Have you ever wanted a blog of your very own? Join me this week for the first three lessons on setting up your own WordPress.com blog – it’ll be a piece of cake!

***

Pictures, Tags and Categories

I’m baaaaack! =) And let’s dive right into the deep waters (hold your nose!) and learn about inserting images into your posts. I know you’ve been dying to learn!

First, find an image. One from your computer, one from a website that offers free downloads. Careful here, make sure you aren’t taking a copyrighted photo.

Got your image? Here’s mine. Ain’t he a cutie?

• Open (edit) the post you want to add the picture to.
• First, click your cursor where you want your picture to display.
• Click on the button that matches the one outlined in red here. (yours won’t have an outline, sorry!) This is the upload image button.

Hang on! The entire screen went black! Take a deep breath, it’s supposed to. Whew.

• Make sure the From Computer tab at the top is selected.
• Click on Select Files. A Dialog box will open.
• Navigate to the photo on your computer you want to upload
• Click on the file name once to highlight it.
• Click open on the Dialogue box.
• Wait a few seconds for it to upload and crunch. Yes, it’s supposed to crunch. It’s ok. Really.

Tada!!

Scroll down a bit and you’ll see all this fun stuff.

• Fill out the information by Title, etc. Use Alternate Text and Description to make it easy for disabled readers to “read” what your picture is about.
• Add in a caption if so desired. It will appear under your photo.
• Alignment – Choose one –
• None – The picture will show up in the upper left hand corner, but the text will start at the bottom right corner of the photo.
• Left – I almost always prefer my pictures to be left aligned, with the text flowing to the right of it.
• Center – If you have a larger picture, choose to center it, and the text will flow underneath it.
• Right – The picture will post on the right hand side, with the text to the left.

• Size: I generally choose thumbnail, although you can pick any size including full and edit it down smaller later. Don’t worry, I’ll tell you how.
• Finally, click insert into post.
• Mop your brow.

There you go. One beautiful photo inserted into your post. Click update, view post and sigh in awe at yourself. You go, girl.

Need to make it bigger or smaller?

• In Edit mode, click on the picture. If you click on the skyline looking picture, you’ll go back to the black screen. It lets you change the size and the alignment of your photo.

• On the left hand side under Edit Image there’s a percent slider. If you run your mouse pointer over that, you can see how various sizes look with the random text. You can also change your alignment here. Ah, don’t look under Advanced Settings. There be dragons here.

Need to delete your photo?

• In Edit mode, click on the picture. Choose the large, red, ominous looking “X”. Poof. It’s gone.

Tags – Tags are keywords to help search engines find your post. Eh? Let me explain. Suppose you write a wonderful blog post on How To Raise a Vietnamese Pot Bellied Pig. Who’s going to look for it? First of all, anyone with a VPBP. Where are they going to look? On a search engine, such as Google or Technorati. (links) When Bob in Oklahoma is wondering how to feed his six-week-old VPBP, he’s going to do a search. Now, if your post has tags that list Vietnamese Pot Bellied Pigs, there’s a good chance Bob is going to visit your site to see what you have to say. And he might come back again! This is what builds your readership. Tags help your post find the right readers.

So, let’s add in some tags.

This is your tags box.

• Type in all the tags that pertain to your post (please please please only use tags that pertain to your post!) and separate them with commas. On RU’s post about Challenging Couples in Love, their tags were Attraction, Chaos Theory of Writing, Character Development, Characterization, Relationships, Romance Writing, writing tips. It all fits in with the article.
• Click Add. That’s it. Done and over.

Suppose next week RU writes a post on Writing the Alpha Male. If I click on “Choose from the most used tags” the tags I used previously appear, and I just have to click on Character Development and Characterization to make them appear as a tag for this new post. See how that works? Slick.

What about Categories you might ask? (You didn’t ask, but I watched Carnac the Magnificent a lot when I was a kid, so I just know.)

Think of categories like the Dewey Decimal System. Your blog is going to be awesome (that goes without saying) but every post belongs in a category. If one day you write about Vietnamese Pot Bellied Pigs, and the next day you’re writing about Characterizations, just think how confused your multitude of readers will be. Categories are used to help your reader navigate your blog.

• Click on +Add New Category
• Type in your category name – ie Vietnamese Pot Bellied Pigs
• Click on Add New Category

Like magic – Shazam! Your new category appears. Anytime you write an article on VPBP, you would put a check mark in the category column next to the name, to categorize your article.

And that takes us to the end of Lesson Three. Aw….don’t cry, there’s going to be more! Stay tuned for next time when we’ll discuss more of those fun items on the dashboard!

***

Carrie is a faculty member on Romance University. In her spare time she manages a restaurant, designs jewelry and websites, and is writing three manuscripts concurrently. She lives on a farm in Iowa with seven cats, a husband from England and, as was discovered in the mudroom last week, two skunks. You can visit her blog anytime at Smart Ass Romance.

Have you ever wanted a blog of your very own? Join me this week for the first three lessons on setting up your own WordPress.com blog – it’ll be a piece of cake!

***

First, let’s recap from last time – we signed up, signed in, gasped in horror at our dashboard, and then changed our theme. Right? Right.

So let’s take the bull by the horns and move on to Part Deux – Pages, Posts and Bears –  Oh My!

At the top of this section of buttons is one called Posts. A little farther down is one called Pages. Let me explain the difference.

Posts appear on your blog every time you “post.” Sounds simple doesn’t it? Every time you make a new post, it appears at the top of your blog, and the older posts move down.

Pages on the other hand, are static. A good example of a page is an About Page. Also note that any Page will also be turned into a navigation button on your site. If you click on the name of your site at the top of your page, you’ll notice you already have a Home and an About button. Cool eh?

First, let’s work on updating our About Page.

• Go to your dashboard and click on Pages
• In the drop down menu, it says Pages and Add New. Pages is highlighted, and in the middle pane you can see a page named About. This middle pane lists all the pages you have available.
• Mouseover About, and underneath it Edit | Quick Edit | Trash | View appear. Click Edit.

For those of you who use Word or Works, this should look fairly familiar. It’s a word processing program for blogging. Piece of cake!

• Where it says This is an example of a WordPress page etc, delete all of that by highlighting it with your mouse and hitting the delete button on your keyboard.
• Put on your thinking cap.
• Write.

Don’t know what to say about yourself? No problem. Now that you know how to get to your about page, you can change it any time you want.

If you want your About page to say something more clever as the title than About – go ahead and change that too. Maybe something exotic like About Me. Ooo.

Done with it? Happy? High Fives. Now here’s the important part some people tend to forget. On the right hand panel is a button that says Update and another that says Preview Changes.

Preview Changes lets you umm…preview the changes. =) If you click that button a new window will open that will show you the changes you’ve made. BUT, your page IS NOT UPDATED until you hit the Update button. Sorry, didn’t mean to yell.

• Hit the update button now.
• In the yellow bar at the top it says View page. So, let’s go view the page!

If you’ve changed your page title name, you’ll notice right away that has changed on the button in the front. Neato! What’s that you say? You mis-spelled a word? Right under the About text is a little line that says Edit this entry. Click there, and you’ll be right back into editing your about page. Fix your boo-boo, then click update. Voila.

Let’s say we want to make new pages and new navigation buttons. On your dashboard look under the pages button again. The drop down says Pages and Add New.

• Click on Add New
• Add the title of your page – remember this will also be a navigation button on every page in your site!
• Add your info in the bottom box
• Click Update.
• Give yourself a pat on the back.

Oh, you caught me. Yes, there’s a few more new things with a new page as well.

This looks really darn close to the other Publish box. BUT…there’s a Publish button. Click that and whammo, your page is live.

So what are those Status: Visibility and Publish buttons?

Let me explain –

• Status: Draft Edit – If you don’t click Edit, nothing happens. If you click Edit, you have a choice of Draft or Pending Review. Pending review is used if you have other contributors to your blog. A contributor can use your dashboard and edit posts, but only you, as administrator, can publish them.
• Visibility: Public – Under the Edit button here is Public, Private and Password Protected. If you click nothing, your draft is going public. Private means only YOU can see it, and Password Protected will ask you for a password before you can view it.
• Publish: Immediately – Click nothing and your page is *shouting like Emeril* BAM! Out there. Or you can click on Edit and select a date and time for it to post. This is pretty darn handy if you’ve got a post made up in advance because you’re spending the weekend in Aruba, but don’t want to override the posts in front of yours.

Let’s move on to posts, shall we? C’mon, this is easy! Click Posts on your dashboard.

As you can see, Posts is highlighted. If you look to the middle of your dashboard, you’ll see one titled Hello World! We’re going to update that.

• Mouse over Hello World!, and click Edit, just like we did in Pages.
• Change the title of your blog post
• Put in something fun and fascinating in the box below. Tell about your trip to Italy or your favorite artichoke hearts recipe.
• Click update or preview.
• Click view post in the yellow box that has appeared.
• Stand back and admire your genius. Whoa. You’re good.
• Helpful hint? Look at the Publish box above to see if you want to publish now, wait until later or keep it as a draft. I vote we publish now – just do it!

Want to make another?

• Go back to Posts on your dashboard
• Click Add New.

A fresh blank slate has appeared, waiting for your every syllable. Remember since this is a new post, your choice in the publish box will be preview or publish.

Homework for next time? Get some pictures together that you’d like to use in your posts. We’ll be learning how to put graphics in with your text, and how to use categories and tags!

***

Carrie is a junior faculty member on Romance University. In her spare time she manages a restaurant, designs jewelry and websites, and is writing three manuscripts concurrently. She lives on a farm in Iowa with seven cats, a husband from England and, as was discovered in the mudroom last week, two skunks. You can visit her blog anytime at Smart Ass Romance.

Have you ever wanted a blog of your very own? Join me this week for the first three lessons on setting up your own WordPress.com blog – it’ll be a piece of cake!

***

Greetings! So, you want to start your own blog do you? I don’t blame you – they’re fun, addictive even and let you tell the whole world what you think!

There are a great many vehicles for you to use for your blog, but today we’re going to learn about WordPress – the same blog platform that RU uses! WordPress.com is the free version – not to be confused with WordPress.org which lets you download software and requires a hosting company. Same company, different setups entirely.

Our first lesson will show you how to sign up for WP, name your blog and change its appearance. Ready? Let’s dig in.

• First, let’s go to http://www.wordpress.com
• See the big orange button that says sign up now? Give it a poke.
• Now let’s come up with a username. This needs to be something you’re going to REMEMBER, so think of it carefully.
• Ok, got your name? Add in your password, email. Click the box by legal flotsam. What is legal flotsam? Basically it means that you aren’t misrepresenting yourself (I’m the REAL Nora Roberts!) and that you are responsible for what you’ve posted. If one day you decide to flame every single editor at a big publishing house and they decide to sue you for libel? Yeah, that’s YOUR problem, not theirs. Please remember, anything you post on your blog can and possibly will be read by anyone in the world. Including your ex-husband, your fourth-grade teacher and your mother-in-law.
• Now click the radio button by ‘Give me a blog!”
• Click

If your name was already chosen, the same screen will come back up and make you choose a different username. Sometimes you have to be creative, so think of several great usernames.

• The next screen lets you choose your blog URL. Think carefully about this step. Mine is ccspencer.wordpress.com. My pen name for MG/YA (never hurts to think big!) will be cc spencer, so my blog will highlight my writing and new projects I’ll be working on. You cannot change your URL once you’ve completed this page.
• The next line is the title of the blog. Feel free to change it now, but this step can be changed at a later date.
• Leave English checked, and make sure the privacy box is checked.
• Click

Check your email. Usually it arrives in a few minutes, and then you’ll need to click the link to accept the WordPress agreement.

Ah, there’s mine already.

Another browser window opens that says “Your account is now active.”

Congratulations!

You can now click view your site or log in.

• Go on, view your site, then click the back button and let’s log in.
• Put in your username and password – remember? Sure you do.
• Click the ‘remember me’ box, and then log in.

HOLY MOLY! WHAT’S ALL THAT????

Take a deep breath, and we’ll go through it step by step.

This is called your dashboard. This is the action behind the blog. This is where you’ll spend most of your blogging time, and we’ll get more familiar with it next time.

However, *rubbing hands together in glee* let’s change the appearance first. There are millions of themes out there, and one of them is going to be juuuuuust right for you, Goldilocks!

On the left hand side is a button that says Appearance. Go ahead and click on it, then if ‘Themes’ isn’t already highlighted, click on that as well. The theme that is currently used for your blog is at the top. Mine says Twenty Ten by the WordPress team. Below that is Browse Themes – Random, A-Z, Popular, Recently Added.

There is also a search button, so if you are determined that your blog feature flowers, type in flowers. Truly, I never have much luck with the search feature unless I’m looking for a specific color. I almost always look through Popular or Recently Added.

So, here’s your homework assignment for the week. Go through the themes and pick out one you like. Go ahead, try a few on for size by clicking the Preview button under each theme. Don’t like the preview? Hit the ‘x’ in the corner and you’ll be back at the original screen. When you’ve found one you’re happy with, click the Activate button.

Now, you’ll notice at the top of the screen your new theme name. And in a yellow bar across the top of the page it says, Visit site.

Click it.

*Waiting for the oooh and ahhhhs*

Come back Wednesday for Lesson Two and we’ll learn a bit more about your dashboard and the difference between Posts and Pages.

***

Carrie is a junior faculty member on Romance University. In her spare time she manages a restaurant, designs jewelry and websites, and is writing three manuscripts concurrently. She lives on a farm in Iowa with seven cats, a husband from England and, as was discovered in the mudroom last week, two skunks. You can visit her blog anytime at Smart Ass Romance.

Good morning and welcome to Crafting Your Career.   Our guest today is CJ Lyons.  I first became aware of CJ through RWA’s Kiss of Death chapter.  I would see her name when she answered medical related questions that were posted by other members.  I saw her name a lot!  And it wasn’t necessarily for the medical questions.  CJ had such a presence that when her first book came out, I bought it.  How could I not? I’d never met her and yet, I felt like I knew her.  Talk about marketing!   

With that said, CJ is here to teach us how to build a brand.  Take it away, CJ.

A brand is a subliminal promise to your readers–that any book written under this author’s name will promise this type of emotional experience.

The first step to finding your brand is to examine what you’ve already written.  Ask yourself why these stories grabbed you?  Why you wanted to write them in the first place, what you were trying to say with them.

For example, even though I love to cross genres from women’s fiction to suspense to thrillers to romance, every book I write has a theme central to my life: they’re all about making a difference, trying to change the world.

For me, once I realized this fact, the tagline came easily: No One is Immune to Danger

Note that this is an emotional concept, not a promise of specifics.  I did this on purpose because I knew up front that I didn’t want to get locked into writing only medical thrillers.  But it works with medical thrillers, woman’s fiction, romantic suspense, mainstream thrillers, etc.  And it reminds the reader that I’m a physician–which is part of my platform or unique selling proposition.

If this all seems very confusing to you, there’s a book I found very helpful called Primal Branding.  Instead of talking marketing mumbo-jumbo it discusses brands as ways to tell stories, so it was very intuitive.

Also, be sure to talk to your editor and agent or your critique partners.  Who do they see as your target audience?  What label will be on your books?  Where will they be shelved in the bookstores?  What do they see you writing and selling successfully in the future?

All these questions will tell you how people who know your work see your brand, even if they don’t use those words–but they might, just ask them!

What you want to know is: what primal emotion does your writing trigger in your audience?  Laughter? Fear? Romance?

From there, you’ll know the central theme of your work—the goal is to inspire that same feeling on a subliminal level with your branding.

A brand is more than a central theme, more than a tag line, it also includes visual images that evoke the same emotion. 

When you design your site/blog use the images and colors and words that apply to your brand.   For instance, part of my brand image is that I’m a doctor, so I use medical imagery.  I also use the color red a lot–again, creating an emotional response. 

One thing that I wanted on my site was to evoke a response that it was fresh, dynamic, and different than other suspense writers’ sites.  Subconsciously this tells a casual viewer that here is a writer who’s different than others, willing to take chances, and whose books are also fresh and different. 

I checked out as many websites as I could.  Many I fell in love with–but they didn’t fit my brand and the emotional response I was aiming for.

So instead of a dark background (which 99.9% of mystery, thriller, and suspense writers have) I went with a light background.  I tried to make the site have a lot of movement, a feeling of high-energy—just like my books.  You can see the results at http://www.cjlyons.net

Other things to decide as you build your brand:

–to blog or not?

–contests? 

–appearances?

–articles?

Base your decisions on your brand as well as where your strengths lie. 

As a doctor, teaching is a natural part of my life, and teachers are noted for making a difference, so volunteering to teach workshops, give keynotes, etc, was an easy fit for my brand.  I’ve also included a lot of articles on my website—free, my way to give back to my readers and writing friends.

If this didn’t come naturally to me and fit my brand, I might have passed on some of these opportunities and spent my time and energy doing something else–like maybe blogging (which doesn’t come easy to me so I focus on guest blogging which is more like teaching).

Also, when choosing promotional items, make sure they fit your brand or reflect it by creating a similar emotional response. 

Even your cover art should reflect your brand.  Although this can be difficult since most authors don’t have a lot of input into their cover.

I was lucky–the covers Berkley did for LIFELINES,  WARNING SIGNS , and URGENT CARE reflect my brand perfectly.  They use real-life photos with hand-picked models–not stock art. They’re crisp and fresh and energetic.  Perfect for my marketing platform of “real-life doctor writes stories as real as it gets.”

I decided that any marketing I did would use these fantastic covers as much as possible.

So my business cards–have my cover art.  My bookmarks (I like them to sign if someone doesn’t want to buy a book and to give out at conferences) have the cover art and review quotes.  The covers are on every page of the website.  And the one promo item I paid for, to use for contests, charity auctions, and other give-aways, was a t-shirt featuring the cover art. 

These all fit my brand and create an impression.

I did not buy: pens, bath salts, magnets, stress balls, etc, etc, etc.  Why?  Other than pens they don’t reflect the brand (well, maybe the stress balls could <g>) and for about the same price I could get the t-shirts.  Again, you need to decide what fits your brand, not just buy something because it’s cute, cheap or some other author has one….

Instead of focusing on what everyone else is doing, keep your own brand–that subliminal, emotional statement that you want to make through your writing–firmly in mind.

Once you find your brand and start to use it, it’s amazing what will fall into place!

So, let’s have some fun.  Tell me a little about your books (not just one book—a brand should encompass your writing career) and what you want to accomplish with them.  What primal emotion are you aiming for?

I’ll try to look into my crystal ball and see if we can brainstorm some potential branding ideas for you!

One lucky commenter will receive a copy of both of my current releases: LIFELINES and WARNING SIGNS. 

Hopefully you all will be on the lookout for my next book, URGENT CARE, when it comes out October 27^th.  It’s a dark, edgy, fast-paced thriller where no one is immune to danger, so it fits my brand perfectly!!!

Thanks for reading!

Thank you, CJ!  To our readers, let’s take CJ up on her offer and ask her some branding questions.  We’d love to hear from you.

About CJ:

As a pediatric ER doctor, CJ Lyons has lived the life she writes about.  In addition to being an award-winning medical suspense author, CJ is a nationally known presenter and keynote speaker. 

Her first novel, LIFELINES (Berkley, March 2008), received praise as a “breathtakingly fast-paced medical thriller” from Publishers Weekly, was reviewed favorably by the Baltimore Sun and Newsday, named a Top Pick by Romantic Times Book Review Magazine, and became a National Bestseller.  Her second novel, WARNING SIGNS, was released January, 2009 and the third, URGENT CARE, was due out October, 2009. To learn more about CJ and her work, go to www.cjlyons.net

Happy 15th Anniversary Red Sage!

Visionaries. Risk-takers. Just plain wild.

These are some of the words reviewers have used to describe Red Sage authors, the Secrets anthologies, and the Red Sage Presents line of e-books. Featuring best-selling authors such as Angela Knight, MaryJanice Davidson, Emma Holly, Larissa Ione, Cynthia Eden, and many more, Red Sage books have earned a place on many readers’ “keeper” shelves.

This month, Red Sage celebrates its 15th anniversary with a month-long sale and celebration. 

15 Years.

15 E-Books.

$1.50 Each. 

From June 1-10, these great stories will be on sale for $1.50 each: “The Hot-Blooded Husband” by Alice Gaines, “The Bride Unmasked” by Harriet Jones, “Payback” by Rose Middleton, “Kitsune’ by Lila Dubois, and “Sex and the Single Pearl” by Mia Varano. 

From June 11-20, you can get a real bang for your buck-fifty with these e-books: “Megan’s Choice” interactive e-book by Ellie Marvel, “The Doctor Next Door” by Catherine Berlin, “High Voltage” by Calista Fox, “Fire Angel” by B.J. McCall, and “Addiction” by Lynne Logan. 

From June 21-30, we wrap up the $1.50 Anniversary Sale on a high note with: “Forbidden Fruit” by Anne Rainey, “Quinn’s Curse” by Natasha Moore, “Fires Within” by Roxana Blaze, “Nameless Surrender” by Kristin Daniels, “Compromised” by Nathalie Gray. 

We’ll also be running a special “Kidnap This Logo” blog game with special prizes through the month of June. Check out the Red Sage Revealed blog for game rules. Visit the Red Sage website, www.eRedSage.com, and Red Sage Revealed (http://redsagerevealed.blogspot.com) throughout the month of June for the sale, special surprises, and maybe even a giveaway or two!

Red Sage. Read Dangerously!