What should be in your digital toolkit for the business of being an author? Google Suite for your email. Do you wonder why your emails don’t get a reply? It may be they were never delivered. If your account is with AOL, Hotmail, or Yahoo, there is a strong likelihood if you send someone you don’t already have a connection with they will never receive it. And while it is neat to have an email address tied to your website domain, if your webhosting company is one of the bigger ones, it’s likely they also host spammers and scammers which means your address may be blacklisted without you knowing it. In this era when email security is the order of the day, the account of your recipient may filter your email straight to the spam folder. Even with a free Gmail account there is a good chance it won’t be delivered. For professional and business email, I recommend the Google Suite which is $5/month. WordPress for your website and blog. I strongly recommend WordPress.org because it is open source code, can be installed easily with one click on most webhosting platforms, and works best for blogging if you want your work to get found. It is not to be confused with WordPress.com, a site that gives you free webhosting, but you’re renting and don’t own your real estate on the internet and they can place their ads on your site. WordPress is used by professional website designers for its versatility…
There was no warning for the average writer when their WordPress Twitter widgets went silent on June 11th, 2013. Suddenly, all their posts and retweets disappeared from their website. Their engagement went haywire as tweets no longer seamlessly streamed into sidebars, and footers, and landing pages. The developers knew what was coming – Twitter was updating their API (Application Programming Interface) from v1 to v1.1…. [Read More]
Filed Under: Facebook, plugins, Twitter, widgets, WordPress
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Facebook is a social media tool that many authors find helpful for connecting with their readers. Having a strategy and an understanding of how Facebook can work for an author is important to seeing any return on your investment of time. Who should use Facebook? You need to consider using Facebook if your target audience uses Facebook. There are 1.11 billion users of Facebook, so… [Read More]
Ithaca, New York is more than just “Gorges.” Luminosity recently released a study deeming Ithaca the smartest city in America based on cognitive training exercises. A thriving, progressive college town, Ithaca is certainly a center for learning and growth. But what else makes it such a hotspot for brain power? Ithaca boasts a community of writers, readers, and researchers; one that makes our small city… [Read More]
Kindness becomes weakness as boys become men in a place where violence is the solution to every problem. In Shawn Goodman’s new novel, 15-year-old James finds himself in an upstate detention center after his brother recruited him into drug trafficking. It’s a coming of age story set in a second chances plot. More Fight Club than Catcher in the Rye, Kindness for Weakness captures the… [Read More]
Jacqueline Livingston lived as an artist and died on the summer solstice, June 21, 2013, at home in Ithaca, NY, where she lived with her husband of 30 years, Leo Brissette. Born in August 1943, Jacqueline Louise Barrrett, grew up in Chandler, Arizona, where her father worked on the Air Force base as chief of the Fire Dept. He died when she was 12 years… [Read More]