Facebook Changes and Seven-League Boots

I had a Facebook-focused week. I created the Welcome on my new fanpage, Books by Naima Haviland, so that visitors get a free short story. I have a hidden motive for this: once you have 25 fans on your page, Facebook lets you assign it a shortened, official name. The official fanpage name is much more memorable than the rambling automated one Facebook initially assigns. That's a great advantage, from a marketing standpoint. So click-thru and Like me, people! And get a free short story ;-)

I noticed after Facebook's last round of changes, that the content I created with 3rd party apps wasn't showing up. In this case, if you reactive the missing app it shows up again (Your Page>Edit Info>Apps>[your disappeared app]>Add or Remove>[then click Remove, then go back in there and click Add]).

I attended a webinar walk-through of the changes Facebook has on schedule for October 1. For instance, after October 1, the iframes app that enables you to give freebies won't display your graphics anymore unless they are hosted on a secure server. The iframes developers are working to setup their own secure server but you can also host your graphics on FreeVPS, which I did with no fuss/no muss. The webinar was produced by Shelley Hitz, the Self-Publishing Coach, whose Get Your Facebook Done webinar series was instrumental in getting me started with my fanpage. In addition to showing us the adjustments we'd need to make to keep our fanpages visible, Shelley shared bonus marketing tips and resources that I am very excited to try out. I have implemented and plan to implement so many of the tips and resources I already gleaned from her newsletter and website, that -- as I said to Gigi, my hairstylist, while she undertook the sisyphean task of keeping me beautiful -- "I'm just glad Shelley Hitz is in the world". This past week, Shelley shared many article links regarding Facebook changes and just really helped keep her clients up to speed. Thanks, Shelley!

Also, thanks to Steven Lewis. I used his tutorials on formatting for Kindle to publish my Demontorium stories and I subscribe to his Taleist blog to stay informed on all that's happening in Amazon's Kindle universe.

And...David Gaughran. His book, Let's Get Digital, has lots of advice on marketing beyond Kindle and includes 33 successful digital authors relating their own experiences (info that is both grounding and inspiring).

And...Sharon Renae, whose Juicy Writing class reminds me that writing itself can and should be as fun for me now as finger-painting was in kindergarten. (I forget that when I'm all up in this marketing stuff). If you're not fortunate enough to live in Pensacola, she offers creativity classes online.

Among others, these folks gave me 7-league boots to take one giant leap forward.

Naima, Inc Chugging Right Along

You might call it a Little Shop of Horrors...yuk, yuk, yuk! I have published four short stories from my upcoming anthology Night at the Demontorium to Kindle and Smashwords. More on that in the near future.

Bloodroom came back from the editor and I'm literally going edit by edit, choosing whether to accept or reject. Sometimes an edit is grammatically correct but it messes up the rhythm of the sentence. That's why I don't just hit "Accept All" or whatever Word calls it.

I just bought David Gaughran's book Let's Get Digital. The book is a collection of advice, articles, and essays on self-publishing e-books. It features many indie authors who've found success, and for that reason alone, I'm excited to read it. I like David's writing style and enjoy reading his blog. My immediate intent is to read LGD sparingly, because I've been suffering a little from information overload, what with all the experts I've been tapping into recently. However, that's like telling myself to nurse one glass of wine at a party. Oops, did I just tell on myself?