[Recommended] List Jobs to Help Ex-Borders Employees

With the demise of Borders, there are thousands of people out of work. Colleen Lindsay, who works for the Penguin Group and is also the community manager for Book Country, Tweeted about a site that’ll offer ex-Borders employees opportunities in their area. (You’ll have to forgive me, I’m not certain if she created the site with the other contributor, Chris Kubica, or not.) You can, however, read: It Takes a Village to Support Out-of-Work Booksellers.

Instructions are on the Help Ex-Borders Employees website.

July 22, 2011
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[My Guest Post] More Insight on Social Media Blackout at SFWA.org

Wanted to pop in today to mention that, for my July article at SFWA.org, I opted to provide the results of my 100 day social media blackout and give readers additional insights I didn’t write about here.

Remember, too, that online marketing and e-commerce both have high learning curves. What you see/read online is often the free version of advice marketers provide to open the door to paying clients. The web changes often and dramatically — social media moreso. One, little change and that entire community you’ve built on Facebook could disappear. This? This is yet another reason why your website is more important than any other tool in your promotional arsenal. — SOURCE: The Results of My 100 Day Social Media Blackout at SFWA.org

I feel that this experiment achieved my goal of opening up the door “to” talk about these sorts of things and understand its value. Since I have a professional background in online marketing, I knew what to look for, which definitely helped shape my insights.

With the debut of new social media tools like Google+, an author’s relationship with social media will not only evolve, but shift and fracture depending upon how many audiences — personal and professional — we have. In terms of priority, though, while I like the tools and missed a few of my online pen pals, I know what benefit it has in terms of reaching new readers.

After all, the best way “of” reaching new readers is to write another story… 🙂

July 21, 2011
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My Blog is Now Available on the Kindle

Subscribe to mlvwrites on the Amazon KindleAnd now for a public service announcement.

If you enjoy reading my trials and tribulations and appreciate the blood, sweat and tears that has gone into this blog over the years, then you may want to consider taking advantage of a new service. Now, you can read my posts from the comfort of your own e-reader, the Amazon Kindle.

Included with your subscription is a fourteen day free trial. And yes, the listing is under my name as opposed to mlvwrites.com. And yes, my name is quite long, a subscription in and of itself.

I hope you’ll consider adding me to your queue. I may even wind up emulating the letter “E” in my posts…

Educate, Enlighten, Entertain…

June 21, 2011
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Sign Up for My Newsletter for Free Fiction

Based on the feedback I’ve received over the past couple of months, my monthly newsletter is going to take on a more personal tone. Each month, newsletter subscribers will receive free fiction in their In Box.

To read free fiction, all you have to do is sign up for my monthly newsletter. I use a third party provider called “MailChimp.” They have a great privacy policy and whitelisting service built into their interface.

I hope you’ll consider being a part of my growing community of readers, colleagues and friends. Thanks so much for supporting my work!

– Monica

June 13, 2011
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Day 5 of 100: Social Media is More Than Noise

Well, it’s the fifth day now since I’ve started this one-hundred day blackout, and already I can tell that this experiment wasn’t as simple as “tuning out the noise.” What I found, through the course of dealing with a bunch of snafus, is that I’ve been relying on these tools to resolve problems. For some of those issues, like communicating when my site goes down, there is no other tool that exists to send out a message.

Going dark has forced me to circumvent what I normally do, in an attempt to resolve a problem I normally solve through social media. I didn’t expect that to happen. I mean, it’s not even the end of the week and I’m already realizing I use these tools for more than just inane babble and telling you what I eat every day.

Note: I heartily enjoy a decent plate of nachos with real cheese. None of that orange reconstituted dust in a can business.

Sorry, I just had to throw that in there. Anyway, it’s interesting that I’ve experienced first-hand what I often tell people about social media. These are tools that have multiple uses. They don’t just facilitate a constant stream of noise; pick apart what Twitter or Facebook or IMs are being used for and they turn into complex information networks.

Believe me, while I miss some of the conversations with friends that live long distances away, I am enjoying the break. Written words are sounds to me; always have been, always will be. So cutting down on that stream has helped me shrink my world considerably, which is what I felt I needed to do.

I’m not going to post during my appearance at OddCon, but I will do a wrap-up post for the week and another one about OddCon. I’m curious to see if anyone is going to bring this experiment up; I’ve had a few instances where people I’ve never met before mention things that I’ve said online. We shall see what the weekend brings, I suppose. Hopefully, a million sales of The Queen of Crows, right? RIGHT?

What? I’m innocent! No, really.

Okay, you can stop laughing now.

About 100 Days: From April 4th to July 13th I’m turning the lights off on Facebook, Twitter and IMs for personal use. Read 100 Days: Turning off the Lights on Social Media for more information. You can also read the 100 Days post archive.

April 8, 2011
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