How To Do an Online Interview

I have a couple of blogs where I promote other authors, and so few authors follow the directions, I’ve become convinced writers have no idea how to read. Or perhaps they believe the directions don’t apply to them? Even so, bloggers cannot post what they do not have. So, for all you authors out there who are promoting your books, if you wish to be a guest on someone else’s blog, please follow the bloggers’ directions. The directions are there for a reason, partly to make it easier for the blogger, but mostly to make the interview or guest post as pleasing and compelling as possible to attract readers for your books.

If bloggers ask for a link to your book cover, please provide one. You have posted your book cover somewhere on the internet, right? So, provide that link. (For example, I have posted all of my book covers on the right sidebar of this blog and on my website, so I could provide either link.) If bloggers are going out of their way to promote you and your book, don’t make it harder by making them search for a photo or a link because generally, they won’t take the time. And, as I said, bloggers cannot post what they do not have.

If the blogger gives you an option where you can choose from a list of questions, please choose questions to which you can give full answers. Responding, “I don’t know” to a question is a waste of your time, the blogger’s time, and the reader’s time. If you don’t know, pick a question to which you do know the answer. Giving monosyllabic responses is just as bad. You’re a writer, right? Supposedly you know how to hook readers. So hook them. Tell them something interesting. Most writers say they have no message in their books, that they just want to entertain, so be entertaining.

Almost as bad as “I don’t know” is saying “It’s difficult to describe.” You’re a writer. Take the time to find the necessary words. And please, do not respond to a question with, “You’ll have to read the book.” There are 130,000,000 published book as of this very moment, so people have plenty of options. They don’t have to read your book. You have to make them want to read your book.

For my Author Questionnaire, I begin with the question, “What is your book about?” It’s the hook, the reason why we are all at the blog — to know about your book. So, please, don’t start your interview with boring questions like, “Is this your first book?” Why would the reader care if it’s your first book if they don’t know what it is about? And please give the title of your book. If you’ve done your job right, people are going to want to learn more about your book, but if you haven’t provided a title, how will readers know what it is?

Proof your interview or guest post. If your interview is full of typos, people will assume that your book is full of typos. If your grammar is sadly lacking, people will assume your book is as ungrammatical. And if your interview is boring, people will assume your book is also boring. So please, spend time on your presentations. It does you no good to carelessly throw together an interview, guest post, or excerpt, and expect readers to instantly fall in love with you and your work.

But most of all, follow the directions. I ask people to submit their interview as a comment reply on the blog, yet every day I get a message from someone asking for my email address so they can send me their interview. Um. No. If I wanted it sent via email, I would have provided the address.

Only about 10% of the people who do interviews for me provide everything I ask, which is why I am writing this blog. It’s a way of getting rid of my frustration and at the same time remind people to FOLLOW DIRECTIONS!

(If I haven’t scared you off, click here to find the directions for my Author Questionnaire.
Click here to find the directions for my Character Questionnaire.
And click here to Let me post your excerpt!)

I am going to be on blog talk radio today!

I am going to be on blog talk radio today speaking to Jo-Anne Vandermeulen. Or should I say, she will be speaking to me? Either way, we will be discussing my new book, Grief: The Great Yearning, why I wrote it, and why the book is important. If time allows, we’ll also talk about how I help other writers and perhaps we might touch on more general topics, such as the future of books. (Jo-Anne wanted a list of ten topics for us to discuss. I guess she didn’t realize I could talk for hours about grief and its unwelcome role in our lives.)

The show is a half an hour, from 6:30pm ET to 7:00pm ET (3:30pm PT to 4:00pm PT). I hope you will tune in to listen, but if you can’t, well . . . blogs are forever, and blog talk is no different. The show will be available whenever you get a chance to check it out. It should be a good show. Not only is 30 minutes a manageable block of time, there will only be one guest (me!) and one host, so it should be a dynamic show. And anyway, you’ve been wanting to hear what I sound like, so here is your chance!

Link to show: Talk Radio Network with Friend and Author Pat Bertram

Guest call-in number: (347) 857-3752

Comment Spam

Sometimes the most amusing comments that are posted on the internet are the mangled bits of spam that clog the blogoshere. Here the most current ones that graced this blog:

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Finding Time to Write

I’ve been trying to get back into writing, but I never seem to able to find the time. There are always so many things that need to be done. Take yesterday, for example. I started out the morning answering emails. I don’t get as many emails as most people, but still, writing responses to the ones that required my attention took me over an hour.

Then I wrote a simple blog post. It was a recap of on online discussion, so it shouldn’t have taken me long, but it did. I’ve heard that people should allocate twenty minutes to updating their blogs, but somehow, my twenty-minute blogs end up taking hours. Writing is how I think, and sometimes it takes a while for the thoughts to coalesce. Sometimes it takes a while to find the right words to express the thoughts. And sometimes it takes a while to edit and copyedit the article to make sure it’s readable and that my point is clear. All those “a while”s added up to three hours yesterday.

When I finally posted the blog, I took time out for a walk and a meal, then I returned to the computer and had an email conversation with a friend who had also suffered the loss of her mate. Since she seems to have reached a place of peace, I wanted to know how she did it. I know I can go on alone since I am doing it, but the thing that still makes me feel as if I’m about to fall off the earth is that he is dead. No matter how well I do, no matter how much peace I attain, he will always be dead. Of course she had no answers for me — one person’s way of learning to live without is not the same as another’s — but she did say something that struck a chord: “the world comes back.” This was an important conversation for me, and I’m glad I had the time to spend, but still, writing my side of the exchange took a couple of hours.

I love comments on my blog, and always enjoy communicating with those who do comment, but that takes time. Yesterday evening, it took me almost an hour to write my responses.

And finally, Facebook. Need I say more? Well, maybe I do. I had several messages that required replies, discussions that needed input, updates that cried out for comments. In all, that added a couple more hours of writing to my writing time.

That’s when I realized why I have no time to write — I spend all my time writing! So, to find time to write, all I need to do is stop writing.

Writing Worth Reading

In a world where anyone can write a book and get it published regardless of  its merit or readability, authors have come to believe they can write however they wish. And of course, they can. Who is going to stop them? There are no longer any gatekeepers to the world of publishing. But still, writing is about communicating. If a writer cannot communicate what he or she wants to say so that another person can follow the story or article without sorting through typos, unruly punctuation, or poor sentence structure, then the writer has failed.

Whether we are bloggers, content producers for various websites, novelists, these are all tenets we must heed:

1. Use dynamic verbs and concrete nouns, and keep adjectives and adverbs to a minimum. Watch for word qualifiers such as “a little,” “quite,” “somewhat.” They undermine our authority and make our writing seem indecisive.

2. Action first; reaction second. Cause first, effect second. “He finished smoking his cigar, then he aired out the room.” Not: “He aired out the room after he finished smoking his cigar.” When we don’t use the proper sequence, our writing seems unfocused.

3. Use active voice; too much use of passive makes our writing seem muffled.

4. Don’t be clever just for the sake of cleverness, don’t complicate the obvious, and don’t be unconventional for the sake of being exotic; ultimately, our readers will feel used or confused, and we will lose them.

5. Punctuation, spelling, and grammar do count. Content is important, but what good is all our wisdom if we come across as dolts?

6. Strive for clarity, economy, grace, and dignity. We can string words together, but without at least a couple of these particular elements, our writing will not be worth reading.

Introducing the Best Multi-Author Blog in the Blogosphere

Have you checked out the Second Wind Publishing blog lately? If not you’re missing a treat. It’s turning out to be one of the best blogs around, certainly the best multi-author blog and the most multi-talented.

Today’s feature is the brilliant and vastly amusing Pet Fashion Faux Paws by Mickey Hoffman, author of School of Lies and Deadly Traffic:

“Next we have the Sex Kitten look. Unfortunately (or conversely if you’re so inclined) this section does not describe feline sex. If you want to hear about that, kitties, you’ll have to read a different publication. The Delta Pet Inquirer is a family-friendly magazine! Anyway, ruched lace, chiffon and sequins are not alluring when draped on a fur coat.  From our research we’ve come to understand that the entire purpose of a lace nightie is to show bare skin and unless you’re a member of the hairless cat breed, that’s not going to happen” [Click here to read the whole post.]

Noah Baird, author of Donations to Clarity, gives us an irreverent but hilarious look at the Easter Bunny and various other goodies in You Don’t Know Easter:

“So, why the egg? I tell my kids the rock used to cover JC’s tomb happened to be shaped like an egg. Presto! Tradition! The reality is more mundane. Christians didn’t eat meat or dairy during Lent. Back in JC’s day, eggs were considered . . . dairy. Dairy was any animal-derived foodstuffs rendered from an animal without shedding its blood. This is way before we had a FDA or a congress to tell us what food is. Considering congress classified pizza sauce as a vegetable, things haven’t improved much.” [Click here to read the whole post.]

Coho Ihle, author of She Had to Know, talks about her The Rude Awakening when she discovered that a friend had skin cancer.

“Since I was an entertainer much of my adult life, I did a lot of sunbathing both in the sun and in tanning booths. I can remember being a bit reckless about wearing sunscreen, too. Witnessing this experience sent me directly to my dermatologist for a skin cancer screening for the first time. I can’t believe I’d never had that done before. I came out just fine, but I implore all you out there who think you are immortal, like I did, PLEASE go for a screening right away. It could save your life.” [Click here to read the whole post.]

Sherrie Hansen, author of Night and Day and the Maple Valley trilogy, explains why becoming a writer after the age fifty has it’s advantages in What Story Is Your Life Telling?

“I was recently approached about answering some questions for an article because I was an author who was over 50, a writer whose career as an author didn’t begin until I was past 50 years old.  The question’s implication resulted in a lot of things floating through my evidently half-addled, 55 year old brain: What does she think I am, older than dirt? That it’s a miracle I can still write, old as I am? Once I got over my indignation, however, I started to think about what it is really like being 55, and how life is different now than when I was 25, 35 or even 45.” [Click here to read the whole post.]

JJ Dare, author of False Positive and False World talks about expecting one thing and getting another in Southern Heat and Naked Books.

“ ‘Never judge a book by its cover’ takes on new meaning when you realize that the cover is more than the jacket. It’s everything. The promotion and hype, author appearances, and interviews are parts of the cover. While the overall “cover” of the book can increase its popularity, the true test comes once the naked story is laid bare.” [Click here to read the whole post.]

Help! I Need Blog Talk Radio Topics

I’m scheduled to be interviewed on a blog radio show in a couple of weeks. I’m not sure how that happened because I never actually said I’d do it. Still, there it is. Or rather, there I will be. The problem is, they want me to send them a list of five things I would like to discuss about me and my work, and I don’t have anything in particular I’d like to say. (Seems strange, doesn’t it? It’s their show, so obviously they have some sort of agenda. I have no agenda, yet I have to supply the questions.)

So, I’m asking you: what topics should I send them? Is there anything about my books or writing you’d be interested in hearing about? Any noteworthy questions you were asked in an interview that you’d like to pass along? Any questions about books or writing that haven’t been asked ad nauseum? Anything?

The Internet is My Tranquilizer

I read an amusing, beautiful, and wise article on Malcolm’s Round Table yesterday: The Internet is Drugs.

Malcolm R. Campbell wrote: As I sit here in the sunny kitchen of my father-in-law’s farmhouse, I’m going through withdrawal because the Internet does not exist here. On a typical morning, I would have checked e-mail (pot), looked at several news screens (cocaine) and read everything in my Facebook (meth) news feed.

My Facebook status would be a no-brainer: blitzed, spaced out, and higher than the summit of Mount Everest. I recall those old, fried-egg-in-a-skillet public service announcements: This is your brain. This is your brain on drugs. Any questions? [Click here to read the rest of the article.]

Malcolm makes the very good point that on the internet, everything is instant gratification, whereas on the farm, everything moves slower, can’t move at the speed of light from one location to another, can’t give you the drug-like gratification one gets from the internet.

For me, the internet is a tranquilizer. It’s a quiet place (since the sound on my computer is turned off), and it quiets my mind. Grief brought me much confusion, not only because of the pain of losing my life mate/soul mate and the loneliness of struggling on by myself, but because of the eternal questions that haunt me.

A couple of days ago I wrote about the physiological changes that grief brings (Grief and Our Lizard Brain). Besides these physiological disturbances and the more commonly known psychological anguish, people who lose a life mate are subject to spiritual and philosophical traumas that upset our normal way of thinking. Death gives life a whole new perspective, and so we are compelled to rethink everything we thought we knew, everything we held dear. Some people find a deeper comfort in religion while others are assailed by new doubts. I found myself with a multitude of questions.

Who am I now that I am no longer part of our survival unit? If he is in a better place, why am still here? If life is a gift, why was it taken from him? In the presence of life, what is the meaning of death? In the presence of death, what is the meaning of life? So many questions!

Yet on the internet, there is no question of who am I. I know who I am. I can see me on Facebook. I can Google me. I can check me out on my website, on my publisher’s website, on Amazon. And I know why I’m here. I’m here to make an impression so maybe people will read my blogs and perhaps buy my books. I don’t need to question the meaning of life and death, because the internet is eternal. (Or at least the electrons are.) As long as there is an internet, there I am.

Walking out in the desert in the real world brings a semblance of peace, but along with that peace come the questions: Who am I? Why am I here? What is the meaning of life and death? Where do I go from here?

As my grief fades a bit, some of the bigger questions are fading, too, and I’m mostly left with the last question. Where do I go from here? On the internet, I am always “here.” In real life, I will need to relocate, to find a place to start over. But that question, for now, is as unanswerable as all the others that haunt me, so here I am, on the internet, where there is an answer for everything. And if there isn’t, I’m too tranquilized to care.

Virtual Book Tours

Virtual book tours became prevalent very quickly. I’ve heard how great they are — mostly from the major publishers who don’t want to spend the money to send their authors on an unvirtual tour — that I wonder how worthwhile blog tours really are. I know the most popular book blogs do help get the word out, but it’s hard to get a guest spot on those blogs unless you have a publicity department behind you. Some people who have done tours think the tour helped with sales, other says not. Me? I’m still not sure. I did two tours, and neither seemed to make any difference in sales.

I’ve read that for most authors, the real benefit of doing a book signing in an offline store is the connection one makes with the bookseller, and perhaps the same holds true with a virtual book tour. I’ve made connections with other bloggers, introduced my books to people who would not otherwise have discovered them, and talked about my books with those who have read them.

Setting up a blog tour is easy, though time-consuming. You need to research blogs to find the best fit, and then you need to query the blogger. If you are invited to be a guest on the blog, you need to find out what is expected of you — an article, an interview, a giveaway — and you need make sure that every article you write, every response in an interview is different and appealing.

People will not follow your blog tour if you keep recycling the same article. Make sure you send your guest post, a bio, a photo of you, a photo of your cover days in advance. Then on the day the article is posted, you need to visit the blog several times and respond to comments.

A disconcerting aspects of my tours was how few bloggers did anything beyond posting the article. No mention on Facebook, no Twitter, no promotion of any kind. So, the main thing is, make sure you do what you can yourself to promote. Which meant, for me, two blog articles a day, one for the host, and one for my blog to promote the host. Plus Facebook status updates, posting the link on my profile, and Twittering.

The tours were fun and challenging, and I’ve certainly did what I could to launch my last two novels, but will I do it again? Possibly. I have a hunch the benefits of a tour are long term, and the more one does to get their name out there, the better the chance of getting known, but I’m still not convinced they were worth all the effort.

Way Cool Global View of My Blog!

Here is a global view of the views of my blog for the last week:

As you can see, the vast majority of my blog views come from the United States, but here are the number of views I’ve had from other countries during the past week:

United Kingdom	111
Canada	106
India	59
Australia	55
Philippines	19
Singapore	18
New Zealand	11
Malaysia	10
Viet Nam	8
Germany	6
Pakistan	6
Botswana	6
Denmark	5
Nepal	5
South Africa	5
Switzerland	5
Turkey	4
Taiwan	4
Japan	4
Greece	3
United Arab Emirates	3
France	3
Lebanon	3
Thailand	3
Finland	3
Norway	3
Georgia	2
Czech Republic	2
Belgium	2
Qatar	2
Iceland	2
Bulgaria	2
Bosnia and Herzegovina	2
Sweden	2
Hong Kong	2
Ethiopia	2
Portugal	2
Russian Federation	2
Netherlands	2
Republic of Korea	2
Jamaica	2
Trinidad and Tobago	2
Poland	2
Brunei Darussalam	1
Uganda	1
Ireland	1
Spain	1
Bahamas	1
Indonesia	1
Albania	1
Brazil	1
Armenia	1
Tunisia	1
Cyprus	1
Paraguay	1
Argentina	1
Namibia	1
Peru	1
Chile	1
Costa Rica	1

There was also one view from Italy, which didn’t show up on the table for some reason.

If you have a WordPress blog, you too can see these amazing statistics for your blog. Just go to http://wordpress.com, log in, then click on the My Stats tab on the WordPress home page, then scroll down a bit to find the global stats. If you’d like to see your views by country for a week, click on summaries. Isn’t that cool?

So, where do your viewers come from?