4 More Blogging Awards, A Total of 27 Blogs to Visit, An Awesome Video I Found + Tips On How To Accept An Award

Discovering new and interesting blogs is what giving and receiving blogging awards is all about. Todays post reveals 4 more awards that I have received, a total of 26 links to blogs you may want to visit, and a video that is awesome!

If anyone is counting (and I am!), these are my fourth, fifth, and sixth and seventh awards! I am the proud recipient of the WordPress Family Award, the Super Sweet Blogging Award, and the Best Moment Award. I have combined them all into one post, for simplicity’s sake. If you want to check out some new blogs, take a look at the blogs that I have nominated as well as the blogs of the people who have nominated me.

Read the whole post, too, so you can learn a few more things about me…if you want! I already told you a few things when I received The Liebster Award, The Very Inspiring Blogger Award, and The Shine On Award, but in case you missed those posts, you can read them now!

The awards I have been nominated for are The WordPress Family Award, The Super Sweet Blogging Award, The Best Moment Award, and The Unique Leaves Award. I am accepting these awards simultaneously in today’s post.

The WordPress Family Award

I have to thank Barb at My Un-Puzzled Heart (Barb’s blog is no longer active) for this award and The Unique Leaves Award. This award recognizes me as part of the WordPress family! I am touched by the outpouring of awards I have been getting lately, and think that it’s a great gesture when people share these. Unlike some people who think that they are “above” accepting such an award, I am honoured that others have included me in their participation.

wordpressfamilyaward

There doesn’t seem to be any rules for this award, either, except to nominate ten people who have WordPress blogs and notify them of their nomination, so here is my list of ten bloggers on WordPress who will hopefully accept their award as graciously as I have accepted mine. Read More

Author Christine Cowley Shares Information via A Guest Post and a Video

This post is a combination of a

  1. unique guest post by author, writing coach, and micro-publisher Christine Cowley,
  2. an awesome video about “Simone’s Story”, which demonstrates the importance of writing and creating a memoir for others to have, learn from and enjoy, and
  3. a video of a Google Hangout of the two of us talking about the “makings” of “Simone’s Story”. Read More

How to Use “Click-to-Tweet” Links In Your Blog Posts

pic that says "Tweet this"

Using Click-to-Tweet links in your blog posts will help get your posts shared more often.

Every blogger wants more traffic to his or her blog, and using Tweetables is one way to get it.

There are several ways for inserting Click-to-Tweet links into your blog posts. Some are free, and some cost a small bit of money.

This post will cover these various methods.

If you have a self-hosted blog, you have more options for doing this (including plugins).

If you are a newbie blogger and are blogging for free on a platform such as Blogger or WordPress.com, then your options are limited. But there is still a way for you to insert Click-to-Tweet links into your posts!

All you have to do is execute these 10  easy-to-follow steps in the order that they are listed

This is a long and tedious process, but it works. (This is how I used to insert Tweetables when I was a newbie blogger back in 2013!)

10 Steps to inserting “Click to Tweet” or “Tweet This” links in your blog posts:

  1. Find something worthy of tweeting, and write it in your blog post, such as “Tweeting helps you gain followers!” (Tweet this)
  2. then click on the “get Shortlink” button and copy your post URL’s Shortlink (note that this is for the  WordPress platform; for Blogger, click on Permalink and copy your post URLs permalink) OR simply copy the permalink of your post’s URL, which is found right below the title of your post
  3. then shorten your permalink by going to Ow.ly, which is a URL shortener and copy the shortened URL that it generates
  4. then go to Click to Tweet  and
  5. then type your phrase, in my case, “Tweeting helps you gain followers!”, inside the text box
  6. (optional) add relevant hashtags to your Tweet so that it becomes a Perfect Tweet that will get retweeted!
  7. then paste the link generated by Ow.ly after this phrase and add via @yourtwitterhandle which, in my case is via @lorrainereguly (you don’t have to do this, but when you are on Twitter and are checking your @ mentions/notifications, you will be able to see how many people are actually Tweeting your Tweetable links)
  8. then click “generate link” and copy the URL it gives you
  9. then go to back to your blog post and type “Tweet this” in brackets (like I did in step one) after the phrase you want your readers to tweet,
  10. then highlight the words “Tweet this” and use the link icon to add the link you just copied from Click to Tweet so that when your readers click on “Tweet this,” they will be connected to their Twitter account and a textbox that is pre-populated with the phrase “Tweeting helps you gain followers!” and the link to the post that you are writing!

Make sure that you click on the “open link in new window” so that your readers don’t leave your website.

You can also change the color of the text (like I did) if you want it to stand out and really catch your reader’s eye.

If you are able to follow these simple instructions, you should have absolutely no problem adding “Tweet this” to your blog posts!

Other Methods for Using Click-to-Tweet Links

You could use a service such as Click-to-Tweet.

Of course, you could always try to figure out what Ana Hoffmann was trying to say in her instructions for how to do this, if you have an understanding of code and how coding works… or maybe Ramsay’s post, How to Add a “Click to Tweet” Link to Quotes Within Your Posts might help you gain a better understanding.

You might also want to use one of these recommended plugins (if you have your own, self-hosted site like I do now).

You can also use a plugin called Tweet Dis. (This is an affiliate link.)

I love TweetDis. It has a lot of options, looks nice, and has many neat features you can use.

Tweet Creation

Another tip to remember is to make your Tweets as short, or succinct, as possible so that when they are Re-Tweeted, or RT’d, there will be enough room in the 140-character box for all of the characters!

(Twitter adds the name of the person who is Re-Tweeting your Tweet TO THE TWEET. This is why you need to leave at least 15-20 characters free!)

Include a hashtag relevant to the topic of your Tweet, too, to increase the visibility of your Tweet.

Note that it is common practice to put it at the end, and to use no more than two hashtags, although sometimes people use three.

Please Tweet this, and leave me a comment if you found this information useful!

Thank you! See you in the comment section… or on Twitter!

By the way, I will accept donations if you feel like thanking me for this information!

An Interview With Jen J. Danna, author of “Dead, Without a Stone to Tell It”

I am an avid reader of murder-mysteries, crime dramas, and novels that utilize forensic science techniques. I have favorite authors that I consistently read, but I also read books by authors whom I have previously not read, too, as long as I am somehow drawn to the plot or think that it will be a “good read”. Recently, I came across the website of a “new” writer, Jen J. Danna, who offers the first three chapters of her novel, Dead, Without a Stone to Tell It for the perusal of the general public.  I began reading it, and decided to contact her and strike a “deal” with her.

DeadWithoutAStoneFront 72dpi

Our Deal: I would blog about her book and write a review for her on Goodreads if she sent me an autographed copy to read. (I know I just wrote about this in another post, but I felt I needed to mention it again!)

I also asked her if I could do a casual “interview” with her, to glean some information about the publishing process, from a traditional publishing standpoint. (You may recall that I interviewed author Melissa Bowersock to learn about self-publishing.) I was very pleased when Jen J. Danna responded favorably to my request!

I had the opportunity to speak with Jen on May 31, 2013. We spoke for nearly an hour-and-a-half!

I learned a few things from her, which I will share with you. Read More