Blogging

A little LOST tribute there with wishes for my only bro. Tuesday, August 3, is older brother’s birthday. (I’m the youngest of three. Yes, I rub it in. Yes, he’s the father of the gal I mentioned last week.) Sending good vibes his way for another great year and many more.

Excited to wave good-bye to July as we enter the month that school starts up again! Was that too enthusiastic? I can’t help it — I like having a schedule and of course, I work better with the kids in school all day.

Anyhoo, back to work. Lots to do… so keeping this short.

Brain food…

• Create the Perfect Author Facebook Page: Captioned video! Just two minutes of your time.
• Think Small to Go Big: Sales for the Small Business Professional: Don’t overwhelm yourself. Great book on topic of starting small for all aspects of our lives: One Small Step Can Change Your Life: The Kaizen Way. Short, fast read. More short fast reads? Check out Short, Powerful and Favorite Books.
• How to Take Great People Photos When You Travel: Need all the help I can get before headin’ to Boston — the first new place I’ve traveled to in too many years. Hope I can capture good memories of Boston. When? Like I’m going to give burglars a heads up. P.S. Burglars, my family will be home. It’s just me doing the traveling.
• Book Bloggers: Oh my gosh… long list! Great for authors looking to find the right audience for book reviews or interviews.
• Five Personal Projects That Will Help You Find Clients: I often recommend to new freelancers to work with nonprofit as a way to start up business.

For fun because we’re allowed…

• World Record for Most T-Shirts Worn at Once: My daughter did this for a video in honor of a friend’s birthday where she put on ALL of her shirts, but it was more like 25 shirts.
• 13 Hilarious Headline Fails: I still wonder how such headlines make it pass the editors. I do placeholders like the “Think of a headline” one — but my editor catches me when I forget to fill it in.
• Google’s broken spell checker credit: Mark Hurst.
• A Pen Mightier Than Any Sword: I love a good pen that writes smooth leaving the right amount of ink behind.

I debated whether to attend this annual sale after ridding my house of 300+ books. George Angus convinced me. I survived the sale and walked away with just FOUR books! It’s amazing when you find a book that you have on your “to read” list.

My youngest went to see the new Dallas Cowboy Stadium. I have yet to get there myself. He also met former Cowboy receiver Michael Irvin. For non-sports fan, Irvin was a former Dancing with the Stars contestant.

Brain food…

• 9 Expert Tips for Better Writing: Love the quotes that accompany each tip.
• A Good Edit Would’ve Fixed That: April Hamilton, judge for self-published book awards, shares common problems she sees in the submissions — not your basic typos. [Link: BubbleCow]
• Best WordPress plugins for writers: Got some of these loaded already… need to check out AP Style Dates and Times. I tend to follow AP Style. However, I prefer am/pm to a.m./p.m., but I understand AP’s thinking behind this.
• A Novel’s Setting Can Be Your Marketing & Promotion Linchpin: How a self-published author sold almost 50,000 books. Inspiring success story!
• Unmask Parasites: I hope we never need this, but might be worth saving. If you think your site has been hacked, run this. [Link: Alan K'necht]
• 18 Things I’ve Learned About Book Marketing: Very detailed tips that includes a script for calling book stores. [Link: Debbie Ohi]
• Social Media Content Worksheet: Although from Jay Baer, I’m sending you to Georganna Hancock’s Posterous as she has great stuff and she’s worth following. [Link: Lori Widmer]

For fun because we’re allowed…

• Lego Movie Posters: I gave my son a cool LEGO Star Wars: The Visual Dictionary (affiliate). (Even I liked browsing it.) It’s incredible how Lego spun off a whole new world with its movie versions of the toys. I enjoy building them with my sons, but I don’t like that they fall apart easily.
• Funky and Fun Keyboards to Brighten Your Day: Browsing these cool keyboards will put a smile on your face unless you don’t like Star Trek, Garfield, The Simpsons, etc. etc.
• 80+ Creative Geek T-Shirts: I recognized a bunch (I love looking at geeky things) and discovered a few newbies. Always loved the “There’s no place like 127.0.0.0.” Also love the typographic tees.
• 7 Ridiculous Products Licensed by Major League Baseball: Hey, what’s wrong with Mr. Potato Head? [Link: Blair Semenoff]

Y’all know I love my books. They’re cheaper than gadgets (I love them, too) and reveal all kinds of wonderful stuff. My seven-year-old’s book shelves overflowed that I couldn’t straighten it anymore. His shelves were the culmination of Mom’s pre-children collection, big sister’s outgrown collection and big brother’s dumped collection.

He let go of many picture books (Aw, I’m proud since it means he wants to challenge himself with harder reading material) and then I reviewed his 250+ books to see what I wanted to keep. This task scared me as I feared I would hold on to too many. Well, I managed to select no more than 20. Proud of myself. Repeat with older son’s books. Survived again.

Plus it’s summer time. You know what that means? It means I start watching Style, Food Network, Bravo type stuff with shows like Clean House and Hoarders. These also motivated me to dump a lot of stuff. I’m even trying to find a home for my precious Theatre World Annual collectible books. These I won’t just give away.

The local Friends of the Public Library is having its annual book sale this month. Debating whether to go. Do I really need to haul in more books? Of course, it won’t be 100 books — I don’t think I’ve ever bought more than 10 (used much restraint!).

Another openin’, another set of links…

Brain food…

• How to Simplify When You Love Your Stuff: When I came across this the day after the great Snave (read it backwards) book clean of 2010, I knew what to write about in this post.
• “No!” Is a Complete Sentence: Fabulous post from Anne Wayman. Y’all know how it is to say, “No.” But Do you continue on with an explanation or do you stop there? Lori Widmer refers to Anne’s post and adds another important factor — the client’s reaction. Put these two together and you’re golden the next time you need that n-o.
• Winners of Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest: “A whimsical literary competition that challenges entrants to compose the opening sentence to the worst of all possible novels.”
• 5 Reasons to Title Your Art: While focused on artwork, it can apply to many things. When I see “Untitled,” I move on and don’t waste my time with it.  [Link: Marcia Yudkin]
• Ultimate iPhone Apps for Writers: 30+ Productivity and Creativity Boosts: I still use a BlackBerry, but own an iPod Touch. I don’t know that I’d ever want to make the switch to an iPhone because (1) I type faster on hard keyboard than on screen keyboard, and (2) iPhone / iPod Touch has addicting time-wasting apps that having it with me all the time could be harmful to my time management efforts. (I don’t have iPod Touch with me very often.)

And for fun because we’re allowed…

• 12 Unbelievable Mosaics: These artists have unbelievable patience.
• Clients from Hell: Hope you don’t recognize anyone here.
• Over 15 Very Funny Posts and Other Links to Make You Laugh About Freelancing: See comments for a few more.
• Time’s Best Blogs of 2010: Lists a few that I love like Cake Wrecks, The Oatmeal and GeekDad. I discovered a few cool ones I hadn’t met like PostSecret, S___ My Kids Ruined, Information Is Beautiful (How did I miss this one when I have this info visualization collection?), Shorpy (Reminds me of browsing through my grandparents’ photo albums… just something about black and white photos from the early 1900s) and more.
• 28 Minimalist Movie Posters: I used to collect Broadway show posters. Actually, having the posters paid off as I held a Broadway-themed party and put them to use. Anyway, enjoy the neat tour of these minimalist movie posters — some excellent and some eh? Love Shawhank Redemption’s poster.
• Login is not a verb: What do you think?
• Re-imagining four common products from 2010 as if they were designed in 1977: An MP3 player, laptop, mobile phone and handheld video game system. Geeks will love this tour of what a flash from the past would look like had these existed in the ’70s.
• Dream Chronicles: Book of Air (affiliate): Dream Chronicles games consist of breathtaking scenes and lots of challenging puzzles. The cheaper standard edition is out. This could be how I’ll spend some of my weekend especially since it looks like a rainy one.

How do you manage your book collection?

Doreen Cronin with my youngest

What’s with the noisy title in this edition? Thank you for asking. I bet that those of you with young kids may have figured it out. We met Doreen Cronin, author of Click, Clack, Moo; Thump, Quack, Moo; Duck for President and Diary of a Worm (Amazon affiliate links) — to name a handful. I think a parents enjoyment of reading a book is a good way to measure the quality of a children’s book. You can bet I laugh lots when we read Cronin’s books especially the ones with the cows and duck.

I asked her what she was working on. She said it was the sequel of a chapter book that comes out in the spring. I looked up the chapter book to see if details were available — not yet. I think it’s a great move on her part because the kids — like my youngest – who know her duck and cows book best now read chapter books and beyond. My older son could have discovered her books when he was in the picture book stage — but we didn’t meet them until later.

Dallas Children’s Theater is performing a musical version of Giggle, Giggle, Quack. We hope to catch that one.

Brain food…

• Six Ways Authors Can Promote Books on Facebook: Authors need to take marketing into their own hands and here’s one way to do it.
• 15 Inspiring Home Offices: Kind of makes me appreciate mine more. These setups rock — I like not being against the wall.
• 101 Blogs That Accept Guest Posts: Love this list because it lists the more popular sites as well as the pagerank — but remember pageranking changes and plenty of lower pagerank sites are worth the guest blog post. I also accept guest posts as long as they meet my guidelines. [Link: @txwriter]
• The Cognitive Itch — From Earworms to Déjà Vu: Dealing with can’t get song out of my head, déjà vu moments and tip-of-tongue problems. [Link: Lydia Dishman]
• Become a Book Review Ninja: 10 Steps to Mastery: I’ve been sitting on an how to article for doing book reviews for months. It need spiffying and more storytelling. Well, this is exactly what I was looking for — don’t know that I would’ve used the ninja theme, but I knew a theme would work.

And for fun because we’re allowed…

• 16 Eye Popping Pixel Sculptures You Have to See: Ah, I remember the days of 8-bit graphics. Who knew it could be taken to another dimension?
• 25 Cool USB Drives: I use a boring basic one. What I need isn’t a cool one but a very short one because the one I have keeps getting hit because of the way it sticks out. Wax seal one brings back memories. Yes, I had one. [Link: Jessica Strawser]
• Beautiful and Funny Illustrations by Tokyo Go Go: Something different, colorful and fun to look at. [Link: @bkkmacdaddy]
• 10 Hilarious Yet Ingenious Solutions to Everyday Problems: I could probably use the t-shirt … but it’d help to make plans to travel to another country first.
• Dream Chronicles: The Book of Air: (Big Fish Games affiliate link) I love this PC game series because of its gorgeous screens, absorbing puzzles and captivating storytelling. Right now, it’s only available as a Collector’s Edition, but this gives you time to try the original, Eternal Maze and the Chosen Child.

Tell us about a time when you met an author in person or a celebrity.

5th grade graduate and wonderful teacher

I Be One Decade Old

Goodness gracious! This blog’s 10th birthday passed and I never noticed until today. My first blog post went up on June 1, 2000. This place is a decade old. What does that translate into Internet years? Anyway, thank you to every single pair of eyes for reading in the last seven years or so. (I don’t think anyone read my blah blahs in the first few years.)

I’m glad HAGS short for “Have a great summer” didn’t come along when my friends and I signed each other’s yearbook. Nowadays, I see my kid’s yearbooks riddled with “HAGS” and little else. OK, elementary school kids — I understand. (Yearbooks only came out for high schoolers during my school days. Now elementary and junior high are in the game.) But high school kids can add a little more thought to what they write.

5th Grade Graduations

School ended today. Second child graduated from elementary school last Tuesday — the photos turned out lousy. Thank goodness, a photographer took a picture of every kid with the teacher. That one turned out great. My husband thinks my digital camera doesn’t do a good job. Ohh… I don’t even want to start comparing cameras again. Anyone get a rec? I love small ones that can also do videos.

I had a graduation ceremony in 5th grade, which I can only recall walking in the auditorium and nothing more. I asked my mom what she remembers. She said she can only recall worrying about my busing to 6th grade. (She has great instincts because 6th grade was my worst year in my school career.)

Mom remembers my sister’s 5th grade graduation because they marched in to “Hey, Jude” and it went on forever. Wish I had kept a journal back then as a reminder of what I did, but being a typical kid — I’m sure the thought of doing it would’ve been a good laugh. At least, I captured my two kids’ 5th grade graduations in the journal that I’ve kept since 1989.

Fleeting Youth

The entire 5th grade year helps parents prepare for their child’s transition to middle school. The kids act confident, rule the school and show their readiness to move on to middle school (or junior high as some of you may call it). I could never imagine my youngest going to middle school. I’m not ready. But come 5th grade, I’ll get there. However, since he’d be my last in elementary school, I imagine it’ll be harder. We’ve been at this elementary school since 1999.

Over a decade has passed since I graduated college. For a long time, my time in school outlasted my adult years. Now the tide turns as adulthood surpasses the school career. Somehow, I wish we could package the insight that childhood makes up only a small part of your life that you need to enjoy it and not be in a hurry to grow up like my daughter is.

“Youth is wasted on the young.” — George Bernard Shaw

Brain food…

• 10 Great Short Stories and Essays About All Kinds of Things: Diverse selection! Gotta check some myself — short stuff always fast read.
• An Author’s Plan for Social Media Efforts: Worth bookmarking. Chris Brogan is worth reading regularly, especially this one for authors.
• How to Throw an Awesome Book Launch: First rule for authors: Always expect zero from your publisher. It’ll motivate you to step up your own promotion efforts.
• Yes, I have a policy for that. How about you? Freelance writers need to have policies. What for? How do you handle it when friends and family want to hire you? What if you suddenly become ill (Pth.. pthhh… knock on wood)? What happens to your work?
• Essential tips for running promotions and competitions within Facebook guidelines: Facebook keeps changing rules and policies that this could become outdated. Nonetheless, great information.
• 7 Ways to Deliver Killer (and useful) Blog Content: Lots of posts on this topic; this delivers.
• Social Media Perfectly Played: Tells the story of photographer Kate Noelle and how she blurs personal with professional in her blog. I need to try harder to tell more stories as I don’t mind mixing the two.

And for fun because we’re allowed…

• 25 New Nike Designs Including Twitter, Google & Michael Jackson: Wow. Love some of these, but not my kind of sport shoe anymore or my kind of price for said shoe.
• 12 Geekiest Cakes: Too creative to eat… nah… that’s what photos are for.
• The Lost Finale: Top 10 Most Anticipated TV Endings: Won’t fill Losties’ hearts, but take satisfaction Lost made list.
• Every painting in MoMA in two minutes: No traveling required. [Link: Mark Hurst]
• Verizon Advertising Fail: Silence speaks volumes. (Real original, Meryl.) Did you know that I, someone who happens to be profoundly deaf, worked for two telecommunications companies for a total of 10 years?

Birthday boy with Chuzzle friends

My youngest of three turned seven on April 28. My little guy is the only one of the five of us born outside of the January – February and Capricorn – Aquarius months (or Capriquarius as I call ‘em because my birthday falls right where one ends and another begins). Winter birthdays are awesome, but it’s nice having one in the spring and get a break from all the celebrating that occurs within one month (January 14 – February 10). He loves drawing, playing Chuzzle and doing whatever his big brother does.

Gosh, seven years since I touched the baby blog that began with the pregnancy test and ended shortly after his arrival. Anyway, enough indulging Mom. And onto more important things for you… the weekly links.

Brain food…

• Linkbait Generator: Plug in a couple of words from your post and let it come up with some great ideas for post ideas and titles. I spent a lot of time trying to come up with a title for the bad query responses post. Maybe I could’ve saved time with this. [Link: Joan Stewart]
• Gobbledygook Grader: Enter press releases, copy and whatever content to see how it rates for gobbledygook, jargon, cliches and more. [Link: Joan Stewart]
• Do Authors Choose Their Covers? Therese Walsh shares her experience in working on the cover for The Last Will of Moira Leahy.
• Study: Brain Exercises Don’t Improve Cognition: Know all those popular brain games? They may not help after all.
• My Top 33 Email Tips Part 1 and Part 2: Hey, I actually apply most of these tips — it’s the organized freak in me that makes it possible. They do work. One feature that bugs me in some group lists: Even if you hit “Reply” — the email reply address is to the entire group, not the person who sent the message. Some services let you control this.
• Your Turn: Is it Ethical to Vent Your Personal Feelings On a Client’s Blog? Don’t burn bridges, people.

And for fun because we’re allowed…

• Sunday Morning at Zhongshan Park in Shanghai: They thought of everything in these rules for a Chinese public park.
• A Typical Day in the Life of an Internet Addict: High tech procrastinating.
• Top 10 Bad Beverage Ideas: New Coke is the only one I tried. Big mistake.
• Unique and Stylish Coffee Tables: Love the first two. [Link: Misty Belardo]
• Cut It Out! Amazing Paper Cut Out Art: Amazing is right.
• 23 Ingenious and Artistic 404 Error Pages: I used to collect 404 pages in the early days of my blog. Boy, have they come a long way!
• Ultimate List of Funny Bathroom Signs: H.i.l.a.r.i.o.u.s. [Link: Misty Belardo]

Yes, It's the '80s

Where else but Texas can you experience four seasons in less than a week? Last weekend, we had five inches of snow here in Plano (skip north of Dallas). Monday felt like spring. The sun shined hard on Tuesday to give us a feeling of summer. It rained Wednesday to bring us back to fall. I played tennis yesterday on a cold cloudy and blowy day: The wind won.

Oh, what’s up with that embarrassing prom photo? Inspired by “When Prom Dresses Go Bad” link below. Fact: My escort later became my husband.

Brain food…

• Why Keep Blogging? I don’t believe in blogging for the sake of blogging and traffic. I also don’t believe in blogging daily. Sure, this brings more traffic, but it also brings burnout faster.
• Self-Promotion or “That Other Whore” Syndrome: Things you may not know about publicity. [Link: Debbie Ohi]
• How to Master a Subject: Become one with your subject with the help from the library.
• Grants for Writers–As Diverse as You Are: It’s incredible what’s out there. C. Hope Clarke has been writing about grants for years.
• 10 Steps to Create the Ultimate Facebook Fan Page for Your Brand: Begins with why bother and then the deets.
• Self-publishing success story: JA Konrath sells 30K Kindle eBooks in 11 months: One advantage — known author, but the rest are great tips.

For fun because we’re allowed…

• 86 Beautiful Book Covers: Feels like a stroll through a museum of books.
• Robots do a sedar: This is one role many would love the robots to take on especially if they work in the kitchen.
• Rubik’s Cube for the Blind: Metal, six materials and Braille.
• Shilhouettes: Powerful images…
• When Prom Dresses Go Bad: Stop laughing at my big hair and ruffles.
• The Things Facebook Causes, According to Google: If you’re struggling with any of these, maybe you need a break from Facebook

© Copyright Paul O'Farrell and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons License

My family doesn’t have a drop of Irishness in our blood — that we know of, anyway. But that never stopped my dad and me from wearing green on March 17th. Dad went the extra mile by wearing a dark green suit to work with some silly button like, “Kiss me, I’m Irish.” Obviously, he liked to have fun and I am sure some folks today would say the button is harassment. No matter, count on my wearing green.

Brain food…

• 8 Must-Have Twitter and Facebook Add-Ons: Oh yes, add-ons go beyond browsers and blog apps. The article forgot to point to the scripts (all use Greasemonkey), which can you find by searching userscripts.org. Facebook Purity explains how to install scripts for other browsers.
• Synopsis Tips for Writers: Excellent short post. [Link: BubbleCow]
• 10 Turnsoffs Keeping Readers from My Blog: These are the unwritten rules I tend to follow… at least, I hope I am.
• 10 Amazing Life Lessons You Can Learn from Albert Einstein: Not a single one has anything to do with relativity.
• 33 Writing Terms You Should Know: When WIP on an ms, be sure to stick to DL while following GL [Link: BubbleCow -- awesome resource... follow @bubblecow!]
• Research Tip: Finding Crutch Words: Do you keep using some words repeatedly? I try not to, but with all that I write… it can be tough. Current challenge is to avoid that and which. Not easy! [Link: @elizabethscraig]
• Top 100 Sites on the Internet: Very cool interactive graphic. [Link: @kirstinbutler]

Image from jimbowen0306 / CC BY 2.0

And for fun because we’re allowed…

• 10 Coolest Foosball Tables: Aww… My husband just has an ordinary table.
• 70+ Examples Of Beautiful Night Photography: Breathtaking… [Link: Ruhani Rabin]
• 40 Outstanding Mascot Designs: I’d love to have one… but not sure it would fit this site’s brand. Or what. My favorite mascot: Fort Worth’s TCU Horned Frogs. I found many horned toads in my backyard while growing up. [Link: bkmacdaddy]
• Junkyard steampunk Yoda: Serious, I am.
• 5 Browsers and the Modes of Transportation They Resemble: Pretty darn accurate.
• Top 10 Japanese Etiquette Mistakes: I love reading about cultures and etiquette even though I never get to try them (or avoid them). I learned about #2 from my husband and I have used it.
• Friday Funnies: Words Shape Your Existence: Great way to kick off weekend (and Spring Break for some of us). [Link: @alexkaris]

Image by erjkprunczyk via Flickr

I can remember being big on the Olympics back to 1976 watching gymnastics and pretending to be one of the Romanian gymnasts with a friend of mine. We even made our own banners with the country on it. Then when I went to basketball camp in 1984, I went to the TV room to catch whatever I could. Well, to my surprise, my younger two kids took an interest in the 2010 Winter Olympic Games and I let them watch it even when TV watching time was over. I think I finally understand Curling.

What are your favorite Olympic stories or memories?

Brain food…

• New Tools for a New Writing World: Lists some free and low cost classes for freelance writers.
• I’ve Got Rhythm, I’ve Got Writing, I’ve Got My Work, Who Could Ask for Anything More? Great title and greater post.
• 9 Best Websites for Designing Your Logos Online for Free: But really… no substitute for professional design.
• On word counts and interesting books: Of course, word count isn’t a priority in writing a story… but it helps in goal setting and when working with a publisher.
• 11 Ways to Get People Addicted to Your Blog: [Subliminal message: You like it here. You will visit here daily. You will tell others about it. You will smile now.] [Link: Simon]

And for fun because we’re allowed…

• Top 10 Worst Figure Skating Costumes: Heh… I was thinking the same about the ones mentioned from Vancouver 2010.
• 15 Funny and Creative 404 Pages: More goodness.
• 12 Coolest Sheets and Blankets = Good times in bed.
• 10 Unusual Clocks.

Image credit: Zsuzsanna Kilian

I avoid in-person events as much as possible. It’s not because I’m an introvert. It’s not because I look hideous. (Although we should know better than to let our looks get in the way of meetings.) It’s because I’m deaf. Most people understand me when I speak. It’s the other side — the more important part– of the conversation that’s a problem for me: Listening.

It’s true that the average lipreader catches only one-third of what people say. Try reading every third word in this post or another and see how much you understand. I can usually fill in the gaps, but not always. “My name is [mumble]” is a biggie. I might ask the person to repeat once, but no more. In a book club meeting, someone mentioned that reading the book and seeing the movie version was not a good movie. I asked the name of the book. Missed it. Repeated once and missed it again. Gave up.

While this sounds innocent and no big deal, it is. People judge you when you don’t catch things because it makes a person look obtuse or not smart. With online marketing, I don’t miss a single thing and I catch every name and title. What you see of me online is all me without the barriers or presumptions. Writers can do more than just publish content to market themselves. These work well and take up whatever time you put into it.

1. Create a web site with a personal URL. It’s easier and cheaper than ever to build and update a web site. Using blogging applications like WordPress and Tumblr work well. They also have a lot of free and low-price templates available. A customized design adds a personal touch to your brand, but sometimes people don’t have the funds available right away. You can work it out so the only cost you incur is the yearly fee to buy your own URL. writer.blogspot.com hurts the professionalism. You have a lot of options for creating a web site using a blog app. Whether you should blog or not is a different discussion.

2. Set up social media profiles. The web site and blog is your home on the Internet. Social media sites give you a meeting place. Many, many social media sites exist. Forget that. Don’t let it faze you. Pick two or three and completely fill your profile on those sites. Currently, the biggies are LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter. That can and will change. Remember MySpace was hot? I have a page that receives updates from my blog and Twitter account, but I don’t visit it. I’ll set up accounts on other social media sites, but only on a “come across it” basis. Usually I get an invite from a colleague and join up then. I fill in the profile as much as I can.

3. Join conversations. It doesn’t matter where. I go to blogs and leave comments, participate in scheduled Twitter chats, respond to people’s Facebook messages and reply and retweet tweets. Some people love to talk in forums. Notice this says “join conversations,” not “give soliloquies.” People who talk to no one in particular or don’t acknowledge other people’s existence are not listening or becoming a part of the community. The only folks who can get away with this are celebrities.

4. Do the guest thing. Invite and ask. Invite others to be a guest in your blog or community, and ask if you can do the same for others. You’re reaching two new audiences: the other person’s audience and the other person. The other person has a following and will ask people to check out the guest post in your community. Most guest posts come with a byline, which means link juice for your site and getting your name out there.

5. Link to your site and accounts. On your web site, link to your Twitter and other IDs. In your email signature, link to your web site and important IDs. Make sure everything points everywhere else. Do you have an email newsletter? Put your links there, too. This covers all your bases. Those who prefer email updates, RSS feeds and social media IDs.

These five I do on an almost daily basis. It works because I have a comfortable workload. You can do much more with online marketing, but other online marketing tools take more time. Some people do videos. Some do podcasts. Some do webinars. Some do email newsletters. Doing a video or podcast requires thinking about the goals, writing the script, recording and editing before you can publish. With social media, you have control over how much time you spend.

What online marketing tools work well for you?