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Wednesday, August 29, 2018

The Social Media Circus ~ by Joanne Jaytanie #RB4U


Are you one of those people on the pulse of the newest social media site? It seems like every day there is something new coming out. I must admit, I’ve signed up on sites such as MeWe and Alignable, only because I get emails from friends asking me to join. I’ve looked at the sites – but I’ll most likely never use them. Especially if they want me to pay for connections. 


And let’s not forget, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Quora, Snapchat, LinkedIn – just to name a few. My gosh, the list goes on and on. WhatsApp – what’s that? Google+- it’s still hanging on? Reddit – I have no idea. You could spend your entire day and night wading through the bottomless depths of the monstrosity known as social media.  

What should you do? Ignore it all and hope it will all go away? Become an expert on every media app? Not me. I consider myself techie-less. I’ve come a long way from not knowing how to turn on a computer, but I’ll never be a social media expert. 

Even so, I’m an author and the computer is my workplace. I’ve found my best strategy is to work with a core of social media apps. Meaning I limit myself to a few choices and try to get a handle on just those apps. Some I enjoy spending time on. Others I get on, get what I need done, and get off. Of course, there’s a downside to spending time on the apps I enjoy – I tend to spend too much time. Every bright shiny picture pulls me in. Every new recipe, how-to, repurposing, new releases—call my name. Have you guessed which app – Pinterest! It can suck you in for hours. But it can be a great place to make new followers and sales.


Did you know that over half of the millennial generation use Pinterest at least once a month. Over 90% of Pinners use Pinterest to plan their purchases – large and small. 

I set up a new board for each book. I’ve even used my boards as storyboards for my WIP. There’s a lot going on in Pinterest. 

And, because over 80% of the users are on a mobile device, there are certain ways to layout your ads, so that you get more views. I’ve started testing a few and find I do get more interaction.






Pinterest is also a great place to do research. 

If you haven’t used Pinterest yet, you might want to give it a try. 



Until next month...

Joanne







Tuesday, August 28, 2018

A Season of Change with Trevann Rogers #Romance #Books #Seasons #RB4U @TrevannRogers

To some people, Fall is a season of endings: the end of the freedom of summer, the hibernation or death of plants and animals. I don’t experience it that way. I blame my perspective on the ritual of school. Kindergarten. Elementary school. Middle and High school. September was time for starting over with new journeys, new goals. Consequently. Each September I plan anew. Its time to organize my home and my work, as well as formulate goals for my writing, my finances and my health.

I love the starting over that September brings! Organizing is kind of my thing. I’ve read dozens and dozens of books on the subject. From the SideTracked Sisters to Flylady, to the Happiness Files, I’ve tried them all. For your benefit, I’ve culled all of the best advice down to five key rules of thumb. If, like me, this is your time to get your best organized self in gear, these will get you started on the right track.

   Store stuff where you use it. For the longest time, I would keep unopened mail and bills in my office. When I was ready to go through them, I’d bring them to the dining room table and pay bills, go through correspondence , etc. When finished, the plan was always to put everything back in my office. Sometimes I would. Mostly it all stayed in a disheveled pile on the table. Then I discovered this eye opening bit of advice, and put a stand-alone storage organizer in the dining room, the kind with pockets to hold bills, junk mail, letters, a calendar and the checkbook. Voila! No more mess on the dining room table, because I created a system to store my mail and bills where I use them.

   A place for everything, and everything in its place. This was my moms mantra. It makes sense, of course, and is an organizing truth. But to really work it, it must be taken a step further: When that designated place has no more room, neither do you. For example, one entire wall in my media room is lined with storage for cds. Another wall holds DVDs. My DVD wall is full, and there is no other space designated. If I buy a new DVD, I can only make room by giving one away. Sounds harsh, I know. But the alternative is an unending accumulation.

   Use secure cloud storage. I was late to the party on this one, but learn from my stubbornness. I wasted time, energy and other resources with thumb drives and cutting and pasting. It is well worth investing in additional cloud storage and apps that synchronize your data across your devices.

    Schedule your week. And stick to it. I fought against this organizing tool for a long time. I couldn’t see how you could live a spontaneous and creative life while planning every minute. I cannot imagine grocery shopping EVERY Thursday, oatmeal EVERY Monday, or not being able to go to a movie on Wednesday because it’s laundry day.   Unfortunately, I found that without some level of planning my week gets away from me. A compromise that works for me is sitting down on Saturday or Sunday with my calendar and to do list and plan my week, determining the best day/ time to accomplish what’s needed. Every week and every day looks different, but important things get done.

And finally—
   How you start the day is how it will end. Every time. If I take an hour to drink my coffee watching the birds, I’m guaranteed to have a low energy, minimal accomplishment sort of day.  Not that there’s anything wrong with days like this. Just yesterday my partner and I woke up late, had a very leisurely breakfast, and wound up with a tea drinking, nap taking, tv binging day. We did nothing productive and it was glorious. But if the goal was to complete a project or write a few thousand words we began the day very badly. We would have been more successful had we’d gotten up and quickly started working.


Naturally, these strategies are likely not the only ones you’ll need. Life is more complicated than that. But give them a try— They will help you ensure a good start to a Fall renewal.



Sex. Rebellion. Rock and roll.
Living After Midnight, Book 1

Sex. Rebellion. Rock and Roll.

An incubus and two toddlers walk into a bar…wait. That's no joke. That's Cheyenne's life, and you weren't supposed to see them.

Cheyenne, a half-human incubus, is good at keeping secrets. He keeps his music career hidden from his tyrannical father. He keeps his true nature as an incubus secret from the humans whose lust sustains him. And he keeps his children unknown to the incubi, especially the royal family—his family.

As Cheyenne's musical career takes off, his carefully constructed life begins to unravel, exacerbated by an ex-lover who can't let go, a crotchety barkeeper with a dirty mind and a pure heart, a drag queen who moonlights as a nanny, and Alexander—who's not sure if he's falling for the incubus or the rocker.

His so-called friends and family conspire to make Cheyenne choose between his children and his career, but he isn’t playing that game. He doesn't buy into the “your kids could save the race" madness. He only has to keep them safe. Besides he's got bigger plans—he's going to be a rockstar.

Warning: Contains hot were-tiger sex, a Thanksgiving celebration that makes the Inquisition look like a tea party, and an incubus who’ll rock your world.

Copyright ©2015 First Edition Trevann Rogers
Second Edition Copyright © 2017 Trevann Rogers

 

Excerpt

~~~~
The blue-gray glow of the synthesizer’s lights increased with the music’s crescendo and tugged him to the edge of his seat. The beginning of a show was one of his favorite parts. He was also partial to the middle and the end.

But Alexander didn’t applaud and stomp and scream in anticipation like the rest of the crowd. He was grateful to be able to keep his composure, but the truth was, it was all he could do to remember to breathe.

With a burst of light and a thunderous chord, Cheyenne appeared at center stage, arms out from his sides. An ethereal white light illuminated him. A rock and roll messiah.

To purchase:

Trevann’s Bio

Trevann Rogers writes urban fantasy and LGBT paranormal romances. Her books include HOUSE OF THE RISING SON and its prequel novella, AFTER MIDNIGHT. Trevann's stories incorporate an unquenchable addiction to music and her love for vampires, Weres, incubi and rock stars. Like these elusive creatures, Trevann learned long ago that sometimes being yourself means Living After Midnight.

You can find Trevann online at:
Twitter: @TrevannRogers


Author links



Monday, August 27, 2018

Using American Idol to Help with Writing By Janice Seagraves

I've been working on a series of videos that will help the new and experienced writers, and I thought it might be a good idea to share it here with you.


Using American Idol to Help with Writing
By Janice Seagraves

I’ve been watching American Idol, and aside from the various antics from the cast and contestants, it’s been interesting.

In the Los Vegas round of critiques, I noticed that the judges’ use sentences to describe the singer's performances such as: engaging the audience, feeling the emotion of the song, and getting chills.
I thought about writing as I watched the show and how singers practice their craft by taking lessons and practicing, and writers take workshops/classes and write and read a great deal in order to hone their craft.

Make no mistake; writing is a craft just like singing is.

With both you have to practice, practice, practice. And practice some more.

As writers, we want the same things: to engage our readers or hook them, we want them to feel the emotion of what our characters go through in the story line, and we’d love our readers to get chills as they read our books.

With singing, the vocalist looks out into the audience, making eye contact to engage the audience. While writing, we can’t see our readers, but authors try to engage our readers by writing an exciting beginning to our stories that’ll hook our reader.

For a performer to show emotions while they sing, they need to feel the emotion of the song by allowing the emotion to show on their faces. In other words, if the song is sad, the singer will feel sad and show that emotion. If it’s happy, then they’ll smile. While writers, show the emotion of their characters by a written description of the feelings. In other words, showing and not telling.

As for the chills, performers and authors both hope for the maximum delivery of their talent and skills, in hopes that their audience can appreciate it and receive the desire effect.
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Saturday, August 25, 2018

Today on #RB4U: Job Interviews are Changing with Linda O'Connor #Medical #Sports #Romance @LindaOconnor98

Job Interviews are Changing

Have you ever walked out of an interview wishing you could go back and do it over?
Well, maybe you shouldn’t beat yourself up – there are probably more factors than you think influencing the hiring process, and there’s growing evidence questioning the usefulness of the traditional interview process. Professor Jason Dana of the Yale School of Management has done some fascinating research. I caught the podcast of his interview (Ha!) on CBC radio Spark with Nora Young. Prof Dana pointed out that the common “tell me about yourself” open-ended type questions might not be the best predictors for job success. It’s often used, but an interviewer has to be somewhat arrogant to believe that they can accurately assess someone based on their first fleeting impression. If the purpose of an interview is to determine if a candidate will be the best “fit” for a company, then there has to be well-defined parameters for what that entails. Having some standardization in the interview process is an improvement, but even more useful is asking the candidate to perform a task that is typically part of the job. Assessing skills or having the person work briefly in the job setting, rather than trying to assess personality traits after a short first impression, gives a more accurate measure of the candidate’s ability. Whatever the process, if you’re heading to an interview or an audition, smile, make eye contact, be enthusiastic and confident, and keep in mind that interviews can be just as challenging for the interviewer!

In Beyond the Face-Off, Kelly Danali sails through auditions and doesn’t have any trouble being in the limelight. For Jake Ross, though, it’s a different story…

Beyond the Face-Off by Linda O’Connor
Kelly Danali has a big personality. She runs a pharmacy by day and lights up the local theatre scene by night. There’s nothing she craves more than a spot in the limelight. Jake Ross is a homegrown hockey star. He’s been traded back to the Clarington Quakes and spends most of his time avoiding the press and hockey-crazed fans.

Kelly wants to curb an alarming trend of drug abuse in local teens, and Jake, with his athleticism and sex appeal, would be the perfect spokesperson. Except there’s one problem – there’s nothing Jake craves more than privacy and solitude.

Jake finds Kelly irresistible and skates around the possibility of falling in love, but is she more attracted to hockey, fame, or him?
There’s more to love…Beyond the Face-Off.

Beyond the Face-Off is only 99cents. Buy it here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07G6XMD6B

Award-winning author Linda O’Connor started writing romantic comedies when she needed a creative outlet other than subtly rearranging the displays at a local home décor store. Her books have enjoyed bestseller status. When not writing, she’s a physician at an Urgent Care Clinic. She shares her medical knowledge in fast-paced, well-written, sexy romances – with an unexpected twist. Her favourite prescription to write? Laugh every day. Love every minute.

Linda loves to connect with readers ~
Blog:   https://lindaoconnorauthor.wordpress.com/
Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/LindaOConnorAuthor
Twitter:  https://twitter.com/LindaOConnor98





Beyond the Face-Off by Linda O’Connor
Medical hockey romantic comedy

Blurb:
Kelly Danali has a big personality. She runs a pharmacy by day and lights up the local theatre scene by night. There’s nothing she craves more than a spot in the limelight. Jake Ross is a homegrown hockey star. He’s been traded back to the Clarington Quakes and spends most of his time avoiding the press and hockey-crazed fans.

Kelly wants to curb an alarming trend of drug abuse in local teens, and Jake, with his athleticism and sex appeal, would be the perfect spokesperson. Except there’s one problem – there’s nothing Jake craves more than privacy and solitude.

Jake finds Kelly irresistible and skates around the possibility of falling in love, but is she more attracted to hockey, fame, or him?
There’s more to love…Beyond the Face-Off.


Video book trailer:   https://youtu.be/ax2sO3_kvdE
Video embed link:
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ax2sO3_kvdE" frameborder="0" allow="autoplay; encrypted-media" allowfullscreen></iframe>
 
Author Bio:
Award-winning author Linda O’Connor started writing romantic comedies when she needed a creative outlet other than subtly rearranging the displays at a local home décor store. Her books have enjoyed bestseller status. When not writing, she’s a physician at an Urgent Care Clinic. She shares her medical knowledge in fast-paced, well-written, sexy romances – with an unexpected twist. Her favourite prescription to write? Laugh every day. Love every minute.

Blog:   https://lindaoconnorauthor.wordpress.com/
Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/LindaOConnorAuthor
Twitter:  https://twitter.com/LindaOConnor98
Newsletter Sign up : http://www.lindaoconnor.net/contact/


Friday, August 24, 2018

Everything You Wanted To Know about Peaches But Were Afraid to Ask National Peach Pie Day




You didn’t know the peach had a history, did you? Because today August 24, is National Peach Pie Day (and who doesn’t love peach pie?), I thought I’d find out all I could about the summertime favorite, the peach. Here’s what Wikipedia says:

The peach (Prunus persica) is a deciduous tree native to the region of Northwest China between the Tarim Basin and the north slopes of the Kunlun Shan mountains, where it was first domesticated and cultivated. It bears an edible juicy fruit called a peach or a nectarine. The People’s Republic of China is the world’s largest producer of peaches. (I sure didn’t know the peach originated in China, and I thought the largest peach producer was the state of Georgia).
Peach and nectarines are the same species, even though they are regarded commercially as different fruits. In contrast to peaches, whose fruits present the characteristic fuzz on the skin, nectarines are characterized by the absence of fruit-skin trichomes (fuzz-less fruit); genetic studies suggest nectarines are produced due to a recessive allele, whereas peaches are produced from a dominant allele for fuzzy skin. Source: Wikipedia.
The peach was brought to India and Western Asia in ancient times. Peach cultivation also went from China, through Persia, and reached Greece by 300 BC. Alexander the Great introduced the fruit into Europe after he conquered the Persians. Peaches were well known to the Romans in first century AD, and were cultivated widely in Emilia-Romagna. Peach trees are portrayed in the wall paintings of the towns destroyed by the Vesuvius eruption of 79 AD, while the oldest known artistic representations of the fruit are in the two fragments of wall paintings, dated back to the 1st century AD, in Herculaneum, now preserved in the National Archaeological Museum in Naples. Source: Wikipedia
Spanish explorers in the 16th century brought the peach to the Americas, and the fruit eventually made it to England and France in the 17th century, where it was a prized and expensive treat. During Queen Victoria’s reign, peaches were served in fancy cotton napkins at the end of meals.
Spanish settlers brought peaches to Florida, where the Cherokee and Iroquois learned to grow them. Cherokee and Iroquois traders sold peach seeds farther west, and peach seeds crossed the North American continent to meet up with peach trees planted by Spanish settlers in Arizona and California.
The horticulturist George Minifie supposedly brought the first peaches from England to its North American colonies in the early 17th century, planting them at his Estate of Buckland in Virginia. Although Thomas Jefferson had peach trees at Monticello, United States farmers did not begin commercial production until the 19th century in Maryland, Delaware, Georgia and finally Virginia.

·        The state of Georgia has been known as the center of peach growers.
·        Georgia is known as the “Peach State”.
·        Peach harvest occurs between June and August.
·        Harvest from each peach tree lasts about one week.
·        There are two main varieties of peaches: Clingstone and Freestone.
·        A medium peach weighs 2.6 oz.
·        A medium peach typically contains 30 calories, 7 g of carbohydrate, 1 g of protein, 140 mg of potassium, and 8% of the daily value for vitamin C.

There you have it. If your mouth is watering as you consider eating a sweet, juicy peach, here’s an easy peach recipe I love to make. I don’t make pies because I’m a lousy baker, and pies are above my skill set. However, this recipe is so easy, even I don’t mess it up.

Peach Crostata
Preheat oven to 425F. In a large bowl, toss 1 pound peaches, peeled and thinly sliced, with 3 Tbsp. brown sugar, 1 Tbsp. cornstarch, 1/8 tsp. ground ginger, and a pinch of salt. Unroll 1 refrigerated ready-to-use piecrust (for 9-in. pie) on cookie sheet. Arrange peach mixture on crust, leaving 2-in. border; fold border over filling. Bake 25-30 minutes or until crust is golden. Serves 4. Enjoy!


Read a delicious romance while biting into a juicy peach. How about a luscious sensual story set in sunny Italy?

Sensual. Sumptuous. Sizzling.



Love under an Italian sky.

A San Francisco sous chef discovers she might have bitten off more than she can chew when a scrumptious Italian man stirs up a recipe for romance on the delicious Isle of Capri.

Sous chef Cat Connors has spent a lifetime feeling like a stale cracker on a plate of fancy hors d'oeuvres among her stepfamily. But when she travels from San Francisco to the sunny Isle of Capri, she’s determined to finally shed her dowdy image and spice up her life. She has big plans for her future as a chef. Those plans don’t include a yummy Italian with a mouth-watering body and a smile that melts her insides like gelato under the hot Capri sun.

When Alex Viteli retreats to his villa on Capri to escape the notoriety and legal troubles brought on by his family, the last thing he needs is a beautiful, tempting dish of a woman. Alex may be the scion of a wealthy Italian family, but that won’t matter if he can’t cook up a scheme to clear his father’s name and keep himself out of prison.

Though they fit together like strawberries and chocolate, Cat and Alex may not have time for more than a quick bite of romance. Cat’s future is in San Francisco. Alex can’t leave Italy. But the sultry Capri nights might tempt them both to savor just one more sweet taste of love.

Includes bonus recipe

2016 Finalist Maple Leaf Awards, best novella, best hero, best heroine


 Check out my website for information on more delicious books. 

www.caramarsi.com









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