Is BookBub worth it? (And other surprises in my author journey)

Here are my reflections on what marketing tactics have and have not worked for me.
The publishing industry is changing so quickly that business plans become obsolete almost as soon as they’re written.
My conclusion? Community is everything. Authors have to help one another. And the “sure things” aren’t, necessarily.


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Auto-populating a Blogspot blog with WordPress posts

So I’ve set up my Wordpress blog, and I’m pretty happy with it (except for the fact that their restrictions on iframes and javascript means no cool Amazon or Zazzle widgets).  My WP posts automatically post to Facebook, Tumblr, and Google+.

But what about Blogger, Google’s blog publishing tool? My Gmail address automatically entitles me to a Blogspot site, and I wanted to take advantage of that.  I hunted for tips on autopopulating my Blogger blog with my WordPress posts, and immediately found myself neck deep in fairly technical stuff on RSS feeds.

I finally hit on a simple way to do it. Here it is:

(TL;DR: On Blogger, set up the email address for posting via email. Then on WordPress, subscribe to your blog using that email address that you just set up.)

1) Set up your Blogger site.

2) Set up your mail-to-Blogger email address. Anything you send to this address will be automatically posted on your Blogger blog. Do this by clicking “Design” (in the upper right hand corner) and then “Settings” (at the bottom of the menu on the left hand side of the screen)

3) Click “Settings,” which will open a new menu underneath. Click “Mobile and email.”

Mobile and email

4) Select “posting using email” and think of a word to insert in the box. I put “post” in this example. Don’t put “post.” Too easy to guess, and Blogger won’t accept it.

Set up your custom email address
Set up your custom email address

Now every time you send something to that super-secret email address, it will automatically post on your Blogger blog. If you don’t want everything from WordPress showing up automatically, select “Save emails as draft post.” I chose “Publish email immediately” because I’m reckless like that.

Now subscribe to your Wordpress blog:

5) Go to Appearance>Widgets and Add a “Follow Blog” widget to your site if you don’t already have one.

6) Visit your WordPress site while you aren’t logged in. Use the “Follow Blog” widget to subscribe using your super-secret Blogger email address.

7) WordPress will send you a confirmation. If you selected the “Publish emails immediately” option it will post right onto your Blogger blog. Don’t be embarrassed. This just means it’s working!
confirm from wp

8) Click “Confirm Follow” and follow the directions.

A confirmation post will appear on your Blogger blog:

Confirmation message

9) There! It’s working. Now every time you post something to WP it will automatically be reposted on Blogger as well.

Frankie Bow’s first novel, THE MUSUBI MURDER , is available at Audible.com, Amazon.com, andiTunes.

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Internet dating. It’s like being a kid in a candy store. A candy store full of poisonous snakes.

Fake profile of horrible person attracts swarms of suitors.  (However: She’s cute).  Any evolutionary psychologists want to weigh in on how it’s time for the human race to die out already?

“It’s riddled with typos. This girl clearly lacks the ability to read and write. In the opening paragraph, she kind of quotes Katy Perry and says her passions are krumping and interpretive dance … but as long as you love chili and art you’re golden! She also makes an off-handed racist comment. She then describes what she’s doing with her life in the most vague way possible, only sharing a horribly offensive 9/11 joke and that she posted on a picture of Willy Wonka. Then you get to what she’s really good at and she says iPods. What does that mean?? How are you good at iPods?”