Smorgasbord Blog Magazine – Weekly Round Up – 16th -22nd August – Getting Reviews, Music, Food, Health, Books, and Humour

Welcome to the round up of posts on Smorgasbord that you might have missed this week.

I hope all is well with you, I am sure that many of you in the UK and Ireland have been experiencing the benefits of Storm Ellen who seems like a very bad tempered individual. The wind has dropped marginally compared to the last four days and one benefit of our unpredictable weather for the last three weeks is that I have not had to water the pots once..

There are worst things however than too much water and I hope that the current California bush fires are soon brought under control. It is devastating the area and over 770,000 acres have already been destroyed. With everything else happening on top of Covid 19, it is another blow to the health and safety of millions.

Book reviews and other marketing observations.

I continue to make some tweaks to both the main Cafe and Bookstore and the new Children’s Cafe and one of the prime objectives is to increase reviews for the books on the shelves.

I spend a lot of hours a week checking the main sites of Amazon US and UK and Goodreads to find recent reviews for books.. and this usually includes a visit to the author’s Twitter account to check if they have shared news of a new review. I have a few observations to share with you.

I will start with Twitter

A great many authors who are on Twitter are not taking advantage of their Pinned Tweet to promote their books along with an Amazon link to buy them. The pinned tweet allows you to expand your profile and market either your books or blog, and it offers anyone visiting your Twitter account to check you out, something to retweet.

For example, if you have just 10 visitors to your account per day and they have an average of 10,000 followers, your book or books when retweeted is reaching 100,000 people. Of course not everyone of those 100,000 is going to pay attention to the tweet but 100 might and be interested enough to follow you and to head over to Amazon to check your books out.

Also is someone shares your pinned tweet it is a good idea to reciprocate, and usually they are good people to follow.

Amazon Author Pages

Amazon will create an author account on alternate country sites but they don’t fill in all the details. New authors particularly need to make sure they are adding their bios and photos to the account. Also new books need to be captured and added to the author pages as that is not always automatic either.

Goodreads

Although owned by Amazon, Goodreads does offer a place where all your reviews globally can be added by readers irrespective of how they came by the book… bought, a gift, borrowed from a library. I notice that a number of author’s have their books listed but do not have an author page, or do not have all their books listed.

Writing reviews

One of the very interesting observations is that those who review other people’s books receive more reviews themselves. One of the reasons for that is the writing community we belong to across blogging and social media. It is not just tit for tat reviewing, but an appreciation that an author takes the time to support and promote other authors within the community and encourages people to explore their own books and reviews. A review is also an opportunity to showcase your writing skills, even if it is short and to the point.

In the new series for the Children’s Cafe that you will find below, I am asking you to send me the link for any children’s book you have reviewed on your blog or posted to Amazon or Goodreads.. I will promote both the author of the book and also you in the post. I hope this will encourage more reviews for these books that are so important in igniting the imagination of children.

Using a blog to share excerpts from past books.

Whilst there are some restrictions on sharing all of a book, there is no issue usually with sharing a decent size excerpt of books on your blog with one of the top reviews. This is particularly relevant for older books and the first books in a series. Not only does it give a reader an opportunity to see you in action but promotes the later books in the series too.

Even though I serialise all my older books I still find that readers buy the books if they don’t want to wait 16 weeks or so to read it all, and they also very kindly review on Goodreads which is not dependent on the book being bought.

It is important to share on your social media of course so that people can head over to read it.

Responding to comments.

I know I am banging that drum again, but there are some very good reasons why interacting with someone who has taken the time and trouble to comment on a book promotion does result in sales and in reviews.

1. People buy people first…if they have made a connection with you they are more likely to head over to look at your other books.
2. It has an accumulative effect and over a number of promotions I see the level of comments increasing. This does not just apply to the single author promotions but to the multiple author updates or special features. And it does help the other authors in the promotion when it is shared as it reaches a much wider audience.

I have created a Pdf of my Book Marketing series which covers all of the above and also a step by step guide to setting up your blog to make it easier for readers to buy your books and review them.. just email me on sally.cronin@moyhill.com if you would like a copy.

Back to the week in hand.…Here are some posts from the contributors to the blog that you I can recommend you reading.

D.G Kaye shares the life, love and work of Mexican artist Frido Kahlo who was born before her time. A tumultuous life and marriage and an extraordinary talent..Love and Life of Mexican Artist Frido Kahlo

Carol Taylor looks at food labelling and also contaminants that have resulted in mass recalls in recent months. Food Labelling and Contaminants by Carol Taylor

Now time for posts on Smorgasbord this week.

William Price King – Josh Groban Part Five

A – Z of Food ‘P’ for Pancakes, Paella, Pomelo, Pate, Pease Pudding and A Poke Bowl.

Chapter Three – My First Read Friend

The Colour of Life – The Rosary 1955 by Geoff Cronin

August 1985 100 degrees, Key Lime Pie and Adverts

Herbal Medicine – Horse Chestnut (Aesculus) -Circulatory System

#Western #Romance – Silverhills by Sandra Cox

#1920s #Familysaga – Telling Sonny by Elizabeth Gauffreau

Smorgasbord Posts from My Archives – Book Reviews – #FamilySaga Claire Fullerton, #Fantasy Teagan Riordain Geneviene.

Colleen Chesebro’s Weekly Tanka Challenge #Photoprompt– #HaikuSequence – Tracks

An opportunity to showcase Children’s book reviews that you have written for other authors

New Author on the Shelves -Age Group 8-10 – Saving Hascal’s Horrors by Laura Smith –

#Reviews -#Bears #Poetry Frank Prem, #Dogs #South Africa Patricia Furstenberg

#Epicfantasy HMS Lanternfish (The Lanternfish Series Book 2) by C.S. Boyack

#Westernhorror – Guns of Perdition – The Armageddon Showdown Book 1 by Jessica Bakkers

#Paranormal Roberta Eaton Cheadle, #Thriller Suzanne Burke, #Contemporary #Southern Claire Fullerton

#Fantasy #Thriller C.S. Boyack, #1920s Teagan Ríordáin Geneviene, #Dystopian Teri Polen

#Humour Mae Clair, #Adventure Audrey Driscoll, #Historical Apple Gidley

My Favourite Cookbooks by Darlene Foster

Twelve Questions #Blogshare by D.G. Kaye

-Stream of Consciousness Saturday #SOCS – John W. Howell

Come Join Us at the All-New Rave Reviews Book Club—#RRBC Best Book Club on the Planet by Bette A. Stevens

Meet Margie and Tony by Pete Springer

Smorgasbord Laughter Lines –August 18th 2020 – Hosts Debby Gies and Sally Cronin If it seems to good to be true and last wish

August 20th 2020 – Archive Special – Hosts Debby Gies and Sally Cronin – An Old Rancher’s Advice and Wayward Parrots

Host Sally Cronin – Funeral wishes, 2 second dogs and Benny’s dilemma

Thank you very much for dropping in today and also for the great support you give. I hope you will join me again next week.. thanks Sally.