Writers Web Tools

I'm about finished reviewing the Web 2.0 tools I've explored this year, so I thought to produce a wrap-up, fitting them together a la Marnie Webb's "10 ways to use Web 2.0 to change the world" on her blog ext337.org.

Build traffic and make connections with others via a blog or a wiki, linked into directories and tagging services like Technorati. Make sure people know about you and your interests by leaving comments or contributing to other websites (with your website's URL in your signature). Be sure your basic software plays well with others so you can integrate all the other tools into your website/blog/wiki (open API). Use graphics, especially photographs, to engage your readers. Flikr is a popular tool for incorporating multiple photos and slide shows. Make it easy for readers to make connections by including links with your texts and graphics. I try to make Writer's Edge link-generous in the information presented, especially citing sources. Another nicety is providing an RSS feed. Get this blog's at FeedBurner or subscribe directly to the Atom version. Use third-party plugins like MyBlogLog or Answers.com that takes advantage of the open blogger.com API I use to create this blog. Sharing your finds and work can take the form of membership in one of the many social networking websites like de.licio.us or a public Google Notebook. Finally, a new Technorati service allows you to display how many websites have linked to a blog post. In one click readers can jump to a page that shows the sites and snippets of what was said about your writing. Perhaps you'll resolve to implement one of these techniques each month, guaranteeing yourself a Happy New Year!

[websites]

Mysterious Yaddo

When I was first married, I lived in a furnished third-floor walk-up with two sailors (one was my husband) in Ballston Spa, NY. My new spouse was training at a military center in a fictitious upstate New York location, near the equally fantastic and spooky Washington Irving country of the Headless Horseman and posh Sataroga Springs, where the rich came to bet on horses racing. While my groom worked 16-hour days I wandered about the countryside and came upon Yaddo, a mysterious, brooding structure I later discovered was a retreat for writers and other artists. I never pursued visiting officially, and Yaddo became a thread in the warp and woof of my life, adding a shimmering richness to the tapestry I take out and mentally fondle on occasions. An interesting connection occurred when I found PoetryFoundation.org: "Deeply and Mysteriously Implicated".

Carla Blumenkrantz explores an episode in Yaddo's history:

In February 1949, Robert Lowell--by then famous for the Pulitzer Prize-winning Lord Weary's Castle (1947) and an as yet undiagnosed manic depressive--had returned for his third stay at the Yaddo writers' colony in Saratoga Springs, New York. Until then, he had described the place as a half-idyll, half-prison--"a sort of St. Elizabeth's without bars," he wrote to Ezra Pound (then interned at that psychiatric hospital).

Were the shivers I felt on first viewing Yaddo psychic echoes of those earlier events? Can you tell I'm reading horror stories these days, and contemplating writing one?

MyBlogLog

Way down in the left column, you may have noticed a tan box with tiny images and names. These are people who have visited here through the MyBlogLog website. More useful is Writer's Edge: Reports - MyBlogLog Communities where you can find people who have joined and how to do so, yesterday's top links here (how do they do that?), and a message board with nothing but an old note from me expressing surprise that some peeps had already joined when I first found the page. Actually, I'd set up an account back in May, part of a continuing exploration of Web 2.0, seeing how writers can use such facilities to their benefits.

When I login to my account, which is very easy to use, I can edit the information presented about Writer's Edge and moi, pick up the magic mumblings (code) that connects there with here, but best of all, rummage through statistics that the service collects about this blog and presents in a nicely readable and understandable fashion. What kind of stats? Oh, ones like where people came from, what they clicked on, even which pages they looked at. These data are all buried on my server, but MyBlogLog presents them in one click and prettily at that. I like it. It's a Martha Stewart Good Thing.

Book Snob

What Kind of Reader Are You? Your Result: Book Snob You like to think you're one of the literati, but actually you're just a snob who can read. You read mostly for the social credit you can get out of it.
Dedicated Reader
Literate Good Citizen
Obsessive-Compulsive Bookworm
Fad Reader
Non-Reader
What Kind of Reader Are You? Create Your Own Quiz

Highly inaccurate, but fun; via Vikk at Down the Writer's Path.

DailyLit

I appreciate the little humor in the title of DailyLit which I take to be a play on the "daily bread" of The Lord's Prayer. The designers explain the concept of reading a book in email installments thusly, "We created DailyLit because we spent hours each day on email but could not find the time to read a book."

W.E. Frappr Map

The end of the calendar year is always a slow time for media. I'm keeping busy playing around with all the toys a blogger can incorporate, sort of jacking into the Web 2.0 world. Heres the smaller version of Writer's Edge's map at Frappr.

You can see some of the people around the world who have been gracious enough to join the madness. I had aspirations of starting a regular chat on Frappr, but that service seems to have disappeared. Or maybe it's withdrawn into beta testing. I suspect that because I found a section of code to put a chat into another website. We'll see.

Top Writer Blogs

According to Michael Stelzner, these are this year's Top 10 Blogs for Writers:

1. Brian Clark's CopyBlogger: This blog is the leader because it does an amazing job of helping writers improve their writing.


2. Deborah Ng's Freelance Writing Jobs: For freelance writers seeking new work, this site is your sole destination.


3. Tom Chandler's Copywriter Underground: This site provides regular doses of inspiration and writing tips.


4. Liz Strauss's Successful-Blog: This blog has some amazing insights into the craft of writing.


5. Angela Booth's Writing Blog: All writers will find something useful at this site.


6. Kristen King's InkThinker: This blog is focused on improving the written word.


7. Anne Wayman's The Golden Pencil: Wayman provides gold nuggets of information to freelance writers.


8. Carson Brackney's Content Done Better: Follow one man’s journey to write better copy and make a living along the way.


9. Dianna Huff's B2B Marcom Writer Blog: This is your destination to learn about marketing communications copywriting.


10. Allison Winn Scotch's Ask Allison: For writers looking to break into the publishing world, be sure to check this one out.

Apparently there was a contest, and Writer's Edge didn't know about it. That's O.K. because we don't pimp ourselves around here, as you may have noticed. All organic all the time. Anyway, this list was followed yesterday by the bloggers' list of their best posts. Chick it out!

Authors Gift

Here's a holiday gift, a listing of 300 agents, from authors Brian Hill and Dee Power, who say:

Looking for a literary agent? Make the search faster and easier with a list of over 300 literary agents. The list includes the agent’s name, agency, street addresses and phone numbers. E-email addresses are included for most of the agencies. Download as a plain text document. Download as an MSWord Document.

White Christmas

The Flash animated song on this page is soooo funny on so many levels, at least to older Americans.

Writing Greetings

They're hard to avoid at this time of year--greeting cards. Some writers make their livings, or at least supplement their incomes, by writing those greetings, sappy to witty. Want to give it a try? More than 200 Greeting Card Retailers in the Yahoo! Directory are available sorted by popularity or alphabet.

Writer's Wish List

Kim Norman shares a holiday swipe at senders of rejection letters in Outside of a Dog: A Writer's Wish List.

Now, for every writer who has received a rejection letter, or the writer annoyed by celebrity children's books, my holiday gift to you: a song parody I'm calling "A Writer's Wish List."

Go to her home page and click a couple of times on the little blue box titled "A Writer's Wish List" to hear a charming Santa season jingle (hint: you may have to boost the volume).

99-cent Storylink

Authorlink website is beta testing a new service that allows short story author members to post their material for consideration by readers (and presumably editors). Each story costs 99 cents to download, but it looks like membership is not required to buy a look at Authorlink.com: Storylink. The submission guidelines state you can "Add as many as 3 stories of up to 5,000 words each (or a total of 15,000) with your membership ($7.50 each thereafter)." Uh, oh, here's the catch, "Each story you post earns you $0.40 per paid user download." Then if you choose daily payments through PayPal, that company takes another, oh, three percent out of the earnings. Membership has other benefits you might want to explore before jumping in to sell stories this way. There's always

Paid Reviews

I could scarcely believe my eyes when this job opp popped up in my email last night:

Title: honest book reviews needed
Project ID: 260774

Category: Writing / Editing / Translation
Description:
This project has been modified to comply with the rules here:

You must have an Amazon account for this project, preferably one that you have used to leave book reviews with before (but this is not a most, just having the account is)

We need 5 reviewers for 5 of our newly released titles. We ask that you write a 1-3 Paragraph review with a rating depending on how you like the book (5 being best) of each of the 5 books. We will then ask that you forward the reviews over to us so that we can look over them before you post them on Amazon.com and Barns and Noble.com. Most of our reviewers are paid from $5- to $10 per review or $25.00 to $50.00 per 5 review book set.

Unfortunately, Amazon has recently instituted a new procedure whereby you can only review books if you have an account that you have used to purchase books / products from them before, so in order to bid you must have an account with Amazon that you have purchased books from before. (or if you dont you can always go on Amazon and purchase a used book for $2 or $3- to get your account going)

You are bidding on writing 5 reviews and posting them to Amazon.com, BarnesandNoble.com and lulu.com

This will be monthly process and we are looking for people that we can work with every month if the first time around with you works out well.

If you have samples of previous book reviews that you have written then please let us see what you have, we are only looking for people that can write really well, and provide great reviews.
Ken

Do we really think they would pay for a bad review? I also wonder if the reviewer needs to have read the book, because I don't see an offer to send copies. How about that great pay, too? Five or ten dollars to read a book (maybe), write a review, get it vetted, AND post it on three websites!

I'd love to know which publisher posted this job opening, and if they really pay the peanuts.

Fortune Cookies

For your reading amusement, view the Weird Fortune Cookie Collection.

If you had a job as a fortune cookie writer, what would you compose?

Conference Scholarships

An email from BackSpace.com cheerfully announced:

Books have made him a wealthy man, but a certain New York Times best-selling author hasn't forgotten what it was like starting out. The anxiety and uncertainty. Self-doubt. Pressure, even ridicule, from friends and family members. You want to be a writer? Impossible.

That's why he's sponsoring two full-tuition scholarships to the 2007 Backspace Writers Conference for authors whose work shows exceptional promise, and who have completed a novel and are actively seeking an agent to represent them.

And the 2007 Backspace Writers Conference states: "EXCTING NEWS! Thanks to an extremely generous anonymous donor, two full-tuition scholarships to the 2007 Backspace writers conference will be awarded to writers whose work shows exceptional promise, and who have completed a novel and are actively seeking an agent to represent their work. Application details here."

Writerly Podcasts

More podcasts about writing and interviews with writers are becoming available. Some of the ones listed below are also available in iTunes format.

Barnes & Noble.com - Meet the Writers: Podcasts
From National Public Radio Directory and Books
From the Poetry Foundation
Poetic Voice from Houghton Mifflin
Slate's Audio Book Club
Free registration is required for the NY Times podcasts on books
KQED's famous Writer's Block
Happy listening!

Raise Blog Traffic

One question repeatedly appearing in forums about blogs and blogging is this: how can I get more people to read my blog? Visitors to blogs and other types of websites are usually termed "traffic", but you want to avoid hit and runs and focus on building a dependable following. You want the kind of visitors who come back again and again, preferably every day. For that to happen, you will need to:

1. Blog often, with news or unique content.
2. Concentrate on popular items.
3. Keep your blog on topic.
4. Make the posts interesting or useful.
5. Ping blog aggregators regularly.
6. Guard your links ferociously.
7. Explore joining link exchanges.

Every time I've tried number seven, I chicken out. Either I don't have the time required to visit others' blogs (other than those to whom I link), or I haven't been entirely happy with the results. The one I participated in the most, went out of business.

[blogging]

Google Notebook

One of my favorite resources, the ResearchBuzz newsletter and blog by Tara Calashain, follows the development of other research resources, such as First Look: Google Notebook She found it lacking templates, tags and RSS feeds. Later this year, she updated the information, noting:

One more thing. If you want to see how popular Google Notebook is you can search for the contents of publicly-available notebooks at http://www.google.com/notebook/search.

If you want to check out the newest features see Google Notebook. I must admit I'm still unconvinced that I need to clutter up my computer with yet another browser toolbar and layer of organization. Saving text, web pages, and links in one folder works well for me. I suspect it takes fewer clicks, too.

[research]

Amazon Magazines Promo

As noted recently in the The Official Amazon Associates Blog: Amazon.com Magazines Promo, the magazine section of the gigantic retailer is offering this deal:

Over 500 magazine subscriptions on Amazon.com will come with a bonus $5 coupon code.
The magazines featured are many of our top-selling titles such as O: The Oprah Magazine, People, Wired, Lucky, and Mental Floss.
Your site visitors will receive a $5 code for each magazine title they purchase. So, the more they buy, the more $5 codes they will receive! Each code will be redeemable on a future Amazon.com purchase.
This offer is only available to customers who purchase the magazines featured here from November 15, 2006 - January 15, 2007.

If you're interested (and I'm lucky tinkering with Amazon's code) we can take advantage of this promotion by clicking on the image in the top right corner of this post.

Podcast Promotions

At The Web-Savvy Writer website, Patrice-Anne Rutledge offers a quiz to determine you're web savvy. In it she asks:

5. Are you podcasting yet?

Think of a podcast as an Internet radio show on demand. By creating your own podcast on a topic related to your books or writing specialty, you can develop an audience that is interested in what you have to offer. The term podcast comes from the words iPod and broadcast. However, the iPod aspect of podcasting is misleading. You can listen to a podcast on an iPod or other MP3 player, but listening on a computer capable of playing audio files works just as well.

If the notion of making your own podcasts sends shivers of trepidation down your spine or tosses you into a tizzy, read Rutledge's comprehensive article Promoting Your Book With a Podcast at the WritersWeekly website.

[podcasting]

Blogs to Books Roundup

Did Biz Stone's article How to Get a Book Deal with your Blog start the phenomenon? I think so. Tartan Online has a review of one of the first blog-to-book attempts that I posted about, Jen Lancaster's Bitter is the New Black. Another blog to book success storyReader, I Dated Him appears in the New York Times (registration required.) "Ms. Klein's blog is a voyeur's playground, with many photos of Ms. Klein, her friends and the swanky places they go. But the allure is muted by accounts of Ms. Klein's childhood summers at fat camp, the husband she says cheated on her when she was pregnant, her subsequent abortion and her ongoing quest for love. Nothing, it seems, is too private not to share with readers." And it lead to a book deal for Straight Up and Dirty.

Even Blogger Buzz jumped into the action to announce successes.

As soon as the craze caught on, techies whipped up software to automate the process. zdnet.com and news.com show the same video about blurb.com

From the floor of Demo '06, Eileen Gittins, CEO of Blurb, gives CNET's Rafe Needleman a first look at her blog-to-book application. With several templates to choose from, including travel and poetry, this beta application has support for both Mac and PC. 3 minutes 44 seconds.

BlogCollector is yet another blog to book service. However, when I visited BlogBinders.com, the original blog-to-book software, this surprise awaited:

Going out of business
Sadly the time has come for us to close our doors. We currently do not have the funding or resources to make this dream a bigger reality. We thank all of our loyal users who have turned their weblog into a real bound book. BlogBinders refers you to www.lulu.com - a great company that prints one-off books. Developer, printer or investor? Contact purchase AT blogbinders.com if you are interested in purchasing BlogBinders (domain, user list(non-spam use), technologies).

But, of course, we've also seen the dawning of a new writing award, the Blooker, sponsored by Lulu.com, a company which facilitates self-publishing and encourages writers to convert their blogs to books.

The NY Times published about an interesting twist in A First Blog of the First Draft of History: "Closing the loop, the project will be financed in an old-media way: A major French publisher is expected to turn the blog into a book, and the proceeds will go toward supporting blogging in the banlieue. "

And for those who register for the Writer's Digest forum, a thread about the blog to book phenom.

[blogging books]

Currently Reading

A frequent and popular thread on writing, reading, and books forums is "What are you currently reading?" Beginning writers often want to know what established authors read, hoping, I guess, to emulate their idols and by osmosis acquire writing skills. Who am I to judge? I say, "Read, read, read. Read good literature and bad stuff. How else will you know the difference?"

Here are what's piled around my house:

Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith by Anne Lamott
Writ of Execution by Perri O'Shaughnessy
Frankenstein by Mary Shelly
The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai

The last is for the book club which meets on Thursday. Upcoming reads include: The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Satterfield and two books of horror short stories, gifts from an Internet writer friend in Florida. She wanted me to take them to chemotherapy as a counter to all the cheery posters and urgings to "Have a nice day!" Bonnie Boots, you have a wicked, wicked sense of humor--and I love it!

Wannabee Signs

From: http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=48003

Top Ten Reasons Why Wannabees Stay Wannabees
by Tish Davidson
...

10. Why would I want to read novels when I write them?

9. I finished my novel last night, now where do I send it?

8. My storys so grate It don't matter if i can spell and punchuate. Its the edators job to fix that stuff up.

7. I know 350,000 words is a little long for a first novel, but you don't understand. In my genre long novels sell.

6. It's all luck anyway, so I'm going to query every agent in Jeff Herman's book.

5. Query, what's a query?

4. What do you mean you want snail mail submissions? I only use e-mail.

3. I'll print my manuscript on hot pink paper and deliver it with a stripper who jumps out of a cake, then they'll know how creative I am.

2. You requested the first 25 pages, so I'm sending you chapters 8 and 10 because they are the best.

1. I e-mailed this agent 3 days ago and she hasn't answered, so I'm going to call her and see what the hold-up is.

Silliness on Sunday

How do they know?

You Are: 30% Dog, 70% Cat

You and cats have a lot in common. You're both smart and in charge - with a good amount of attitude.However, you do have a very playful side that occasionally comes out!

Blogthings - Are You More Cat or Dog?

Setting Your Sites

Buried in the back pages of the Writer's Digest website, Barbara DeMarco-Barrett has a pretty comprehensive article, Setting Your Sites, about why all types of writers should have websites. As well as explicating the whys, she also lists hows and a large helping of what to include in your site. Rather than just a laundry list, however, she includes links to the sites of many authors/writers, some professionally created and some DIY efforts. She's not shy about listing her own website, Pen on Fire, as an example. To keep content fresh and visitors returning, she suggests:

Eight million U.S. adults have online journals (called blogs) and -- especially if you're not yet published -- it may be the best way to go, in terms of establishing a Web presence. A blog also is good bait to get people to return to your website, because, by its very nature, it needs to be updated regularly.

Book Reviews

Do you like reading and talking about books? A lot? If you like them so much that you'd like to review them, then author Hope Clark offers a free list for you, book review sites, on her website, The Shy Writer. She also sells an eBook, Get PAID to Write Book Reviews, that lists over 70 publications which will pay you for your book reviews.

Writers Perfectionism

Often what some people call "writer's block" is really a case of perfectionism, leading to procrastination, gone wild. I'd say that this is often the case. Steven Hendlin, Ph.D., a clinical psychologist, recently posted the first part of an article on this phenomenon on the Backspace website. See YOUR WRITE MIND: The Perfection Trap: Part 1

Hint: "for the perfectionist, good enough is never enough."

I also think Hendlin's advice is pertinent for people who don't know when to stop editing or rewriting their work, to those who are never satisfied with what they write, and those who suffer from rejection slip intolerance.

[writer's block]

Book Trailerpark

Regular readers will recall that I blogged early, if not often, about the phenomenon of book videos (see Vid Lit posts). Last fall a new blog, Book Trailerpark began offering a roundup of this recent promotional endeavor. I see that many of the videos come from my favorite funny cat films site, YouTube.com. In the launch post, the people running Book Trailerpark said:

So in the interests of public service -- and, yes, self interest -- from now on we'll be finding, posting and promoting the best book-video content online right here.

I'm not sure why they hung themselves with the "trailerpark" handle, but it does give new meaning to the phrases, taking out the trash and trailer trash, hmm? I'm not suggesting anything about Book Trailerpark, per se.

Jewish Expressions

If you're writing about Jewish people, or just want to brush up on your Yiddish, check out JEFF LOEB'S "JEWISH EXPRESSIONS".

You can also find a selection of Jewish and Isralei music near the bottom of the page. Warning: the page opens with music playing!

UPDATE: December 8 -- more Jewish/Yiddish quotations and jokes thanks to Webmaster Mitch Menschel.