Archive for Author Blogging
Create a Private Amazon Store on Your Facebook Page
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I’m excited today and couldn’t wait to share this with you. I always get this way when learning to do something for myself that I thought I couldn’t handle and would have to be outsourced for hundreds of dollars.
Yesterday I learned how to add a new page tab to my Facebook Page. It’s a gorgeous Amazon bookstore selling right from my author Page, Books by Aggie.
Good friend and social media expert Phyllis Zimbler Miller, of Miller Mosaic, posted directions how to use your Amazon Associates aStore to create the inline frame code to place in your Facebook Page’s Static HTML: iframe tabs app.
No, Really!
Now don’t run away. I purposely made that sound as geek speak as possible (though I don’t speak the language myself) just to get the point across that it is so much simpler than it sounds. If I can do it you can do it. BTW: If you don’t have an Amazon Associates account create one now.
Before you’re ready to follow Phyllis’ instructions you need to do one thing. In Facebook do a search for Static HTML: iframe tabs and click on Add Static HTML to a Page. I’ve done the search for you. Just click here. You’ll need to be logged into Facebook.
Now you’re ready to follow Phyllis’ easy instructions found at her blog, Internet Marketing: How to Successfully Market on the Internet No Matter Your Business or What You Know. You can read the directions at “Amazon Opportunities for Book Authors.” And before you know it your bookstore will be in place. And with each sales you’ll earn affiliate monies through your Amazon Associates account.
Scroll to the end for large screenshots of mine and Phyllis’ FB bookstores and more.
And Now This is All I See?
You’ve made it through and are breathing a sigh of amazed disbelief when disaster strikes – but not really. When the page tab is all done and in place don’t be shocked when you can’t even view it. The app’s icon shows up in your bar of page tabs right under your cover image, as shown in the screenshot below. But when you click on it all you see is the code you entered, as shown in the screenshot above. This is because you are the page owner.
No, you did nothing wrong. Just click the Preview button and you’ll see what visitors see, a beautiful store with shopping cart, similar items lists, an about page and more. (See large screenshots at the end of this post)
I’ve included a bunch of juicy screenshots throughout so you can see just what you can have on your very own Facebook Page as soon as you finish. And please don’t be too intimidated to even start. You really don’t have to be a techie to do it.
And You Don’t Have to Stop With FacceBook:
Social Media Posts, Custom Icons, Foreign Bookstores…
You, like me and Phyllis, can go on to add your bookstore to websites, etc. Even post the links throughout your social media that click straight through to your own private bookstore. Click on my direct link in the screenshot below to start shopping at my store right now. The screenshot is from a Facebook post.
Phyllis used the Static HTML: iframe tabs app to create three identical bookstores for the three countries where she sells a lot of her books. Check it out. Her three page tabs are circled in red below.
After I added my own bookstore page tab, I too wanted to replace the ugly default icon that comes with the app, like Phyllis did with those clever country flags. So I grabbed a screenshot of my bookstore and shrank it very tiny. The app requires exactly 111 x 74 pixels. When you edit the settings as shown in the screenshot below, the dialog box will tell you the required size. You’ll need a photo editing program to do this, but there are free ones online if you don’t have one.
Now I was getting into this! It was fun to thumbnail a screenshot of my bookstore to use as its page icon. When it was ready, from my FB Page I clicked Admin Panel in the upper right next to my cover picture, and then Manage, and then chose Edit Page. On this next page I clicked on Apps and edited the settings of my Static HTML: iframe tabs app as shown in the screenshot below.
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I can’t wait to see what you create.
Be sure to leave links to your work in the comment box below.
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This is the bookstore page at Promotion a la Carte Blog. And I can change the colors of any of my bookstores anytime
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Slow Loading Sites Can Lose 1/3 of Your Visitors Before They’ve Landed
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You’ve got your blog up and designed and included a menu bar with separate pages of information to make navigation a breeze. You’ve added all kinds of plug ins to make the site serviceable to visitors and optimized for SEO.
Your sidebars include the most important information for its section of blog real estate, and you’ve a wonderful blogroll for guests to learn from.
Above the fold (what your readers see without having to scroll down) your sidebars show a prominent subscriptions form and social icons for following you all around the web, your top commenters, images and videos are all in place etc.
But when you load your blog it seems sluggish.
Check Your Site Speed
“It is estimated that if a page doesn’t load within 5-8 seconds you will lose 1/3 of your visitors. So if your website speed is slower than that perhaps you should revise your design, site structure or just move to a faster server.” Self Seo speed test.
Self SEO offers a free site speed test. I like this one because you can also test the sites of competitors (or friends!) to compare results.
IWebTool allows you to do the same, plus hosts a forum where you can discuss your results with those who know what to do with them.
If you’re site tests slow you may have to rethink using some of your heavier add ons and plug ins, large images etc.
But how do you know which are the slow-loading culprits?
Pingdom tools
Pingdom’s Full Page Test tests your load time. It loads your complete HTML page, including all objects (images, CSS, JavaScripts, RSS, Flash and frames/iframes). It mimics the way a page is loaded in a web browser. The load time of all objects is shown visually and separately with time bars in a graph.
You can view the list of objects either in load order or as a hierarchy. The hierarchy view allows you to see which objects are linked to in, for example, a CSS file. Every test also shows general statistics about the loaded page such as the total number of objects, total load time, and size including all objects.
Pingdom Tools also include Ping and Traceroute, distributed versions of the popular network tools, available directly from your browser. With these tools you’ll get an outside view of your network response time and network topology, which allows you to track down possible errors more easily.
With this range of tools we should be able to keep our sites loading speedy and smooth. Speedy blogging!
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Write Posts That Won’t be Buried in Cemeteries of the “UnRead”
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If your blog post doesn’t grab immediate attention it’s doomed to a plot in the cemetery of the dreaded unread. Here’s 5 tips that will keep your posts from being buried alive.
Intriguing photo
It’s important to use at least one intriguing photo with each post, such as the one I used here. Many are free, as was this one downloaded fromStockXChange but sometimes it’s worth it to pay $1 for stock images at iStockPhoto. Sometimes you can use your own photograph, and often illustrative screenshots. Many times a good post image is vital to getting your post noticed. I often frame my articles to theme with an upcoming holiday, such as this “eerie” post headline coinciding with Halloween.
Link to Experts
Link to other experts. This lets readers know you are an expert yourself since you know of and read the other experts. Linking also makes friends. Your link will ping to those sites and your name become known to them in the positive light of giving them coveted backlinks. Always give full credit when you quote or link to another site.
Speak Your Mind
Don’t be afraid to give your opinion, in fact do it often. You want to attract followers in your areas of interest. Not that they must think like you. Hopefully many will disagree, but enjoy hearing the respectful opinions of others and debating with equal respect. Those are great follows to attract.
Respond to Comments
Make sure to respond to comments, even if it’s just to say hi or thank you. Most of us are not so large that we can’t respond after at least every third or fourth comment on each post. During controversial or lively discussions I respond at length hoping to spur even more reader conversation. See The Truth About eBook Piracy: And the Truth Shall Set Them (Customers) Free and What’s Your Opinion About Self-Publishing? And remember, your comments boxes are a gold mine of ideas for post topics.
Headlines Rule!
Never forget how important titles are. See 7 Sneaky Ways to Write Irresistible Headlines byJonathan Fields, itself an excellent example of attention grabbing. Other perfect examples of great headlines: Why You Should Always Write Your Headline Last, and Why You Should Always Write Your Headline First both from Copyblogger.
Now go write blog posts that will never end up in the plot of the UnRead!
Are Your Emails promoting for You? Give WiseStamp the Job
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I used to waste days (literally) trying to find some way to contact Gmail about when they planned to do something about their horrendous auto signature. I even searched for other email providers that offered me a way to add a signature where I could format the fonts, add images and use html code. All in vain.
Then one sunny day I received a business correspondence that used the WiseStampbrowser extension. Jumping for joy, I immediately added it to all my browsers.
Since then, lots of folks ask me how I get my long email signature into such an orderly and attractive format. And no wonder, our email signature is a great place to let people know everything we offer them. Mine could almost serve as a resume, yet, because of the slick WiseStamp interface, it isn’t overpowering or ugly.
As you can see, I have a lot of links so people will have instant access to my many ventures. I couldn’t get away with that when I was adding them manually in the Gmail Signature Settings, which include no html codes or images, and use huge, ugly fonts.
I had to severely limit the links to keep a tight signature, which was not good at all since I offer so many teaching sites I want others to be aware of. Not so with the free WiseStamp browser plugin, winner of the “Best Social Media Gadget of 2009″ Open Web Awards presented by Mashable.
Now I can offer a link to every site that is vital, and even the writers groups organized at LinkedIn, Goodreads andYahoo Groups. A lightweight screened line separates the signature from the letter’s body (if you choose), and a favorite quote and company logo image tops the signature.
Beneath that is one neat row of clickable icons that lead to nine social sites, including Facebook, twitter, LinkedIn,YouTube, my Amazon Author Central profile and more. Plus, at the very bottom you can click on my latest blog post, which dynamically changes daily.
Founded by Josh (Tzvika) Avnery and Orly Izhaki, WiseStamp supplies exactly what I craved. With WiseStamp you can easily customize all this, include your IM and Social profiles, automatically share your blog posts, quotes, news, bookmarks and more. This free program is the most powerful email promotional tool I’ve found. It’s easy to use and provides beautiful results.
WiseStamp is available for Chrome, Firefox, Flock and Thunderbird browsers. Check out their signature gallery to see what is possible as you customize WiseStamp to fit your own needs.
So why have I packed so much information into something most people hardly glance at? Because when they do stop to glean information from our signature, we dare not disappoint. Few will bother to write and ask us for links. Opportunity fumbled.
At times opportunity found me when peers saw something in the signature they didn’t know I do. So I make sure I don’t miss those opportunities by including my WiseStamp signature automatically in every email, and WiseStamp makes it possible by supplying the ultimate in attractive calling cards.
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Screencast-O-Matic: The Simple Way to Create Complex Screen Casts and Tutorials
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Seems daily there are new ways to enhance web sites, especially with audio/visual. Even if we had the time to master these skills, most writers can’t afford the expensive software that provides these glitzy functions. But visitors DO expect high tech interaction on our humble blogs.
It’s our job to supply followers with the most pleasant, informative and personal experiences possible, and to provide that with a simplicity that enhances their visit. As much as authors may hate techie stuff, we owe some of this interactivity to our followers.
Most times we need only text posts with a few images, but don’t you sometimes wish you could explain things more clearly with a short instructional video, or offer a tour of the site, show don’t tell and all that; something beyond a digital home video?
Screencast-O-Matic is the best solution I’ve found. It’s free to create any screencast up to 15 minutes. You can host it onScreencast-O-Matic or YouTube or both. Export to Flash, Quicktime, Windows Media Player, iMovie or Windows Movie Maker.
It took me 10 minutes of playing there and I was ready to make my screencast tour of Visual Arts Junction. (Click the video in the upper left window of this page to view it. Click twice for larger.) The audio quality is great recording with my USB headphones, but Screencast-O-Matic provides tips for even better.
They use a Java applet (requires Java 1.5) to do the screen capture and playback so theoretically it should support all major platforms and browsers. I use Google Chrome and it works seamlessly, but they usually test with these browsers:
- Windows (XP/Vista/7) / IE 7.0+
- Windows (XP/Vista/7) / Firefox 3.0+
- MAC OS X / Safari 3.2+
- MAC OS X / Firefox 3.0+
- Ubuntu 8 (32bit) / Firefox 3.0+
Upgrading to Pro allows you to create hour-long screencasts and edit them for only $9.00 per year, but they can’t host them. You can save them to your YouTube account. Webcasting is available too. I am impressed with this new Cloud program. I can show my followers what I’m saying from anywhere. And this allows me to make my subscribers feel so at home.
This Screencast-O-Matic screencast by a high school student touched me, Hanna’s Favorite Poem. Isn’t this is the whole purpose of high-tech capabilities, to make our online experience feel more personal, to know one another in a way not possible before without face to face contact?Screencast-O-Matic just allowed those of us without high tech capabilities to join in.
For additional resources see Tony Eldridge’s great post at BookBuzzr blog, Tools To Help You Create Videos For Your Blog/Website.
Go beyond instructional videos. I’d love to hear how you put this free screencast programming to work for you.
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I have long been a protester against our educational process. By long, I mean from when I dropped out of school in 1970 because I was bored and figured I could do more to change the world on the streets than in the classroom. And over the decades, witnessing the changes only hinted at when I was a student, I became ever more dissident.
So I’m ecstatic about Digital Natives, whose “aim is to understand and support young people as they grow up in a digital age.” Digital Natives is an interdisciplinary collaboration of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University and the Research Center for Information Law at the University of St. Gallen.
This is so much more far reaching than it seems at first glance, as explained in the must-read article by Marc Prensky, Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants. “It is amazing to me how in all the hoopla and debate these days about the decline of education in the US we ignore the most fundamental of its causes. Our students have changed radically. Today’s students are no longer the people our educational system was designed to teach.”
The basis of this organization is that our youth are natives to the digital world while those of my age are immigrants. We weren’t born into this touch pad way of uncovering information, etc., yet we are the teachers of it.
Prensky explains, “Today’s students have not just changed incrementally from those of the past, nor simply changed their slang, clothes, body adornments, or styles, as has happened between generations previously. A really big discontinuity has taken place… It is now clear that as a result of this ubiquitous environment and the sheer volume of their interaction with it, today’s students think and process information fundamentally differently from their predecessors. These differences go far further and deeper than most educators suspect or realize.”
He compares the mind workings of our youth to those us who were not born into this “language” but emigrated from the non digital world we were born into. Prensky’s article delves into the ramifications of all this, highlighting the necessity of totally changing our education systems to correspond with the minds of our digital native youth.
A language learned later in life, scientists tell us, goes into a different part of the brain. Imagine how ludicrous of us trying to teach the natives something we never learned until well into adulthood. We’re trying to teach our children using the part of the brain that we use, not that they use.
What does this singularity mean for us digital immigrant writers? These youth are already becoming adults and taking leading roles in our society. Can we speak to them in a language they understand? How can we, when we understand today’s digital language so differently than they? What can we do to communicate with our young leaders in a way they communicate with each other and the world around them? And is this even possible?
Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants, by Marc Prensky
Digital Natives Projects
Born Digital, the book
More discussions about the future of education
Sugata Mitra talks on his amazing experiments in the child-driven education at Ted.com
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11 Super Simple Ways to Establish a Huge Web Presence
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Creating internet publicity is such a huge undertaking you can count on only one thing: it will constantly change and grow. You will never stop learning how to market your book and yourself, and you will never stop marketing. So apply your efforts to the easiest processes with the most return. Here’s some great ways to start.
Create an Email Signature
Create a business signature that is automatically applied to every email you send. WiseStamp allows you to include links to your web presence, links to buy your books, etc. in an attractive format. See Are Your Emails Promoting for You? Give WiseStamp the Job for full details.
Create a Google profile
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Set up your free Google Profile. Your profile not only shows an article all about you with links and reviews, etc., but also a tab that shows all your Google Buzz posts, plus lots of images, and much more. This is almost like having a blog about you in yet another internet spot, which is what you’re shooting for.
This is a great post by Nicolette Tallmadge, with video, on how to set one up. Nicolette explains,“Big deal, you might say, I already have profiles on Facebook and Myspace. What makes having a Google profile so great?”
Nicolette is a marketer after my own heart, when one of her list of advantages states, “It provides another link to your blog and/or website. Incoming links to your blog and/or website is good for search engine rankings…and because the link is coming from Google, you know that Google is going to rank a bit higher.” Read the rest of Nicolette Tallmadge’s Google Profile suggestion, and instructional video at the Crafted Webmaster, What are Google Profiles?
Become a Blog Commenter
Discover the other thriving blogs in your niche and frequent them. Make comments (that automatically include your blog link) about their posts that speak to you. But never resort to using automatic blog commenting software such as listed at ebookFreeway. Blog owners can make these in a New York minute and you’ll be blackballed for life. Personally I not only delete them on my blogs, but mark them as spam, which is a drastic measure I don’t often resort to.
Use Google Alerts
Use Google Alerts to monitor when you are mentioned online. This free service is a mini-miracle. Enter the term(s) you want to monitor, such as your name, and from then on when anyone mentions it on the Web anywhere, anytime Google sends you an email with the link to it. If you like the mention, you can respond and forge relationships with those who care enough about your niche to refer to you. Or you can silently monitor your online reputation.
Newsletters
Create a newsletter. This doesn’t mean you have to write and email a weekly/monthly newsletter, though you may want to do just that through sites like Constant Contact. But even simpler, or in addition to, use a free service such as Feedblitz. They automatically send out each of your blog posts as a newsletter as often as you tell them to.
Utilize Videos/Screencasts/Slideshows
Make videos/screencasts/slideshows on your blog. You might want to start by making a homemade welcome message for your home page just using your digital video recorder. Personal and sincere touch a soft spot in all of us, making us feel we know you.
Or use free places like Screencast-o-Matic to created live tutorials. High tech isn’t as hard as it use to be. I spent twenty minutes learningScreencast-o-Matic and was ready to make my first tute. Or create free slideshows at places like Animoto or Slide Remember, video is picked up by search engines far more readily than text based posts, and site visitors will gravitate to them first.
BookBuzzr.com
Place your book on BookBuzzr.com and use their widgets on your site(s). I posted my novel, Rightfully Mine, there in September 2009, and spread their widget on a few of my own sites, and then forgot about it.
Freya at BookBuzzr Blog contacted me in late December asking to interview me because Rightfully Mine, made the top ten lists for views in both November and December 2009, at that time with over 10,000 views in just two months. Don’t overlook the vast traffic they attract. I’m now a regular contributor writing for their blog. Putting yourself out there to establish a web presence can lead to places you never imagined.
Blog Tours & Guest Posts
Do a blog tour. Your book doesn’t have to have been recently released to tour it. You can go as big or as small as you want, hiring budget-minded companies such as mine, Promotion á la Carte, to huge, expensive tour companies, to orchestrating it yourself. Be prepared to write a different article for each blog tour stop who hosts you, and give away an electronic or print copy of your book at each stop.
At the least, approach the blog owners you frequent in your niche asking if they’d be interested in you writing a guest post for them. For help with this you can sign up at the free Blogger LinkUP where you’ll receive daily lists of other bloggers looking for expert sources, requests for guest posts, and bloggers and web masters offering guest posts. Put yourself out there.
Make the Most of twitter & Facebook
Be active on at least twitter and Facebook. Meet those in your niche on your social media sites and engage in ongoing conversations. Get to know others and let them know you. That’s the best way for them to learn about your book(s).
Use Ping.fm
Go to Ping.fm and open an account to apply every post to all your social media in one swipe. Once you’ve added all your social media to yourPing account (I presently have 19), whenever ever you make a post it shows up on all of them simultaneously. Just make sure all your posts are only 140 characters or less so that places like twitter won’t cut off part of them.
Join Professional Groups
Joining author and marketing groups on sites like LinkedIn and Ning-type writing forums and communities will introduce you to people in your niche, and introduce them to you.
You don’t have to waste all day there, but when you’ve just created a post you know those in your groups would learn from or just enjoy, post it for them. And if they did the same, take a moment to thank them. This is part of my daily marketing routine, and has resulted in some lifelong friendships, business ventures and sales.
It’s Really Not so Hard
As they say, Just Do It. Just put yourself out there. And before you know it, you will have a web presence.
Eliminate Passive Writing; 1st Word of Your Sentence Makes or Breaks It
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View the video tutorial or read the article below for bonus material.
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The first word of a sentence can make or break it,
can force it into a passive weak sentence or a vibrant active one.
Begin Sentences With a Verb
Passive writing plagues us all. I blame the sometimes antiquated grammar still taught in schools. Try this tip to auto-force an actively written sentence. Begin your sentence with a verb or at least an active phrase. It’s nearly impossible to write draggy, boring sentences when you start off with energy.
Sometimes I even turn nouns into verbs to pep up a boring sentence or technical paragraph. I’ve heard that called “verbify.” For example, the company name Google in verb form now means to do a web search; as in, “Just Google me.” You could even turn the noun “verb” into a verb by saying, ”People have verbed the word “Google.”
Always choose active voice over passive. When rewriting (sculpting) your work don’t allow sentences to just trickle from your pen. Work hard to create the active voice. The first word of a sentence can make or break it, can force it into a passive weak sentence or a vibrant active one.
Check this out: When you use passive words they force you to construct a weak, inactive sentence. Like the passive sentence I just wrote, using these words; “when you use” and “they force.”
Change that sentence to begin with the word “use”, which is active (rather than the sluggish “when you use”), and you force an active construction something like this:
“Use passive words to construct a weak, inactive sentence.” That’s the active voice. You may not choose to say it exactly this way, but it illustrates the point.
One Word Always Better Than Two
Remember, passive writing uses more words, and boring unnecessary ones at that. That first passive sentence took 14 words, the second active rewrite used only 9 to say the same thing with some energy behind it. One word is always better than two, two words are always better than three, etc. Compare: “I slowly moved” to “I inched.”
I could go one, but that would defeat my purpose; tight, active writing that not only blogs scream out for, but every type of writing and genre. Of course, passive words must be used occasionally, (like the passive phrase I just wrote) but unless absolutely necessary just eliminate them.
More Examples From This Post:
Passive: Here’s a quick tip that will automatically force you to write an active sentence rather than a passive one. 19 words.
Active Rewrite: Try this tip to auto-force an actively written sentence. 9 words, though I may have created a new word with “auto-force.”
Passive: The wisest choice is to always choose the active form over the passive. 10 words.
Active Rewrite: Always choose active writing over passive. 6 words.
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To Learn More About the Art of Rewriting You May Purchase Aggie’s BooK
The Rewritten Word: How to Sculpt Literary Art No Matter The Genre
Step-by-Step Guide to Guest Blogging: Shelley Hitz Audio Tour
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Listen to Aggie’s Introduction
We are honored to welcome Self-Publishing Coach Shelley Hitz, who has stopped by on her latest podcast blog tour.
You’re in for a treat because Shelley teaches us about expanding web presence and gaining a following through guest blogging; exactly what she is doing here today. Teaching by example!
Shelley always offers excellent information and has a gift for teaching. So settle back with a nice cup of something hot and soothing, listen and learn, and even download a great freebie, Guest Blogging Success for Authors. Then you may want to order the full course, A Step-by-Step Guide to Guest Blogging.
Listen to Shelley’s Free Guest Blogging Podcast:
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Download Shelley’s free PDF report, Guest Blogging Success for Authors.
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Order the full course, A Step-by-Step Guide to Guest Blogging.
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Shelley Hitz is an entrepreneur, author and speaker. Her website, Self Publishing Coach, provides resources and tutorials that help you publish and market your book. Her series, Book Marketing on a Shoestring Budget, allows you to expand your book marketing efforts and sell more books without going broke. She even offers one of her reports free!
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3 Killer Methods to fill a Dry Blogging Idea Well
Posted by: Aggie Villanueva | Comments (0).
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Ideas for writing blog posts all dried up? Try any one of these three methods and I guarantee you will come away with dozens of fresh post ideas.
Trending Search Engines
Twitter is not just for tweeting. It’s a top resource to track and identify trends in you niche market. And after all, that’s what we should be writing about.
Search Topsy, a search engine powered by tweets and a treasure trove for hot topics.
I searched “blog post ideas” (without the quote marks) and the first treasure it found was How to generate Blog post Ideas in Seconds, an excellent article using a kind of right-brain free association method.
But the treasure in this is that it’s written by 15-year-old blogger Peter Joseph from Australia. And the blog itself is Gloson Blog: Social Media, Blogging and Tech Tips from a Kid.
That kid, Gloson, is 12 years old. Now if that doesn’t generate several article ideas, no matter your niche market, you shouldn’t be blogging. When you use these search and trending engines you never know what gems it will generate, often far from the original search term you typed.
Doing a another search on Topsy I found the top 50 tweets all had the word killer in them, such as How to Write a Killer Headline. Hmmm…change the way you’ll write your next title? It did for this post.
Search.twitter is also great for trending, finding the hot topics. And Trendistic finds your search term and also graphs the trends of it for the recent past.
Pay Closer Attention to Your Comment Boxes
We all know to make sure to respond to comments, even if it’s just to say hi or thank you. Most of us are not so large that we can’t respond after at least, every third or fourth comment. But your comments boxes will also prompt dozens of ideas for post topics. During controversial or lively discussions I respond at length to spur more reader conversation. Readers will let us know what they are interested in if we just listen.
Make Room for Guests
Guest posts are a great way of infusing fresh ideas. And you needn’t limit them to interviews and articles, though those are a solid standby. One of my favorite examples of guest posts that go beyond just a standard blog post, is from a creative bunch of gals, Hywela Lyn, Mary Ricksen, Sharon Donovan, and of course, Oliver, who host weekly guests at Author Roasts & Toasts. Check out their site for some idea priming. They roasted me in February of 2010 with an Ancient Israel Celebration for Rightfully Mine.