Social Media

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.

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.

Meryl's Dad with his parents

My dad wasn’t an outdoorsy beyond playing sports. Yet, he once took me fishing at a nearby lake. I don’t recall the lake or the actual time spent fishing. The picture that comes to mind is us leaving our home and getting in the car. We also had a great conversation because he taught me a new vocabulary word. Unfortunately, I don’t remember the word — just the experience of being with him and learning something.

I asked my mom about it. She said he took me to Lake Weatherford to swim and maybe Benbrook Lake to fish. (Both in Fort Worth, TX, area.) I learned something new about my dad. He liked fishing and used to go deep-sea fishing with his Uncle Abe and David in Atlantic City (Dad was from Brooklyn).

Brain food…

• What It Takes to Be an Agent: Love books, but don’t want to be an author? Learn about agentdom (or agenthood?).
• 4 Detective Tricks to Find Your Customers in Social Media: One of the key things businesses need to do before diving in social media is know where their target market hangs out online. Of course, you can jump into something and be an early adopter, but you still need to know this information before you plan.
• Pros and Cons of an MFA: Cute cartoon. I’d love to get an MFA or MLA in the future. I hope by the time I’m ready that there’s a local program or an online program (without video lectures) that fits. Why do I want to do it? Practice, feedback, challenge and education. [Link: Elizabeth Craig]
• How to Stand out on LinkedIn: Authored by LinkedIn VP, Steve Patrizi. Meryl’s LinkedIn here.
• A Writer’s Serenity Prayer: Rough day? Read this inspirational post.
• 5 Lies Unpublished Writers Tell Themselves (and the Truths That Can Get Them Published): #3 is my favorite.
• 12 Ways to Market Your Book by Giving Away Free Stuff. It can work… when done right and the article gives great examples. I don’t fall for those $300 worth of freebies, which includes a bunch of ebooks, articles and other stuff I never get around to reading.

And for fun because we’re allowed…

• Rubikcubism: Space invaders, Pac-man, Mona Lisa… who knew the befuddling Rubik’s Cube could do so many things. Beware that some of the pictures may not be safe for work. [Link: Bit Rebels]
• 65+ Incredible Soccer Action Shots and Portraits and World Cup Stop Motion Made with Lego – USA vs England: In honor of the World Cup action. [First link: bkmacdaddy]
• Super Mario Sticky Note Stop Motion: Wow, that’s patience.
• Hello Kitty Now in Star Wars and Star Trek: Amazing what adding a little ribbon does for Darthy’s personality. Too cute. My husband — father of our three children — loves Star Wars and Star Trek. So here’s 18 Astonishing Star Wars Sand Sculptures from BitRebels (obviously, I love this site) in his honor.
• A Geeky Stop Motion Animation Created With Fire: Cool. Just cool.

Share a memory of your father or a male role model.

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?

Photo by flickr user The U.S. Army

Thank you to all who served in the military especially those who died while serving.

Game Discount: Get 30% off any game priced at $6.99 during Memorial Day Weekend. Sign up for the Daily Game Splash Newsletter BY Saturday, May 29th for daily deals and the day’s new game. Sign up for either the PC version or Mac version. After you sign up for the newsletter, you’ll receive a coupon code to use during Memorial Day Weekend (May 29th through May 31st). Enjoy!

Brain food…

• Reclaim Facebook Privacy: Great easy to use tool to help you deal with Facebook’s privacy annoyances.
• Books for graduates setting out on that next big adventure: Great idea and list! More books… If only I can get some ideas for teachers…
• Lessons from LOST: Get a little LOST fix and some great insights for writers.
• How to write a presentation title that gets people flocking to your session: Tips applicable to writing, too!
• Copy Editing – Why It Works: What copy editing is, when you need it, who should do it and how it benefits.
• Pay day procedures from freelance journalists: Excellent advice on asking about payment, rates, invoicing and prevention. Pam provides a couple of resources for Australian residents — however, much of the advice is universal.

For fun because we’re allowed…

• Cross Panel Comics: Brilliant way to incorporate comics into a crossword. Love it! More Cross Panel Comics…
• Put Google’s Pac Man Game on Your Web Site: One of my fave Google logos ever. Think I’d like this on a tee. [Link: Alan K'necht and Barry Schwartz] Oh, and apparently, good ol’ Pac’y ate up a lot of folks’ time at work. P.S. You can still play Google Pac-Man.
• #Artwalk: Brilliant! “Global community of art makers and art lovers who get together once a month on Twitter and Facebook for a worldwide virtual art crawl.” It occurs on the last Tuesday of the month, but you can catch the goodness by searching #artwalk on Twitter.
• I’m Deaf: Rockin’ video by Sean Forbes. I rarely discover new songs or artists — Count me in as a fan.
• Star Wars Lego Chess Board: I’d love to get this for my husband and the aforementioned son who loves Star Wars Legos and likes to play chess. Alas, it’s the brainchild of a genius not associated with Lego.
• 

  Photo by Picasa user wastrel

  “The MLB nickname ‘Dodgers’ referenced the pedestrians who dodged the trolleys that ran through the streets of Brooklyn.” Fun Fact from Mental Floss in honor of my Dad who hailed from Brooklyn and loved dem bums AND made me a Brooklyn Dodgers fan. (Not LA. Brooklyn.) I also had a beagle named B. Dodger (pronounced “Bee Dodger”).

I wrote about field day 2009 and what it was like in my elementary school. Now I’ve experienced two different elementary school field days. (My younger two go to separate elementary schools — by choice.) One school sets up stations all over its big, long field. The kids wear a color shirt based on the grades they’re in while 5th grade wears its class shirt. (5th grade at both schools gets unique class shirts.)

The kids have laminated cards that volunteers check off when they complete the station. They are free to roam the field from station to station. That’s the nice thing about this school’s big yard — you can see it all in front of you.

The other school has a yard that wraps around the sides and back of the school with many blind spots. Three classes from the same grade rotate from station to station together. They do activities inside and outside. This year, for the first time, the grades will wear the same color shirts.

Unlike the other school, we order a new field day tee every year. It has “Field Day” and the current year on it. (See photo for this year’s quasi-Survivor logo.) The image changes every year. Some good years and some dull years. I’d say this year’s is in-between. Best field day shirt ever: red, white and blue tie dye that I still wear. I volunteered today and worked the Speed Stacks station. Yes, lucked with an indoor assignment away from the heat.

Brain food…

• My Dialogue Sucks: Tips for Improving Dialogue in Your Novel: A wonderful collection of highlights from various articles around the web.
• 10 Marketing Resources Every App Should Provide: This is a fantastic resource for anyone involved with apps. I’m amazed how many don’t provide much. Most of us need details before we try it.
• 15 Gorgeous and Effective HTML Emails: Great examples. But reality… HTML-emails don’t look readable in all common email clients. I have found lots of funky-looking ones in Gmail, but they look fine in Thunderbird. First rule: Accept your HTML email won’t look identical in all email apps. [Link: BubbleCow]
• Five Reasons I’m Not Quitting Facebook: And I hope you won’t give up on it either.
• You’re Just Not That Into Me: the introvert’s guide to attending a conference: I have a good reason to avoid conferences — I don’t know if I can get my money’s worth considering deafness thing.

And for fun because we’re allowed…

• Awkward Family Photos: Some of the titles are winners. “Sisters of the traveling hands.”
• 15 Bizarre Prom Photos: Makes my ’80s prom photo look normal.
• Top Five Fonts You Should Never Use: Wish all the locals would watch this… not captioned, but easy to follow and still laugh.
• Recipe Look: OK, the web overflows with recipe sites. But every recipe in Recipe Look comes with adorable drawings. Got a favorite recipe, pencil and paper? Draw away and submit your recipe embellished with your art.
• The City Made of 100,000 Staples: Artist Peter Root plans another project using one million staples. And these things can fall like dominoes. He has worked with potatoes, soap and transformer laminate.
• Twitter Reacts in Horror to 2012 Olympic Mascots: Hilarious article. The new mascots make all the past mascots look like winners. Be sure to scroll through the slide show. [Link: Karen Swim]

What memories do you have of field day or other traditional school event?

My little guy with his teacher

I admired the incredible and teachers who inspired everyone in attendance last night’s Teacher of the Year event. Attendees donned red to signal they’ve been inspired by a teacher in their lives.

Each year, all the schools select one experienced teacher of the year and one beginning teacher of the year. Selected experienced teachers went beyond the expected teaching requirements. Beginning teachers show they have maturity, leadership and instructional ability to become an outstanding teacher in the future.

I don’t know how today’s teachers do it when I see the kinds of things my kids learn at a younger age. Plus, they communicate on a regular basis thanks to emails and phones in the classroom (not in my day).

One Teacher Who Inspired Me

My 10th grade English teacher was an inspiring teacher. I knew her before she was my teacher as her daughter and I played soccer together. I was relieved to finally leave the English teacher I had in my freshman year and somehow again in 10th grade. Awful teacher. Opposite of inspiring.

Shakespeare became interesting thanks to her. That year we did Julius Caesar and I had to memorize the “Friends, Romans and countrymen” speech. I dreaded memorizing poems, but the speech gave me a greater appreciation for the play. That year, we also read The Masque of the Red Death and The Telltale Heart and discussed the meanings behind the stories. I loved the discussions. Maybe that sparked my love for English and literature? Who knows. But I haven’t had many classes that led to interesting discussions like Mrs. Graves’ did.

Brain food…

• Stop! Look! Listen! Transitions for Writers: Excellent tips for dealing with big and small transitions. [Link: Debbi Ohi]
• Are You Really Going to Post That? Fabulous advice on thinking before blogging, tweeting and whatnot for writers. “It pretty much boils down to this: online stupidity can last forever and haunt your career.” I love the photo that accompanies the article.
• Writerly Tip: Know the Signs: Save time and read these signs of what to look for in an ad so you don’t bother answering the ad. Also, read Don’t Pay if you’re considering paying to join the Elances and Gurus.
• The most basic business lesson taught by World of Warcraft: “If you’re not open for business, no one can buy from you.” [Link: DJ Waldow]
• Should You Create a Facebook Fan Page? Jane’s right. “There’s no right way to do this.” I created a business Facebook page by trying to focus on the content — the platform — you get from this blog rather than my business. It needs work.
• How to Position Your Business in Three Sentences: Fill in the blanks. [Link: Valeria Maltoni]
• Nine Tips to Get the Most from a Writing Mentor: Love this post since it focuses on writing rather than basic business mentors.

For fun because we’re allowed…

• Molly and McGee: Owls in a barn on video 24/7. Molly is the female, McGee is her mate and they have four owlets. People are fascinated with these owls. You can also check out Molly’s blog and Twitter page.
• 8 Websites You Need to Stop Building: From The Oatmeal… you can always expect hilarity from ‘em.
• 12 Coolest Coffee Tables: Organized freak in me loves the Hexa Coffee Table. Most people have a bedroom set that includes a headboard and a small lamp table on both sides of the bed with one or two drawers. Mine has two mini-lights built in, shelves and three drawers plus space just above your head where I store my magazines.
• Top 10 Greatest Minor Characters in Geek Fiction: Characters come from Real Genius, Harry Potter, Star Wars and Princess Bride. Can you guess?
• French Ball Point Pen Art – Simple and Stylish: Wow. I love a good ballpoint pen especially blue and red ink with soft medium points.
• Inspiration: 33 Creative and Smart Print Ads You’ll Love: May be a couple not safe for work. Very creative work. [Link: Jon Ferrara]

Tell us about a teacher who inspired you.

Tomorrow, my husband and our two sons will see the Harlem Globetrotters play the hapless Washington Generals. I went years ago with my dad and caught them on TV whenever I could. I enjoyed the antics and fancy ball-handling of Curly Neal, Twiggy Sanders, Sweet Lou Dunbar and Meadowlark Lemon. I remember when Lynette Woodard joined them.

Cool fact: “Globetrotters have lost 345 games over the course of eight-plus decades. However, with over 23,000 wins, the Globetrotters do own the best winning percentage (.985) in the history of professional sports.”

What are your favorite sports memories?

Brain food…

• Social Networking For Authors: Tips For Using Twitter Effectively: Not including this because it mentions one of my articles. It’s good stuff.
• Best Writing Advice (According to Writers): A nice variety of folks.
• Lorna’s Top Ten Movies About Writers: What do you think? I added The Shipping News.
• How to Scan Thousands of Tweets without Tears: Breathe… one step at a time. It’s one option for finding what you need.
• 10 Rules for Killer Business Cards: 80 page presentation with mostly photos. Great example of good presentations and business cards. But what’s wrong with business card promos? OK, you don’t want your business card to be used to help someone get their shoes on, but there are clever ones.

For fun because we’re allowed…

• 16 Creative Coffee Mugs
• 10 Geeky Ways to Say I Love You: How about, “01001001 00100000 01101100 01101111 01110110 01100101 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101.” (I love you in binary computer code).
• 11 Strangest How-To Books: I own How to Read a Book.
• 12 of the World’s Most Unique Stamps: My dad was a stamp collector. Even went as far as mail certain stamps to have them stamped by US postal service. I was interested in it for about 10 minutes.
• Pac-Man Art in Brooklyn: Be like Pac.
• 40 Conceptual Print Ads – Creativity with concept: The one time McDonald’s had me saying, “Whoa! Cool!” (Referring to coffee photo. The clown one just looks freaky.)

You can do more with YouTube than posting videos of bloopers and sleepwalking dogs running into walls. Creating videos and uploading them to sites like YouTube and Vimeo provide writers with the opportunity to share expertise, promote a book and connect with others. Camera shy? You don’t have to be in the video. You have many possibilities with videos beyond being a talking head on camera!

Furthermore, YouTube has a lot of traffic. Alexa ranks it as #3 in traffic rank and comscore reports, “Six out of seven U.S. Internet users now view online video content in a month.” Verdict: Include video in your networking and marketing toolbox, writers.

Here are 30+ ways writers can benefit from creating videos and uploading them to YouTube and other video web sites.

Expertise

1. Show your public speaking skills by recording your presentations.

2. Share presentation slides. Apps like E.M. PowerPoint Video Converter can convert your PowerPoint slides into a video.

3. Interview experts related to your writing topic(s).

4. Create screencasts showing how to use a computer application, tool, web site (that’s not your product or service) — anything that is on your screen. Screencast by me.

5. Produce short videos of you providing tips related to your expertise.

6. Convert podcasts into videos to extend your reach. (Heck, turn them into blog posts, Facebook updates — get the idea?)

7. Join the conversation. Most video sites let you leave comments and good conversations happen there. No video production required.

YouTube Account Profile (Click to view larger)

Marketing and Promotion

8. Select a user name that reflects you and your brand. It’s OK if you already have an ID that doesn’t reflect your brand. See #9.

9. Edit your profile to include as much information as you can about you and your business. While you’re at it, review all your setups and options to make sure it’s what you want. Yes, upload a picture of you or your business logo.

10. Record customer testimonials to let them do the talking about your business. Easy to fake text testimonials. Videos — not so easy to fake.

11. Create a video that explains your business and services.

12. Create a trailer for your book or other products. Here is a book video from dear friend Cindy Ray, creator of The Stapler Caper. Another example: Witch Fire book trailer.

13. Put your video channel URL in your signature, in your social media profiles and on marketing collateral.

14.  Tweet your videos. Of course, don’t promote your stuff too often or in a row. Also, give people a reason to check out the video.  Ex: “Screencast: How to create Twitter lists.” Imagine the retweet (RT) possibilities.

15. Link to videos in Facebook, LinkedIn and other social media networks.

16. Show the results of a client using your product or service.

17. Record events — not just presentations — such as book signings, poetry slams and book readings, panel discussions and teaching. You can use these as edit pieces for other videos. Also, if you do multiple events, these videos can give people an idea of what you have to offer.

18. Introduce colleagues, if you don’t work alone.

19. Give people a tour of your office.

20. Hold a contest.

21. Add your company information in every video such as your name, company name, URL, phone number, Twitter ID and email address.

22. Add call-to-action overlays to your videos for potential web site traffic.

23. Create a channel to reflect your brand.

24. Connect with Facebook to share videos.

Customer Service

25. Create videos answering common questions you receive from clients. When someone asks a question, you can link to the video with the answer. Sometimes visuals do more than an email or a phone call can.

26. Create a podcast-style video of your videos for those unable to view videos.

27. Add captions / subtitles to reach those unable to hear your videos. (You’ll instantly have a fan in me!) Plus, add your video to 22frames, a web site that collects videos with captions or without spoken words.

28. Create how to videos for your products or services.

29. Embed videos on your web pages where appropriate.

30. Write a blog post where you can embed a related video for more support.

31. Create videos of solutions to common problems.

32. Post video of work in progress. Some writers do content for videos and other visual products.

How do you use videos in your writing business?

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