May 19, 2013

Twitter 101: What the #hashtag are hashtags?

Being a writer can be a bit of a lonely business.  Or rather, it used to be before the advent of social media.  Now it is super easy to connect with writers all over the world through sites like Facebook, Goodreads and Twitter.  Something I often talk about with writers (and also  in my other life as a teacher) is just how valuable Twitter is as a resource.

Twitter is regularly referred to as the ‘water cooler’ of the social media world and this is such a great analogy.  It is a brilliant place to gather share ideas about common interests, drive traffic to your blog and to learn a lot from other peoples’ suggestions and tips.  I definitely wouldn’t have sold the number of books that I have without Twitter and the resources that I have come across by interacting with people on there.

One of the best ways to come across new people to follow and information or ideas out there in the Twitter-sphere that may be of interest to you is through the use of hashtags.

 

What on earth are hashtags?

The best description for a hashtag is to think of it as a keyword with the # symbol at the front.  They can be at the beginning, middle or end of a Tweet.

 

Why should you use them?

There are three great reasons why you should think about using hashtags in your tweets:

  1.  It is a way of categorising or organise tweets and it helps them to show up more easily in a search.
  2. People who follow that particular hashtag may come across your tweet, enjoy it and follow you.  It also means that you can become part of a conversation that is centred around or connected to that keyword.
  3. Thirdly (and perhaps my favourite reason) is that they can be used cleverly to add humour to your Tweets. #ifyouarecleverenough

 

Compose first, hashtag after 

The most important part of your tweets is the content of the actual tweet, not the hashtags.  In fact, it is actually pretty irritating trying to read a tweet that is made up almost entirely of hashtags, particularly if it then doesn’t really make much sense.  My recommendation would be that you compose your tweet, add a link (if needed) and then add one or two relevant hashtags (again, if needed). Relevance is key!

 

And what are some good hashtags for writers?

To get you started, possibly the best and most commonly used hashtags are #amwriting and #amreading (to refer to when you are talking about your writing or reading).  For those interested in self-publishing, I recommend that you take a look at #selfpub and #indiepub.

There is also #ww for Writer Wednesday and #ff for Follow Friday (which is a great way of discovering new people to follow).

And if you write for children like me, don’t forget to check out #mglit, #kidlit and #kidlitchat as great hashtags to follow too.

So, today I’d like to know: what’s your favourite hashtag?

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April 21, 2013

Project Life – February 2013

Wow!  Time is really flying this year.  I can’t believe that we are already two-thirds of the way through April! I’ve been busy working on my next book and on blog posts, so Project Life is turning out to be a great way for me to journal about my life without having to spend too much more time putting pen to paper (hence making it great for busy writers out there!)

Now, I know that the title of this post is Project Life – February 2013 and I don’t want you getting all worried that I’ve fallen really far behind.  That’s totally not the case.  There are three reasons why this post is a bit delayed:

  1. I’m still learning and getting my head around the best way for me to tackle this project, so I’ve been going back and tweaking pages to get them just right.  I didn’t want to share them with you here until I was really happy with them. (Read: Yes, I’m a total perfectionist!)
  2. I’ve been trying new things with pocket pages, colours and stickers and that has taken time to get right.
  3. I’ve photographed these pages about 4 times now and it has been tricky to get it right.  You’ll notice that the colours below are a bit too bright, but as it was my fourth attempt (over about 3 weeks!) to get the darn pages photographed, I decided that it will just have to do.  When you’re having a look, just keep in mind that all of my friends aren’t usually the colour of Oompa-loompas!

My March spreads for Project Life are also finished and I’ve even done the first week of April.  They all just need to be photographed – I did them with the February ones this morning but I’m not really happy with the results.  You can expect to see them in the next few weeks I promise.

New things I’ve tried this month: When I first started Project Life I was really keen to try and keep every page to a 12 x 12 size.  At the end of January, I ordered some new pockets (as I only had Design A and they don’t allow for any 6 x 4 vertically oriented photos) and when they arrived I realised that they aren’t all 12 x 12 – some are slightly smaller.  But I just decided to go with it and that explains why some of the spreads in the photos below are different sizes.  I’ve even gone one step further and added some regular A4 plastic pockets and I’ve trimmed down some Project Life pocket pages so they are only one photo wide, so keep an eye out for those too.

I’ve also been playing around with the size of my photos.  There is a great photo from Kimberley’s wedding below that I decided would look better bigger than 6×4 so I blew it up.  I was really happy how it turned out so I’ll definitely be using that technique in future spreads.

There are some other cool things creeping in, which I never thought would happen because I’m not really into the whole ‘chop up lots of paper and make a scrapbook with it’.  I got a cute inspirational stickers book from Kikki K which just happens to be in greens and blues and fits beautifully with my Seafoam Core kit.  I also bought a booklet of Good Times stickers from Amy Tangerine which I’ve been using here and there too.  I’d love to find a few more stickers that are small but blank to be able to add comments and details to my photos.  If you have any suggestions, I’d love to hear them!

Finally, you’ll notice that there are a few things that have been blurred out in this spread.  I’ve been learning how to do that on Photoshop so I can share whole spreads here without giving away personal information.  There are several pages that I have left out when sharing this month’s spread, however, because they contain photos (of my classroom) and little artifacts (like school function invitations) from my job as a teacher and I didn’t really feel comfortable about publishing that online here.

So, what happened this month? 

Lots of little projects!  This spread was all about capturing interesting things that happened around the house, including my sugar free banana cake, fixing a clock and making fabric covered canvas art works, and about things that made me smile.

The next few pages that should be here are the ones that show things from school.  After that, there are lots of pages dedicated to my friend Kimberley’s Buck-ette’s weekend.  It was such a beautiful weekend away with friends with lots of good food, surfing and laughter.

The blurred page in the next two photos is a page of predictions. Five years ago, five friends wrote down where we all thought we’d be in five years time and on this trip together we finally got to open them and find out what the others had written about us. Talk about a walk down memory lane!

I also then went to Kimberley and Doug’s wedding in February.  Beautiful and loads of fun!

And had lots of adventures in Canberra that weekend …

Finally, my friend Fi and I went to see War Horse just before it closed in Melbourne.  It’s one of those things I’ve been meaning to do (especially when I lived in London) so I was really pleased to be able to tick it off my list!  A fabulous production made out of a simple story.

And what’s next?  I am definitely on the hunt for a tool that will round the corners of my photos for me in one snip.  I’m really getting over doing it with scissors, let me tell you!  I’m also going to start printing a few photos at home, just here and there as sometimes I come back from Officeworks and find that I’ve missed getting key photo printed and so can’t finish my spread.  Annnnd I’ve just bought myself a Wacom Bamboo Splash drawing tablet so that I can add handwriting onto my photos before printing them and I’m already totally in love with it.  I can’t wait to use it for Project Life!

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April 18, 2013

Styling your bookcases (Yes, it’s actually a real thing!)

(Yes, I’ve just bought myself a new drawing tablet so I can add handwriting to my photos. And yes, I’m in love!)

So, one of the  tasks that I set for myself over the school holidays was to get a TV unit.  Yes, I know that doesn’t sound very book-related but hear me out.

When I first moved into my teeny tiny flat back in November, the first thing that I bought was two big white Expedit bookcases from IKEA that I had been lusting after for a couple of years after I saw them in a friends’ apartment.  After buying them, the next thing I did was fill them choc full of my books – I had enough to fill one whole bookcase and half of the second – and as I hadn’t seen any of my books several years because I’d been living overseas, it was all very exciting.

Then, back in March, I finally cracked and bought myself a television.  Nothing too crazy, but it meant that I then needed a TV unit.  So, after much umming and ahhhing over different units (and watching my TV propped up on a chair), I ended up impulse purchasing an Expedit TV unit from IKEA on a trip to buy other things.  And, yes, I know you’re still thinking what does this have to do with books?

Well, the first thing I did with the cubby holes in my new TV unit was stuff them full of books from the half full bookcase (which is in my bedroom).  Then I stood back and looked at the full bookcase and the TV unit together in the living room and they just looked … intimidatingly full. They looked heavy and you almost couldn’t take in any of the books because they were just so jammed in there.  They were crowding me out of my tiny flat.

Then  just happened read this great post over at one of my favourite blogs at the moment Young House Love and I was inspired to learn more about styling your bookcase.  Did you even know there was such a thing?  Sounds crazy, right?  Well, after reading that I began to do some research and apparently it’s a real thing. People do it.  On purpose.

Then, I thought – perhaps I should give it a go?  This is what my living room bookcase looks like now:

I really like the stacks of books in the middle of the shelf with the artifact on top and the ones that are half vertical/half horizontal.  You’ll notice that there are no photos in two of the frames.  I’ve just put them there as placeholders.  I totally love those frames two frames but I haven’t found a photo or a particular quote that I’d like to have in each of them yet.  It’s a work in progress, but you get the idea.

And this is my TV unit:

I really like the ‘red’ bookshelf at the top (with the white candle holder/vase) and the square frame at the bottom.  I’d love to replace those coloured boxes on the thin shelf with a matching pair at some point.  As my desk doubles as my dining table, it is handy that my printer fits in there too.

If you’d like to try a bit of bookcase styling yourself, I’d suggest:

1. Read the following blog posts to learn more about it first -

Young House Love

Houzz

Apartment Therapy

Better Homes and Gardens

2. Take a ‘Before’ photo.  (I totally regret missing this step!)

3. Take everything off your bookcase and give it a good dust.

4. Go around your house and collect some ‘artifacts’.  You know – knick knacks, dust collectors, ornaments, vases, photos or quotes in frames – that sort of thing.  I don’t own many of these at all, so it is something that I am aiming to get some more of in the future. I don’t want to just accumulate things for the sake of having them, but next time I’m on holiday it is something that I’ll be keeping an eye out for, those little treasures with a story to bring home.

5.   Now rearrange the books and artifacts on your bookcase to give a bit more space.  Before you start putting books on, I’d suggest you take a look at the Art of Doing Stuff as apparently there are 7 different ways to stack books.  (Yeah, I know – who thinks up these things!)  With my Expedit bookcase in the living room (which is four squares by four squares) I decided that two squares in each row should be full and two should be ‘styled’ with other things in them as well as books.

And you know what?  I think it actually works!  In fact, I’d go so far as to say that I really love the way it looks and it has totally lightened up the space too.  Much less prominent in my small space and really beautiful to look at.  I’m loving having a few more inspirational quotes around the place too.  It feels good.

I’d love to hear about your bookcase styling adventures.  Send me a photo and it might feature in one of the future posts here at Frankly Books! Do you have a special way of arranging your books?  Alphabetical? Dewey system? Series together?  By colour?

 

 

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Catharine Withenay - I love this post! On our last move, my husband decided to put all our books out, shelved according to colour. Given I’d so efficiently packed them in boxes A-Z I was frustrated to say the least. However, I do have to admit it looks good (even if I can’t find what I want half the time!)

Cool Mom (Christine M.) - We have the same exact two bookcases in our library room – filled to the brim with books and books overflowing in other rooms. No styling here but one can dream. Yours look great. Very inspiring.

franklybooks - Aren’t they just the best bookcases! They are actually a bit tricky to style comepared with some because each space is only about a foot wide (which doesn’t leave much space for lying books and standing books in one space) but it is a fun weekend project!

April 15, 2013

You can’t run a serious business as a creative person, right?

Before we get started today, make sure you have a notebook and pen handy.  You even like to make yourself a good hot cup of chai too, because this is going to take a minute (well, actually 15 minutes.  Or longer, depending on how many times you decide to watch it!)

I recently came across this video on Ali Edwards’ Blog and put it on the pile of ‘That looks interesting I should really make time to watch that’ and today I finally made some time to sit down and watch it.  Ummm – wow!  I’m so glad that I did.

It’s a 15 minute video from Big Hearted Business which ‘exists to teach brilliant, creative people how to build strong, successful, caring businesses, without compromising their integrity, their health, or their happiness’.  As a creative person, I really love this idea and I can’t wait to see it grow in the future.

This particular inspiration bomb video comes from Kemi Nekvapil (with chalk artwork by Carla Harnett) and after watching it, I just came away feeling so empowered and inspired.  (In case the video below isn’t working for you, you can also get to it here)

Hopefully this has inspired you as a writer today!  If you’d like to see more or to learn more about Big Hearted Business, head to http://bigheartedbusiness.clarebowditch.com immediately. Love it!

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April 8, 2013

Planning your blog posts

Now I’ll be the first to admit that this isn’t exactly my strong point.  If you look back through my last six months worth of blog posts you will notice that they are just all over the place.  Lots here, then not too many.  Then consistent for a while.  Then chaos!

Now being more structured and organised with my blogging is something that I really want to achieve, not only for my own sanity and stress levels, but also because I think that consistent posts is a great way of building up a relationship with your readers (Hi there!) Plus, I believe that planning leads to better writing, which is pretty important when you are trying to market yourself as a writer. Go figure!  So I have been working on perfecting my blog planning skills over the last year and I’m definitely getting better at it (which is definitely good!)

I follow a variety of different bloggers and I’m always interested when they share the ways that they plan for their blog posts – particularly when they sometimes have multiple blog posts with loads of amazing images that go live on the same day.  (And on a side note, I always feel a bit robbed by bloggers like that because they’re either (a) full-time bloggers and so have time to be putting together lots of posts, (b) there are lots of people working on the same blog, or (c) they’re like an octopus with arms going everywhere to get things done!)

Today I want to share three different, but great  ideas to plan out your blog posts that I think are both really flexible and really practical (and hence, could really work for you!)

1. Elise Blaha and The Stendig Calendar

I absolutely love Elise’s blog (I know, I know – I say that all the time, but it is totally true!) and a while back I came across a post where she talks about how she plans out her blog content using a large Stendig calendar and mini post-it notes.  It is a pretty simple system and it is one that I’ve been wanting to try out for a while – but do you think I can find a Stendig calendar anywhere here in Australia?  Nope! So I kind of gave up on trying it as an idea.

When I was researching this post, I was reminded of Elise and her calendar and I decided that I still really wanted to try it out for myself.  So I printed off an A4 page with the numbers 1-30, another with 1-31 and a third with 1-28 on it and ran down to Officeworks where I blew them up to A3 size and bought some mini Post-It notes.  I took a quick photo of what I’m calling my faux Stendig this morning (and it is now the photo at the top of this post).  I’d suggest you read more about how she uses it.

I’m loving it so far because it is really flexible – I’ve planned out two months worth of posts, but because they’re on sticky notes I can move them around to come up with a combination that I’m really happy with.  The only kind of annoying thing is that I haven’t lined up the dates with any day of the week, so I’m constantly having to count on from the first page to work out the days of the week (as I’m aiming to post on Mon-Wed-Fri).  If I were to do this long-term, I’d totally have to buy a proper Stendig or take the time to make another faux one labelled with the right days and months.

2. Elsie and Emma  and their two-week whiteboard

I haven’t tried this one myself, but Elise & Emma over at A Beautiful Mess do make blog planning look easy with their marker board.  They’ve just bought a whiteboard and divided it into 14 sections (two rows of seven) with black tape, then used lettering to mark out the days of the week.  At their blogging meetings, they can then talk about what they are going to post about and where it is going to fit into the coming week.  A pretty simple idea and, again, very flexible – if something isn’t going to work out for whatever reason then just rub it out and put something else in their place.

I haven’t tried this one myself, but it looks well organised and function, both of which are important elements of whatever blog planning technique you choose.

3. My free blog planner

Back when I first launched Frankly Books, I made a blog planner to giveaway to new readers.  I still regularly use this blog planner to help me to plan out my blog posts and it is still really functional. What I’m thinking about doing in the future is to combine the weekly three posts aspect of the planner with Elise’s planner on the wall, as I really like to be able to see what is coming up without having to leave my desk or hunt around for my blog planning folder. You can watch this video to how it works and then download your free copy to make your own.

Have you got a tried and true method for planning your blog posts?  Share it now –  I’d love to hear from you!

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Rebecca Douglass - First, gee, I’m still getting started on April 7 and here you are on the 8th!

I just wanted to say I am totally blown away at the idea of blog planning :) Until I tackled the A to Z Challenge (and actually do have a calendar with most of the days sort of planned) I hadn’t really thought much about planning at all. I have a list of some writing topics I want to hit eventually, and then I review books as I finish them, and. . . gee. Organization. What a concept (if you could see my house, you’d know it’s not my strong point!).

franklybooks - Thanks for dropping by, Rebecca! I’ve decided that it is one thing to be a blogger and another thing entirely to be an organised blogger! I’m slowly getting through all of the sticky notes currently stuck to the calendar on my wall and I’m really finding it to be a great system for me so far. Now if only I was an organised with writing my new book!

Rebecca Douglass - Hoo, boy! Tell me about it! I’m totally demoralized and disorganized just because we took a long weekend and the boys were off school all week. And just when I need to get on top of some deadlines.

Tomorrow.