Tag: #Blogging

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The Lows and the Highs #OpenBook Blog Hop

  By Open Book

October 6, 2025

Did you face any hiccups in your publishing this year?

How did you navigate that?

Confession: I haven’t published anything major this year – yet. Yes, I’ve posted on my blog regularly, but this year has been a mixed bag in my writing journey. I even tried taking my writing to Medium, but couldn’t get any traction there. It made me feel like writing was a chore, not a joy. 

The high point is that I’ve sold 90 books at festivals and book events. (And I have two craft shows scheduled before the end of the events.)

The low point is that I haven’t published a new book this year. And the book I published in November 2024 has gone nowhere, despite using a alternative route for publicity. (That didn’t work.) It didn’t help that the print copies of the Rimer Files were delayed and weren’t available for the last show of last year.)

On the bright side, I wrote a short story that will be part of an anthology to be released in November. The 10,000 words took me close to five months to complete. I rewrote the first 3000 words four times before I was satisfied with where the story was going. Once I finished, I was reluctant to let go of my protagonist, Amos Headley. There is so much more he could tell me.

Overall, it was a rough year.

At times, I felt like giving up. But my characters wouldn’t let me. Same for my readers. When one customer bought 9 of my books all at once, it gave me a needed push. But so did the readers who bought the entire Harmony Duprie series on line, all at once. Or one at a time, across one or two weeks.

But mostly, this year was a year of digging deep and staying with it.

How about all of you? How has your publishing year gone? I’ll be looking forward to the answers at the links below.

As always, until next time, please stay safe.

October 6, 2025

Did you face any hiccups in your publishing this year? How did you navigate that?

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

It Feels Like Forever – Blogging #IWSG

  By Open Book
Let’s rock the neurotic writing world!
Our Twitter handle is @TheIWSG and hashtag is #IWSG.
The awesome co-hosts for the April 3 posting of the IWSG are Janet Alcorn, T. Powell Coltrin, Natalie Aguirre, and Pat Garcia!April 3 question – How long have you been blogging?  What do you like about it and how has it changed?

I had to turn on my way back machine to answer this month’s question.

When I realized I needed to do publicity for my first book, Wolves’ Pawn, everyone told me I needed to have a blog. So, I started one. That was probably in 2013 or 2014.
I wasn’t very good at it. I didn’t post on a regular basis, and I had no clue on topics to write about. I didn’t like to post about my personal life, and I’m no expert in the field of writing. What was left?
Back then, I used Blogger. It was free, and I wasn’t committed to it. But it was fairly easy to post, and Blogger + helped  me gain followers, as well as keep the ones I had.
Then the + went away. In no time flat, a large portion of my small band of readers disappeared, never to be seen again. It was time to rethink my position. What if Blogger went away entirely?

So, here I am. On my own website.

Still struggling to find and keep followers, but since I joined this hop and another, at least I am posting on a regular basis. The stats for how many followers I supposedly have feels like a lie, because it isn’t reflected in my views.  Still, I keep trying.
Most of my posts are about writing in general, but more of ‘me’ gets in there. I don’t know that it has helped me sell books, but I keep trying. At least I have something to point to when I’m asked where someone should go to find out more about my books.

Here's something personal, just to prove I'm not a bot!

Here’s something personal, to prove I’m not a bot!

I have the general impression that people don’t read blogs as much as they used to. More focus is on other types of social media, mostly visual. You know what they are. I’ve dabbled on one of those, but prefer written media.
Lot’s of other folks are blogging on this same topic today. You can check out their posts by following the links below.
And, as I always say in closing, please stay safe until the next time!

More Than Sharing Stories #IWSG

  By IWSG
 
February 3 question – Blogging is often more than just sharing stories. It’s often the start of special friendships and relationships. Have you made any friends through the blogosphere?
 
The awesome co-hosts for the February 3 posting of the IWSG are Louise – Fundy Blue , Jennifer Lane, Mary Aalgaard, Patsy Collins at Womagwriter, and Nancy Gideon!
 
I don’t have a huge following on my blog. I watch the page views trickle in some days. Shoot, some days I avoid looking at the number of visitors because it’ll only make me depressed.
 
But I share a blog hop (not this one!) with a few other authors, and we’ve bonded over some of the topics we’ve discussed. We’ve written about places we’ve been and places we want to go. There was a post about the mistakes we’ve made in our writing. We’ve discussed marketing tips and what works for us and what doesn’t. Along the way, I’ve made friends.
 
Well, as much as “talking” strictly over the internet allows us to be friends. We don’t always agree with each other, but we try to be respectful of each other’s opinions. The group includes writers from a variety of countries and backgrounds, which can lead to interesting discussions in the comments. If you’re interested in seeing what do, scroll down to other posts.
 
If I were wealthy, and there wasn’t a world-wide pandemic, I’d love to meet these other writers in real-life. I don’t expect either of those roadblocks to change in the near future, so I’ll keep having conversations with them via the blogshere, or on the other social media we use to stay connected.
 

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

How about you? Have you made friends through your blog?
 
(Shameless plug: I’d love a few more followers. There’s a link to the right where you can sign up to be notified of new posts!)
 
Until the next time, please stay safe.
 
 
 
 
 
 

Best Blogging Tools #OpenBook Blog Hop

  By Open Book

April 13, 2020

What are the best tools you use on your blog? (widgets, templates, etc.)

I’m no expert when it comes to the subject of blogs. I’ve been running this version of my blog for a little over a year now, and I’m still figuring out how to do things. But I’ll share what little I know.

First, the basics. I left the Blogger platform when they dropped the google component that had gained me most of my followers. I debated what to use as my base platform and decided to go with WordPress. I looked at several others, but my choice was made by the sheer amount of free support out there from other WordPress users. I’m not doing anything fancy, and every time I’ve run into a problem, I’ve found a YouTube video to help me out.

Image by William Iven from Pixabay

Next up was choosing a theme. I’m using Parabola, but that certainly isn’t the first one I played with. I don’t remember how many I tried before another author suggested this one. It gives me the flexibility level that’s just right for my basic skill set.

Let’s dig deeper into widgets and plugins. I use the built-in Gallery widget in many places. It has its limitations, but my graphic artist and I have been able to work around them.

I use MailChimp for my newsletter, so the MailChimp widget was a no-brainer. Except for setting it up. I had help with that.

I also use the basic Add to Any for sharing. That’s the widget that gives you the pretty buttons to tweet my posts or share on other websites. I hope you’ll make liberal use of them.

My best non-standard widget is Code Embed. It’s the one that allows me to turn Java Code into clickable fields. That’s what I use to take the code for our blog hop and make it user friendly. (That’s why you can click on the pictures from everyone else’s blog and get taken directly to their post.) It took me a few weeks to learn to use it correctly, but there are helpful videos on YouTube on how to make it work.

I want to find a plugin that allows for basic slideshows. (I had one bookmarked to check out, but it’s no longer being supported.) Does anyone use one and is willing to share the information? Share in the comments, please!

Before I go check out what tools the other authors are using, I’m going to say it. Be safe. I want you to be able to come back next week. Thanks for taking the time to drop by!

April 13, 2020

What are the best tools you use on your blog? (widgets, templates, etc.)

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Rules:
1. Link your blog to this hop.
2. Notify your following that you are participating in this blog hop.
3. Promise to visit/leave a comment on all participants’ blogs.
4. Tweet/or share each person’s blog post. Use #OpenBook when tweeting.
5. Put a banner on your blog that you are participating.