walked participants through the steps of using iAuthor and made the ibook creation process look easy. We went from choosing a template (and why landscape is better than portrait). . .

. . . to what all the different icons in the toolbar do.

How to use iBook Author started to make sense to me. She recommended a free book, which I downloaded and am partway through.

I'm thinking about using material from my Naces of Lithia blog to make some free iBooks about family genealogy. Prum's suggestion to make a folder for each chapter before beginning an iBook's creation makes sense to me—and makes the task of putting together a book a lot less daunting.

We'll see how it goes.

~

Submission Slogging

Warning: Educational post bordering on a rant. No kitty pictures in this one.

I've been on a committee to read submissions—lots of submissions—for an anthology that my writer group is putting together. First the submitters had to send in hard copies. The three of us on the selection committee would read the hard copies, select the works we wanted to include, and then notify authors to send in electronic copies of the works we had chosen. That would be simple enough, right?

Some—not all—of the anthology slush.

While some submissions were a joy to read, and some would be a joy if a few glitches were fixed, others—well, the English teacher that I once was would be turning over in my grave if I were dead. (Since I'm still alive, the English teacher I once was is seriously missing my red pen.)

The selection committee had established some submission guidelines to ensure that submissions were uniform and easy to read. These were basic manuscript format and weren't difficult, but some entrants had problems with a few of our requirements. For instance, we asked that all entries be in Times New Roman 12—a font and size that's easy to read and which is available on just about any computer. Having all entries the same font and size would make it easier for the selection committee to determine how much space an entry will take up in relation to other entries.

Many entries were indeed in Times New Roman 12. Some entrants, alas, were a bit more creative in their choice. A few used Helvetica or other sans serif fonts. (Fortunately no one used Comic Sans or Papyrus.) Well, it's easy enough to change the font/size, but the fiction entry submitted in all capital letters will have to be retyped.

 We asked that the hard copies of essays and stories be double-spaced and poetry be single spaced. Double-spacing isn't difficult, but a few prose entries were nonetheless single-spaced. And a few poems were double-spaced. Spacing is fairly easy to fix, though.

A little trickier to fix is the use of two spaces after end punctuation. Those of us old enough to remember typing class know that on a typewriter (remember those things?) you did indeed put two spaces after a period. But you DON'T DO THIS when you're using a computer. Putting more than one space anywhere in a manuscript leads to real problems when the text is justified. Those extra spaces look like big holes in justified text.

Apparently several submitters were still trying to use a computer as if it were a typewriter.

When you're word-processing, no mark of punctuation has more than one space after it. Some (dashes, hyphens) don't have any spaces before or after them. Em dashes (—), en dashes (–) and hyphens (-) are not interchangeable. Using two hyphens (--) to make a dash is typing, not word-processing. 

We'd also asked that prose be indented to the fourth character space. Many submitters hit the tab key instead. Others apparently hit the space bar four times. A paragraph indent is not a tab. Don't hit the spacebar four times to get to the 4th character spaces. (Several did this!) Set indents in the ruler. This link will tell you about indents.

Using the "show invisibles" feature in Word, I could easily see all the times the space bar had been hit Here's an picture with no indent set:

And here's one with the indent set to the fifth character space:

Speaking of indents, don't put an extra space between paragraphs if you're indenting. That's overkill. Pick one or the other in your manuscript. Since we really didn't want all those extra spaces in the book, we just wanted paragraphs to be indented. (Yes, those spaces between paragraphs look nice in a business letter—but not in a manuscript.)

We wanted all poems flush left to make printing set-up easier. But several folks hit the space bar several times to get the lines where they wanted them on an 8.5 by 11 page. The book page, however, will be a smaller size than 8.5 by 11, so a poem won't occupy quite the same space. If we ever do the anthology as an e-book, poems that are "creatively" spaced will be a real headache.

When submitters were notified to send in electronic copies, things got , er, creative. We'd asked that submissions be saved as a doc. Not docx. Not rtf. Not a zip file. The elderly version of Word on my Mac doesn't recognize a docx. and thus can't open it. However, Pages—the Mac word-processing software—will open a docx. and then convert it to Pages. Then I  do a "save as" from Pages to a Word doc. Does Pages change anything in the original? Maybe, but I don't have any way to be sure. Some ended up pasting their submission in the body of a document, so that had to be pasted into Word, etc.

In the guidelines, we asked for a bio of 50 to 75 words. We probably should have made it clear that we wanted the bio written in complete sentences. But most people got it right.

Anyhow, I'm been slogging through the electronic copies for a couple of weeks now. The slogging has made me realize that I never want to serve on a selection committee again.

And I miss that red pen I used when I graded student compositions.

~

Symposium Show and Tell

Last Saturday, fellow Lake Writer Sally Roseveare and I drove to Charlottesville for the Virginia Writers Club Symposium at Piedmont Community College, a lovely place. On the drive up and back, we caught up with what each other had been doing and talked about writing ideas.

My purpose in attending was to learn more about e-publishing. I'm thinking about e-publishing my 2001 self-published novel, Patches on the Same Quilt,  so I wanted to learn about formatting and other e-stuff I need to know. Since two of the three sessions were about e-publishing, I figured I might fill in some gaps in my knowledge. I'll you about it—in a quick summary—and show you a few pictures.

While the first session I attended wasn't about e-publishing, it was a doggone good session. Clifford Garstang spoke about Show AND Tell.

While many think that writers should show rather than tell, Garstang explained how both techniques can work. Referring to the elementary school tradition of "show and tell" sessions,  he passed around a rock and told stories about it. His handout of examples of showing and telling was an effective way to show us what worked and why. He blogged about his session here.

The next session I attended was about about why members of a panel chose the e-book route. While much of the presentation was entertaining, it wasn't what I was looking for. I wanted to know how rather than why. Fortunately, about mid-way through, Brooke McGlothlin (who's sold 8,000 copies of her e-book!) gave some good advice about how she built a platform, which is essential to e-book success. What the session really needed was some internet visuals so the presenters could show us their websites, blogs, sites they referred to, etc. McGlothin and Bill Blume held up their laptops to show us their websites and McGlothin wrote her URL on the board, but an actual Internet presence would have helped immensely. The college has wi-fi, so I can't imagine why it wasn't utilized.

The last session I attended was about how to promote e-books. Monti Sikes's presentation contained much helpful advice, and I was glad she handed out a list of URLs for sites she had mentioned.

 Again, an internet connection to show us the sites she referred to would have been a huge help. Some of the advice she gave during her session is summarized in her Notes Along the Way blog post, "Marketing your e-books and More." A lot of folks were busily jotting notes as she spoke.

The final sessions was Charles J. Shields' keynote address. Shields is best known as the author of Mockingbird: A Portrait of Harper Lee and And So It Goes: Kurt Vonnegut: A Life.

A most entertaining speaker, Shields revealed how he researched and wrote both books. Plus, he threw in a bit of humor with the "Ten Commandments for Writers."  

I'm guessing maybe a hundred people attended the symposium, which was primarily geared to aspiring writers. I didn't see many commercially published folks in attendance, but there were a lot of self-pubbed folks there—and they all seemed to have a good time.

I really enjoyed the symposium, but I was a bit disappointed that I hadn't learned what I came to learn. And then I ran into Roanoker Cherie Reich, a prolific blogger who's self-pubbed a bunch of e-books. I asked her a bunch of questions; she answered every one and told me things I needed to know. 

While the symposium didn't offer as many sessions as the two-day Appalachian Heritage Writers Symposium I recently attended, it was still a worthwhile event and I'm glad I went. 

And I even learned a few things.

~

Appalachian Heritage Trek

Last Friday and Saturday, I took a road trip to Richlands, VA. I attended the Appalachian Heritage Writers Symposium at Southwest Virginia Community College in Richlands. I'd been asked to do a presentation about children's literature.

It took me about three and a half hours to get there via Route 220 to Roanoke and Route 460 most of the rest of the way. I'm still dealing with some diabetic and other health issues, so I didn't want to travel I-81. I wanted to be able to stop every so often and walk around. Using 460 allowed me to do that.

The symposium was sponsored by the Appalachian Authors Guild, a chapter of the Virginia Writers Club, and those folks really know how to put together a symposium. It was excellent, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. The college's Charles R. King Community Center was a perfect place for a symposium. The parking lot was right in front of the building, the presentation rooms were close together as well as close to the auditorium, and the food was great. Since lunches were buffets, I could adjust a bit for my limited diet. (Yeah, I went off my "no wheat" policy for the weekend—but not as bad as I could have.)

Here'a a view from a parking lot looking down on the center. Check out those mountains!

Both mornings, we had breakfast of pastries, fruit, granola bars, coffee, tea, etc. Before the presentations started we could eat at the tables in one of the three classrooms. Above, you can see folks enjoying breakfast in a classroom right behind the table.

Here's one of the wall decorations hanging in the foyer:

But the coolest thing about the foyer is the Jack Tale wall made of bricks. It was designed by Charles Vess, who happened to be at a presentation I did last June for the Children's Literature Association Conference. I'd always wanted to see this wall.

The wall was so big, I couldn't get it all in one picture, so I took pictures of parts of it:

I couldn't resist the urge to let the wall plug my Appalachian tale, Ferradiddledumday . . . 

. . . or to have my picture taken in front of it.

 Because I did my presentation twice, I could only see two other presenters. I picked Joe Tennis's "Paranormal Writing" and Rebecca Elswick's "Creative Writing." Both were excellent.

A few years ago, I'd enjoyed reading Joe's book, The Marble and Other Tales of Tennessee and Virginia, so I wanted to hear how he wrote. His talk was interesting, and I learned a lot. He began with some writing hints: Write what you know and what you're interested in; find a place to write that's not distracting; outline your projects so long projects won't seem so daunting; take breaks; don't be impatient and try to write a really clever first draft; rewrite over and over—the best writing has been written many times; sound out your times of writer's block—if you can say it, you can write it; double and triple check your sources of information; set a deadline and word count—don't overdo; show, don't tell; used adjectives to season the stew—like a recipe; know who your audience is; get used to the idea of varying sentences; practice writing; in research, there are no dumb questions. Then he told us about writing ghost stories.

 I'd read, thoroughly enjoyed and blogged about Rebecca Elswick's debut novel, Mama's Shoes, so naturally I had to see her. She gave a wonderful workshop about creative writing, with emphasis on diction—and using specific words. Plus, she had some good handouts that I can reference when I do workshops for young writers.

 After all the presenters had finished on Friday, everyone went to the auditorium to hear Gurney Norman, who would give Saturday's keynote address, speak about fiction. I'd enjoyed his short story collection, Kinfolks, several years ago. Unfortunately, from where I was sitting, I couldn't hear him very well. He talked about how real life events can figure into fiction, and used a scar on his hand as a example. After telling us how he cut his hand while making a snowball when he was a child, he read a short story based on the incident.

 Following Norman's speech, we presenters signed our books at a reception that, again, featured great food.

On Saturday, everyone did writing exercises with three different presenters rotating among three different groups. An open mike session, split between two groups, gave everyone who wanted to read a chance to share work. People read fiction, memoir, and poetry. I was impressed with what good quality good everyone's work was. I read part of Ferradiddledumday. Then we had the banquet. Because fatigue was catching up with me, I figured I'd better start for home, so I didn't stay for the keynote or the awards. Here's another shot of the mountains while I was stopped at stoplight:

And here's the West Virginia line ahead:

Even though I made a couple of rest stops on the way home, my return trip took less than four hours. I was pretty tired the next day and my blood sugar was elevated for a while—but it was worth it. It was nice to meet other writers I had originally met years ago at Appalachian Writers Association conferences, some I had met last fall when the Appalachian Authors Guild hosted a VWC board meeting, and a few I had seen at Galax.

~

Three Writer Events

I've been busy. Three writer events in eight days!

A week ago Saturday, I participated in the "SCBWI Rendezvous" at the Roanoke Public Library. Getting there was a challenge because most of the streets in the vicinity of the library were blocked for the breast cancer walk. 

The library is to the right of the very green tree.

I'd hoped to park right beside the library, but I couldn't drive anywhere close to it. The closest parking place I could get was in the hospital parking garage, so I had to walk for several blocks. While making the long walk through the parking garage, I noticed tracks in the concrete.

My parking space was a couple of levels up. The tracks started and stopped in the middle of a wide swath of pavement. How did the animal get there and where did it go? Beats me.

By the time I reached the library, several writers and readers were already there. Soon more arrived. Tiffany Trent, the speaker and author of dark fantasy YA novels, gave an excellent presentation about vision and revision. Speaking about the road to publication and the difficulty in getting commercially published, she mention that aspiring authors should "hope but not expect." A lot of the audience participated in asking questions and answering them.

Several of us had our books there to sell and sign. Besides Tiffany with her several books, Angie Smibert was there with Memento Nora, Amanda Cockrell with What We Keep Is Not Always What Will Stay, and me with Ferradiddledumday and Stuck.

Angie Smibert and Marci Atkins watch Tiffany Trent sign books.

Thursday, I was one of the Lake Writers at the Moneta/SML Library's MOarts Meet and Greet open house. Besides writers, the place was packed with musicians, artists, crafters, and plenty of visitors. Thanks to Sally Roseveare, the Lake Writers had a long table. I took the space next to Sue Coryell, whose A Red, Red Rose just came out.

Sue Coryell with her new book.

While sitting at the table, I chatted with a lot of nice folks, sold several books, and listened to some good down-home music. When I wandered around later, I watched alpaca fleece being spun into yarn, saw some quilters at work, and looked at an array of artwork.

The musicians were a crowd-pleaser.

Yesterday, I went to Martinsville for Binding Time Cafe's Spring Book Festival for area authors. It was nice meeting some new folks and re-connecting with some others. Besides selling and signing books, I also did some promoting for the Mountain Spirits Festival on September 29. It didn't take me long to set up under the tent.

I've been trying to recruit author/publisher Tom Perry of Laurel Hill Publishing to bring his books to Mountain Spirits this year. I hope I convinced him. He has lots of regional history books that would interest Franklin county residents.

I'd been wanting a copy of Avis Turner's new book, In the Land Where Fairies Cried Tears of Stone: Grandma's Story, and I bought it from her. I started it last night and I'm already halfway through. Avis will have her book at Mountain Spirits.

Another author returning to Mountain Spirits is Libby Bondurant (below right), whose cookbook, Grazing Along the Crooked Road, is very popular in the area. Libby brought some tasty chocolate and pecan covered pretzels for folks to snack on.

Speaking of spirits, paranormal investigator John Salas (above) self-published a paranormal novel, Promises Kept. He'll be at Mountain Spirits, too.

~

Blogging about Blogging

Today, I conducted a blogging workshop for some of the Lake Writers. Sally Roseveare, whose blog is Smith Mountain Lake Mystery Writer, was there to help out and take pictures.

Fortunately, the meeting room at the Westlake Library has a "smart board" so everyone could see could see what I accessed on the computer. Two of the workshop attendees had blogs but hadn't used them for awhile; others were completely new to blogging. Everybody was involved and several asked really good questions.

Here's one of the handouts I provided:

Blogging: The What, Why, and How

by Becky Mushko

What is a blog? A blog is an on-line journal—your private selective diary that you’ve opened to the world.

Why blog?

• A blog is your column—a sample of how well you write.
• A blog provides a platform for a writer.
• A blog connects you with like-minded people.
• A blog promotes your books/freelance writing/etc. without being blatant.
• A blog is personally satisfying—sometimes even fun.

A website, a blog, and social media are all part of a writer’s platform. All make people aware that you’re a writer and help promote your books. Some agents Google potential clients to see what kind of a web presence they have, so it’s a good idea to update your blog at regular intervals.

How do I get people to read my blog?

• Send your blog’s URL to your friends. (Mine is http://peevishpen.blogspot.com)
• Put your blog’s URL on your business cards.
• Comment on other people’s blogs.
• Register your blog’s URL on the Ageless Project: http://jenett.org/ageless

On your website, post a link on your website. When you update your blog, post the link on your Facebook page. Ditto for Twitter, if you tweet. If your blog URL is on your business cards, people can easily find your blog. Add comment on other blogs you read. Anyone reading the comments will be able to click your signature and access your blogger profile.

What blog should I use?
I use Blogger (http://www.blogger.com) because Blogger is owned by Google. This makes your blog easily show up in Google searches.

Others blog providers such as Wordpress and Typepad might also interest you.

How do I set up a blog? Go to http://www.blogger.com/start. Under “Learn More” on the right, click the link to take the tour and the link to watch the video tutorial. There are also many tutorials posted on YouTube. A good one is “Create a Blog: The 5 Minute Blog” at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXiJ6jY3qB4, but you can search for others.

If I start a blog to promote my writing, should I write about writing? Writing about your own writing is boring unless you’re a famous author and maybe even then. Write about your life and what you do. Write about your interests. Write the kind of stuff you’d like to read on someone else’s blog. If you were writing a newspaper column, what would you write about? That’s what you’ll blog about. But, yeah, once in a while you can write about your writing. . . .

One writing-related topic you might blog about is books you’ve read and liked. Put a link to the book’s Amazon page and to the author’s website.. If anyone Googles that book title, your blog will show up on the search—and the author might be grateful for the plug. If you didn’t like a book, best not mention it on your blog.

You might also blog about your hobbies, places you’ve been, interesting things you’ve done, etc. The theme of my”Peevish Pen” blog (http://peevishpen.blogspot.com) is “ruminations on reading, writing, rural living, retirement—and sometimes a border collie. And maybe cats.” That pretty much covers everything I blog about.

What interesting things might happen if I blog? Here are a few that happened to me:

• When I blogged about the book Sarah’s Key, the author herself left me a comment: http://peevishpen.blogspot.com/2008/01/sarahs-key.html
• Because I blogged about my writers group visiting Avenel, Farrar Richardson—who lived in France—e-mailed me about Avenel: http://peevishpen.blogspot.com/2006/12/avenel-mystery.html We solved a mystery, and eventually, we met. Of course, I blogged about that in “Avenel Revisited”: http://peevishpen.blogspot.com/2009/06/avenel-revisited.html.
• When I was trying to find the guy who lived next door to me when we were kids so I could return some photos his now-deceased mother left with my now-deceased mother, I blogged about it: http://peevishpen.blogspot.com/2008/02/searching-for-tim-moffitt_24.html and a year later, when he found me, I blogged about that: http://peevishpen.blogspot.com/2009/01/found-him.html

How long does it take to get a blog started? Getting started as a blogger takes a couple of hours to get the hang of what all the blogging features are, to become comfortable with how things work, and to learn which icon does what. But it isn’t really difficult. After a day or two, you’ll be posting your entries in minutes.

Here are a few things to keep in mind before you begin setting up your blog:

• Have several possible URLs in mind in case your first choice is taken.
• Your blog's title doesn't have to match its URL, but it's good if it does.
• Decide on your theme/purpose before setting up a blog.
• Decide on your blog’s look. Blogger offers several templates.
• Keep your blog simple. Don’t add music (unless you’re a musician), special effects, or anything else that detracts from your message. Don’t use lots of tags—maybe one or two. Too many look tacky and unprofessional.
• The first few times you post, you might want to write your blog entries in advance so you can copy and paste.

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Blogs by Lake Writers are at  http://lakewriters.webs.com/blogs.htm. Soon it won't be long until the guys in the picture below have blogs, too.

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