11 Tips To Using LinkedIn To Promote Your Book

Nicholas C. Rossis's avatarNicholas C. Rossis

This is a guest post by Mollie Porein,  a highly skilled web content writer. She knows what an expository essay is and can help you write this kind of assignment. She is interested in topics about education, writing, blogging, motivation, etc. Connect with her on LinkedIn and follow her on Twitter.

I, for one, have always struggled with using LinkedIn to promote my books. So, I found her post particularly intriguing. If you do try her tips, please let us know how they worked out for you!

Using LinkedIn To Promote Your Book

1. Selling yourself

Using LinkedIn | From the blog of Nicholas C. Rossis, author of science fiction, the Pearseus epic fantasy series and children's book Image: TipScrew

In this day and age, self-promotion can be a rather daunting prospect. Digital marketing in the modern world calls for a rather personal approach to boost your online presence. One of the best ways to do this is through professional networking websites such as LinkedIn.

This multifaceted business-oriented service operates for professional…

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Legends of Windemere Highlight Post #fantasy #series

All Cover Art by Jason Pedersen

Click Here for the Series Spotlight on N.N. Light’s Site!

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The Curse of Time, on #LisaBurtonRadio

coldhandboyack's avatarEntertaining Stories

Lisa Burton

Welcome everyone. Turn down the lights, find your silver bells, and possibly a crystal that speaks to you. You might want to light a candle or two. This is Lisa Burton Radio, and I’m your host Lisa the robot girl.

My special guest today is living under some unusual circumstances, but we’ll let her tell us about them. “Welcome to the show, Amelina Scott.”

“Hi Lisa. I’m so excited about this, a chance to tell my story to a robot girl, that’s beyond amazing!”

“I already mentioned that your living arrangement is a bit odd. Can you fill our listeners in a bit?”

“Yeah, my dad disappeared on my thirteenth birthday. Sorry, I find this difficult to talk about. It really hurts. I, I cope by writing my feelings down in poetry. I don’t like to talk about it… But for you I will …

“Dad’s vanishing was the weirdest…

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7 Tips for Vampire Survival: Flossing Is a Given

Selene from Underworld

Vampire society sure has a lot of rules and a lot of those tend to revolve around obeying the older ones.  They usually result in destruction if broken too, which doesn’t really help if you’re trying to survive the daily grind.  Knowing which knee to bow on when the royal heir to the throne of some place you’ve never been to won’t protect you from hunters.  By the way, it’s the right in the Northern Hemisphere and the left in the Southern, which is why so many vampires get killed on the equator.  Anyway, lets go over a list of practical rules to keep your head on your shoulders.

  1. For the love of Vlad, don’t perch on rooftops at night.  There’s no reason for this because most of the food is at street level.  Attacking someone on their balcony or in their apartment is possible, but it’s a lot of work.  Not to mention, you kind of stand out among the gargoyles even if you’re all in black.  Best case scenario is that someone mistakes you for one of the many superheroes.  Worst case scenario, you’re running from the cops who think you’re a pervert.
  2. Clean up after yourself.  If you’re a vampire who has to kill when they eat then hide the body.  Try to scatter them around the city or possibly burn them.  If you leave too many around then you’ll out the entire species.  For those that can eat without killing, do something to make the victim not remember what happened.  Barring mental powers, you can pretend to be a mugger and knock them out before biting.  Once they’re aware of fangs in the neck, they’re going to know what’s going on.  Unless you’re a vampire in a world that has no movies, shows, books, games, and underground cultures revolving around your people.
  3. Stop trying to pretend you’re a goth.  That’s not the same as a vampire and you’re making both groups look ridiculous.  Especially since it means you’re a hundred-year-old hanging around high schools and malls.  That’s a level of creepiness that will get you investigated.
  4. If you do find yourself facing a vampire hunter, don’t run slavering at them or make a villainous speech.  Their job is to destroy you and they’ve been training for it.  These people aren’t uncoordinated snack boxes like you find on the street.  They’ve studied your habits and weaknesses, which means you’re the underdog here.  Might be smarter to run and think of a plan.  Run in a pack, track the hunter until you see an opening, leave town, or protect yourself.
  5. You know you’re own weakness, so work to reduce them.  Wear a chainmail vest or a harness that holds metal plates over your heart to avoid staking.  Carry a hooded jacket around to give you some cover from the sun.  Collars with metal studs can make decapitations more difficult.  Claim to be an atheist, so holy symbols and water hold no power over you.  Preparation and caution is key to a long life.
  6. Get yourself tested at least once a month.  You’re eaten from total strangers with no knowledge of their previous experiences.  Last thing you want is to get sick and pass it on to a mortal that you actually like.  Where would you go?  There has to a vampirized doctor out there somewhere.  If not then make one.
  7. Don’t join a cult of vampires who wish to conquer the world.  These groups never succeed and bring nothing, but trouble.  Just give them a wide berth and let them attract all the hunters in the area.  If they’re wiped out then it will give the illusion of all vampires disappearing, so you can remain in relative peace.  If they do pull off the impossible and conquer the world then it doesn’t make a difference to you.  You’re a vampire like they are, so you’ll continue doing what you’re doing.  They aren’t going to suddenly turn on their own . . . Might still want to remember #5.
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Teaser Tuesday: Fearing the Reunion

Cover Art by Alison Hunt

With it being Spring Break and me gearing up for the big release, I’m going with a few simple character introductions.  This week has the leader of the Vengeance Hounds getting his bio, so I figure I’ll put up a teaser with him.  Sort of.  The guy really only fights and shows off his warrior abilities in spoiler heavy scenes.

War of Nytefall: Loyalty
Coming April 7th!

Continue reading →

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From Earth to Windemere: The Dawn Fangs’ Travels

.hack//sign Chaos Gate

Long ago, I had multiple worlds instead of just one or two.  Luke Callindor and the champions were in Windemere, the superheroes were in Super Earth, and Clyde had his vampires in another Earth.  It was all compartmentalized in my notebooks and . . . I still kept getting things mixed up.  Much of it revolved around Clyde and the Dawn Fangs too because I kept trying to reinvent vampires for all the different worlds.  Inevitably, they would become a variation on the Dawn Fangs and there would be a Clyde-like figure that led them.  It was an interesting journey, which I really have to share.

Clyde was the second character I had in college, so I started building a series around him like I had done with Luke Callindor.  Since he was in a game that involved the modern world, I put him on Earth.  Problems stirred from the beginning because I became obsessed with finding a way to pit Clyde against Luke.  Took about a year to drop that and focus on crafting a real world for the vampires.  At first, he was the only one immune to sunlight, but that made it hard to interact with his friends.  I ended up making all the vampires immune after that, but they stayed in the shadows.  This made no sense and it got even stranger when I had Clyde be the reincarnation of Dracula.  In my defense, it was 2000 and I was only 20.  The vampire craze hadn’t hit yet, so this wasn’t as overdone as it was today.  Needless to say, this got tossed as well.  I played with Clyde in games a bunch to get a better feel for him, but things felt locked in place.

The last series in Clyde’s personal world ended with him reaching his full power and then vanishing.  Part of this was because I was running a Dungeons & Dragons game that I was going to turn into a series.  In my foolishness, I put Clyde in Windemere and had him there long enough to influence events before I realized my mistake.  I could have shifted him out of the story, but then there would be a gap for a few characters or a cheap doppelganger.  Having his series end with him jumping to Windemere was the logical step, but there was always something off.  His main weapon was still a chainsaw and he had no friends like Mab, Xavier, or Titus.  Clyde being in Windemere at this point was wrong, but I handed realized it.

Then, I came up with my Super Earth world for the superheroes, which ended up having vampires.  At first, they were random enemies that would turn up when I needed fodder,  but I began making them sun resistant to increase their threat.  Then, I had a vampire as one of the heroes and made some changes.  I realized that I was coming very close to the Dawn Fangs (though I didn’t call them that), so I made a decision that they would be involved with the superheroes.  This made such a mess.  The vampires were now villains, which caused their series to make no sense.  Mab and the others being around were pointless because they didn’t fit their own world.  Clyde wasn’t even on Earth any more and the one time he crossed over with superheroes in his series resulted in him being hunted.  This had him acting surprisingly weaker then in the other stories because I couldn’t have him wipe out the cast of the other series.  Needless to say, this forced me to rethink everything.

This brings us to the end of Clyde’s journey ‘home’, which I guess I would call the Great Merging. I transferred all of my ideas to Windemere to create a single tapestry of my ideas and all of them fit.  Well, the alien bounty hunter didn’t and I ended up moving the superheroes back to Earth (might undo that), but this isn’t their story.  As for Clyde, his presence ended up filling in some amazing gaps in Windemere.  The Dawn Fangs got their name and appeared as a more common species within the world.  I’ll admit that I felt a little sad about removing Clyde’s chainsaw, Bob’s car obsession, and Mab’s motorcycle, but they quickly evolved into their current versions.  It felt a lot more natural for them, which is strange since they were always played in Earth-based games.  Maybe it’s because they always had a magical quality, so it wasn’t a difficult transfer to make.  There are still times I question my decision, but they’ve really been locked into place. Too many plot holes in the other series got filled by the presence of the Dawn Fangs and I don’t have to come up with different versions of vampires for all the worlds.

As you can tell, it took a long time for Clyde to find his final home.  The jury is still out on how well he meshes with what’s been established, but I can see that he’s comfortable.  That’s probably the most important part too.

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Publishing Jitters

Boromir

One toe left
To count the times
I’ve been at the edge
Weeks of fretting
Months of toiling
Years of forging
Wearing body to the bone
*
The twentieth click
After hours of needling
Hitting that infamous word
Publish
That I have seen so often
Yet always scared
Of the new unknown

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So Close, But Just Missed It: Week Near Hits

The main goal of the week was editing War of Nytefall: Loyalty in preparation of the April 7th release.  I feel about 100 pages short by the time my son’s Spring Break started on Thursday.  The trifecta of this, Passover, and Easter are making this a test of patience and time management.  Convincing an 8-year-old to give you the morning to edit doesn’t really work.  My hope is that I can the lion’s share done tomorrow and then I have a 3 hour period on Tuesday when my son has a martial arts camp.  There’s a public library just down the block from the dojo, so maybe I can work there instead driving all the way home.  Plug in the head phones, hook into the Wifi, and pray I can find a seat.  Going home might be easier actually.

All I can say is that ‘things happened’.  Honestly, I was making good time on Monday until that night became a disaster.  Been battling panic attacks since then.  Feels like I sleep (fearing that I won’t wake up due to the anxiety), get up in the morning, and then work while my frustration over these personal issues grow into another late night trudge through an emotional morass.  This week isn’t going to be any easier since the kid is going to wear me down and he’s become obsessed with Lego Indiana Jones.  This game has bigger levels and is simply harder than Lego Batman.  It’s fairly merciless and makes me wonder if the company made Lego Batman easier as an apology.  I mean, how is an 8-year-old supposed to avoid spike and dart traps?  For that matter, the almost 38-year-old was a disaster at the beginning too.  You get swarmed so often in that game.

For those that noticed this week, the cover for War of Nytefall: Loyalty was revealed and it means I only have to finish my editing.  My plan is to hit publish on Friday night and spend next Saturday morning setting up all the promo sites.  I have some people helping with that, but it’s going to be a challenge.  Just thinking about how Ichabod Brooks and Bedlam had such a problem even though I promoted them the same way as Legends of Windemere.  This is instilling the fear that very few people are interested beyond that series.  I’m already getting lectures and questions about why I’m doing another series since the first one didn’t get me a contract, tv show, or movie.  It’s like people think the only way to help me is to break my spirit and erase my hope.  As if I’ll suddenly agree, put my notebooks away and take on a soul-crushing office job with a smile?  Who really thanks others for crushing dreams instead of helping?  No wonder I sometimes have issues with humans.

As you can tell, I have the pre-release jitters and doubts.  I don’t know how people will take to Clyde’s gang and allies being meaner and bloodier than the Windemere champions.  From what I can tell, many think the vampires will be the bad guys and face mortal hunters or something.  Some don’t realize Clyde is a vampire and think he’s the one fighting them.  All of this is showing me a challenge with the vampire genre.  I think it has the most amount of structured preconceptions out there, so people don’t allow for a lot of flexibility.  You inevitably get compared to a previous incarnation even if you took a little from everywhere or went completely off the reservation.  We’ll see what happens, but I’m betting on a few panic attacks over this.

Considering my son is home all week, I’m not going to expect a lot of progress.  The following week is going to be slow too since it starts with my birthday and I have some meetings.  Might not be a bad idea that I get a break right after publishing and try to do a little more with the promos.  The next project is editing Quest of the Broken-Hearted, which will be a summer release.  Might do an edit on War of Nytefall: Lost after that and then start writing War of Nytefall: Temptation.  I have April, May, and half of June to do all that on top of writing the finale for Dawn Addison.  That will clear up the summer for outlining and family time.  Might work on the next Ichabod collection during that time too since short stories can handle more breaks.  This is the yearly stuff though . . . I still haven’t even decided if I’m continuing Bedlam.  Hate to retire Lloyd and Cassidy, but people seem to enjoy seeing them on the blog instead of buying books with them.  Makes it hard to pay for cover art and promos when people don’t seem to care.  Doesn’t help that I haven’t talk to Jon since January, so I feel like an ass now.

Goals for the week?

  1. Father/son time
  2. Finish editing War of Nytefall: Loyalty.
  3. Publish War of Nytefall: Loyalty.
  4. Review War of Nytefall: Temptation outline.
  5. Decide if I’m doing anything for my birthday.
  6. Read more DBZ.  Up to the Android Saga, but still waiting on Volume 7.
  7. Prep June posts if nothing else to do.  Maybe just one or two in order to make it an easy job for my ‘week off’.
  8. Passover and Easter.  Guess I should mention those.
  9. Show War of Nytefall: Loyalty cover art again:

Cover Art by Alison Hunt

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A Dangerous Love Affair, on #LisaBurtonRadio

coldhandboyack's avatarEntertaining Stories

Lisa Burton

Welcome to this week’s edition of Lisa Burton Radio, the only show that brings you the characters from the books you love. I’m your host, Lisa the robot girl, and with me today is John Williams, not the famous composer, but an author. “Welcome to the show, John.”

“Thanks and Wow. I must say it’s a pity you’re a robot, you look gorgeous.”

“My bio says you’re a frustrated author. I think you’ll be in good company among our listeners. What kind of stories do you write?”

“I wrote what I thought an interesting action/adventure story, but the lack of sales says otherwise. I attended a book launch in London hoping to find a publishing agent to represent me. Although unsuccessful, my dismay turned into incredible joy. While I sat at the bar drowning my sorrows, to my astonishment, Sally Johnston a famous and I might add a gorgeous looking…

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What Do You Miss About Being Human? (Cast of War of Nytefall)

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As you get older, you start to miss things from your youth.  The same goes for immortals that can’t interact with human society.  So, I wondered what favorite things my vampires miss from their old lives.

Clyde– The thrill of stealing something and knowing that I could die during the heist.  It’s a weird one, but things get boring when the risk is gone.

Mab–  Chocolate is high on the list since Clyde took my original one.  Considering I love money and that carries over, I’m kind of at a loss here.

Xavier Tempest– I love being a vampire, so this is difficult.  Perhaps the simpler politics of mortal nobility.  With vampires, its harder to defend against assassins and everything needs to be planned in terms of years instead of months.

Nadia Sylvan–  Going to performances as myself because crowds of mortals are dangerous.  I need to travel in various forms and only at night.  During the day, I need to find a shadowy perch as a bird or lurk underground to listen.

Gregorio Roman–  I’m so old that I don’t even know what’s out there.  Although, I’ve yet to travel the new Windemere.  So, I miss being able to roam without fear of getting mobbed by holy spell hurling priests.

Kai Stavros–  I used to enjoy fishing on the open sea.  Vampires can still do that, but the sun gives me problems.  One time, I lost my night cloak and was yanked into the water by a large shark.  Took me a long time to regrow my lower half.

Stephanie Talon–  Natural hair growth.  My tail is luxurious and beautiful, but I need to expend blood to maintain or change it.  There’s no challenge to it anymore.

Lou– Cooked meat . . . and raw meat.

Kenneth Decker–  Not to piggyback off Lou, but I used to be a great cook.  I might still be, but I wouldn’t really know.  There’s no point in cooking food if you’re unable to eat it.  I can’t taste it to make sure it’s good either.  Sometimes I read cookbooks to remember the old days.

Titus Winthrop– Ale without blood added.  You get a similar taste of both, but it isn’t the same.  On the other hand, vampires don’t get drunk or hangovers . . . Usually. You can get pretty queasy if you drain a drunk.

Bob– The aches and pains that come with horseback riding.  You really don’t enjoy such a hobby unless you’re groaning about it the next morning.  That’s when you earn yourself a sugar cube and carrot.

Luther Grathan– As cliche as it sounds, the feeling of sun and wind on my skin as I wander the forests.  When I was a mortal forest tracker, the natural world felt like it accepted me. Now, it’s like I’m a stranger on the outskirts of the land.

Chastity Sullivan– I’ve been told to behave a bit, so I’m just going to say sex.  I still have that, but it’s different for vampires.  There’s more focus instead of letting my body go with the sensations.  Look, you knew one of us had to be that kind of vampire.

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