Day 165--Interview with Book Blogger "Erik the Great" of This Kid Reviews Books

It is with great pleasure that I introduce to you ten-year-old Erik, a popular book blogger and childrens book reviewer, AKA "Erik the Great"! Erik blogs at This Kid Reviews Books.

After Erik reviewed The Pet Washer in July, I was so impressed with his professionalism that I contacted him for an interview. The following is that interview: Enjoy!

 

Erik

Jennifer: You are ten years old, how long have you been blogging?

Erik: First I want to thank you, Ms. Alvarez, for asking me to do this interview! I have been blogging since January 2011. I was 8-years-old when I told my parents I wanted to write reviews. It took me a couple of months to get my blog going, but my first post was on January 12, 2011 (I was nine then).

Jennifer: What is your favorite aspect of running your blog and reviewing books?

Erik: I think my favorite thing is “meeting” people around the world and “talking” about books and reading with those people! I think it is totally awesome that people across the world would want to talk to me about books.

Jennifer: Do you have a favorite book or favorite genre?

Erik: I really like the book “Redwall” by Brian Jacques. I think that is my favorite book. I like picture books of pretty much every genre, and middle grade books and YA books in pretty much every genre, especially Fantasy Fiction. I pretty much like anything…except horror stories and anything to do with vampires.

Jennifer: What do you like to do when you're not blogging?

Erik: I really love to build with my LEGOs. I am always trying to build onto my LEGO collection. I am a part of a LEGO robotics team in the First LEGO League. I also have been studying Taekwondo for close to five years. I was just awarded my first degree junior black-belt in TKD. I have just started to train Karate and Jujitsu too. I like the martial arts a lot. I like to swim, fish, camp (especially roasting marshmallows on a campfire and making s’mores), play outside, ride my minibike and bike, draw and think about books.

Jennifer: What are your submission requirements?

 

Erik: I review picture and middle grade books. I do review some YA books, but I have to let my parents look at the content of them first before accepting a book. Books sent to me should only have minor bad language, no graphic violence or anything else a ten-year-old shouldn’t be reading. It takes about 7-8 weeks from the time I get a book to review, to when the review is posted (it might go quicker in the summer when I don’t have school). I can only accept a certain number of book to be on my “to be reviewed” list at once. My parents put limits on the number of books I can accept and they also told me to just post 3 times a week (I was posting almost every day) because it was taking too much time away from everything. I like my schedule now, but I don’t like to tell authors when I can’t accept their book to review right now.

People can send review requests through my website (there is a button to click). I like to know a little bit about the author and a description of the book. Although I like “real” books more to review, I have a kindle to review ebooks. I usually let authors decide which one they want to send. 

I appreciate every book review request I get and I really wish I could read every one, but I am only one kid! I do often refer books I can’t review to other kid book reviewers.

Jennifer: Do you aspire to be a fiction author one day?

Erik: Yes, I would like to be a fiction author one day. That day might come soon because I am already writing a book about these small aliens (an average of 4-5 inches) who accidently crash-land on O-HI-o on the strange planet Ear-th. J They must learn to survive and get along (bad aliens on the ship meant to get rid of the good guys, but they come along too) on this unknown planet. When my book will get finished and published? I do not know, but I am having fun writing it!

Jennifer: Is it ever hard to fit in blogging with your schoolwork?

Erik: At the moment, no, it is not hard because I’m on summer break (HA HA!). During school I usually write my posts/reviews way ahead of time so I don’t get backed up. I am usually a month ahead in my posts. That way I don’t get rushed at the last minute.

Jennifer: You mention on your blog that you refer out some books when you get busy to other kid reviewers. Who are they?

Erik: I usually refer books “too old” for me to Audrey of “Audrey’s Read It Or Not” blog and/or Daniel of “The Readers and Writers Paradise”. I am ten and my parents think a lot of YA books aren’t right for me. I also send authors to other kids like Fami-Lit, Sir Books-a-Lot, and Mother Daughter Book Reviews. There is a bunch of kids reviewing books. I have links to a lot of them on my blog roll. 

Jennifer: What's the most exciting thing that's happened to you as a result of your book review blog?

Erik: I think the most exciting thing that’s happened to me because of my blog is getting to meet authors in person. I can’t believe how nice children’s book authors are! I really love going to events to meet them.

I also was excited to get a column in my local free paper (The Upper Bucks Free Press). The content editor saw my blog and I met her at a book signing. She asked me if I’d like to write for the newspaper! I now have a monthly column that I am very excited about!

Ms. Alvarez asked me to come up with a question to ask myself and then answer it! Here is my question to me. If you could go into any book and meet the characters and live the story, which book would it be?

Erik: I would go into “Into The Gauntlet” by Margaret Peterson Haddix (the tenth book in the 39 clues series). I’d love to meet Amy and Dan Cahill because they seem really cool and I would also like to memorize the Cahill serum (and DOMINATE the WORLD MWA HA HA HA… (my best evil laugh)). OK I really don’t want to take over the world, I just love the 39 Clues series and to be in any book of the series would be an honor.

Author Profile (in his own words!):

I’m a ten-year-old kid who started a book review blog (This Kid Reviews Books) because I love books! My blog has grown over the past 1 ½ years and I am grateful that I get to “talk” to people from all over the world about books, reading and writing.

This Kid Reviews Books

 To Do: If you write childrens or middle-grade books, submit to Erik today!

Day 155--The Top 100 Creative Writing Blogs

BestCollegesOnline took the time to compile a list of 100 blogs to do with creative writing. These blogs are separated into categories for easy browsing. I am featuring this article today because it provides an invaluable service to authors, and it's the kind of information I will use over and over again. This article was published July, 2, 2012.

Here are the categories:

• General
• Aspiring and Emergent Authors
• Established Authors
• Improving Your Craft
• Grammar and Editing
• Getting Published
• Genre-Focused
• Fiction Writing
• Poetry

You will probably recognize some of the websites like one of my favorites, Grammar Girl, but you will also be introduced to reliable websites you probably haven't heard about yet. Without further ado:

The Top 100 Creative Writing Blogs (Updated)

July 2, 2012 by BestCollegesOnline
Note: Please search this website. Due to issues outside my control, I had to remove the link.

 To Do: Add this article to your arsenal of resources!

Day 124--Oh My Gosh Beck!: Book Review Site

I stumbled upon a lovely book review site yesterday called Oh My Gosh Beck! This site has over 18,000 Facebook fans, over 10,000 Twitter followers, over 4000 subscribers, and over 17,000 unique visitors per month--wow!

This site offers a lot of services for authors. Free services include book reviews and giveaways. They are interested in reviewing YA fiction, Chick Lit, Children's Books, Christian (fiction and non-fiction), Thrillers, Sci-fi, Mysteries/Suspense, Non-fiction, and Self-help. There is an approximate 8 week turn around for reviews. They accept paper and ebook formats.

I contacted Oh My Gosh Beck! today for a book review. Until my re-formatted paperback is ready I don't want to enlist it in giveaways.

This site reviews all sorts of books and products that are family-friendly. The primary readers of this blog are women between the ages of 25-34, have children, some college education, and browse the site from home. If you have written a book that would appeal to this age group or their children, I highly recommend submitting your book for review.

Having said that, all book are fair game as people also buy them as gifts for others. I think knowing the demographics of the site is incredibly useful in gauging the kind of response you might get.

This site offers paid blog promotion services and paid advertising as well. 

To Do: Submit your book to Oh My Gosh Beck! today.

Day 83--Is Your Blog Behaving Badly?

How well do you know your blog? I created mine so I thought I knew it pretty well. I was wrong.

My blog has been behaving badly. It is almost three months old and a reader named Wendy pointed out a problem with my comments today. This whole time, my comments have been set so that you have to be a registered user of Google, Typepad, Wordpress, OpenID or others in order to leave one. There was no way for an unregistered or anonymous user to post a comment.

I think this is terrible and it wasn't my intention. I'm a free speech kind of gal. I don't have comment moderation turned on and I don't require my readers to decode unreadable words in order to post their opinion. I apologize to everyone who has tried to leave a comment and failed.

I use Blogger and fixing the problem was simple. I went into my settings, then to comments and I changed "Who Can Comment" from Registered Users to Anyone.

In truth, my blog wasn't behaving badly, it was user error. I am grateful to Wendy for pointing out the problem. We aren't always so lucky. A lot of readers will get frustrated and stop visiting.

If you have a blog or an author blog (or even a website), I recommend doing the following to assess it's useability. First, log out of Blogger or Wordpress, or whatever you use and navigate your site the way an interested reader would. Try the comments, the links, the tabs, basically, take your blog on a test drive.

Secondly, invite a friend over who doesn't read your blog (if such a person exists!!) Ask them to check out the whole thing, leave a comment and contact you via the blog. Don't say a word while they set out to do this. Don't give them any hints about where to click. Just watch. After ten minutes or so, discuss with them the results. An exercise like this should give you invaluable information about any glitches in your blog or website.

My pet peeve with blogs is when I want to contact a blogger directly and I can't find a simple email form. I wrote about how to fix that problem here, EmailMeForm


To Do: Test drive your blog today!


Jennifer Lynn Alvarez
author of The Pet Washer
a novel for children aged 8 and up!

Day 79--The Best Blog You're Not Following

Before I tell you why I follow ProBlogger, please allow me to explain the story behind the title I chose for this post. 

Do you remember the television show, Party of Five? It had loyal followers, but not many of them. In 1995, TV Guide named it "The Best Show You're Not Watching". This was when I became aware of the show and starting watching it, along with many others. It ended up winning the Golden Globe Award for Best Drama in 1996. The rest is history.

The show was good, but TV Guide's article was genius. Everyone wanted to know, what's the best show I'm not watching? Weren't you curious when you read my title? That article put Party of Five on the map. I've wanted to use a title like that for a long time and today, I chose to apply it to this post.   

Now I'm not insinuating ProBlogger needs my help to get on the map. It's already an icon in the blogging industry. However, most of my readers are fiction authors like me, and I don't hear a lot of chatter about ProBlogger in the author communities to which I belong.  

ProBlogger is just that, a blog about professional blogging. If you're not a pro blogger, you may wonder how this blog can help you.

As a fiction author and a blogger, ProBlogger has become the source I rely upon the most. Not for networking, but for business and marketing management. I have quantifiable success with the tips I glean from ProBlogger. These tips help me with my books, my brand, my own blog, growing my fan base, my productivity, my marketing, my email newsletters, networking and the whole business of being me.

ProBlogger's founder, Darren Rowse, practices what he preaches. ProBlogger itself is an exemplary example of how a professional blog should look and read. It's clean, organized, helpful and relevant. The advertising is not obnoxious. The fan base is large. Its reputation in the blogging community is stellar.

While there are many guest posters, they follow the founder's writing style and quick-scan format. You will never waste your time on ProBlogger reading superfluous words. Posts are as short as they can be while delivering executable, clear steps to the reader.  

Best of all, ProBlogger is free. Nothing is asked of me at ProBlogger. I'm not spammed and no one harps on me to buy their product. I don't have to subscribe to read it, but I do subscribe for the ease of automatic post delivery. ProBlogger doesn't use gimmicks. Bloggers flock to the site because it helps them. It's the real deal.
 
ProBlogger has opened my eyes to the layers of opportunities that exist online. I have a hard time keeping up with all the tips I want to apply to marketing my book and my brand. I'm not just a reader, I'm a fan.


To Do: Start following ProBlogger! If you already follow ProBlogger, please link to a post that has helped you in the comment form below!

Jennifer Lynn Alvarez
author of The Pet Washer
a novel for children aged 6 and up
"When a princess befriends a pet washer, their worlds collide in unexpected ways!"


  

Day 70--SocialBro, An Impressive Free Twitter Tool

I learn from everyone who blogs, tweets and posts. I picked up a random tip today and downloaded the SocialBro app for Twitter. I will admit, I didn't "get" Twitter for a long time. All I saw was a one-dimensional world.

SocialBro has opened my eyes! When I got my Twitter account, I was only seeing the tip of the iceberg. SocialBro is exposing the massivity of this thing (I know massivity is not a word, I'm coining it!). Twitter rocks!

I still don't fully comprehend Twitter, but I'm a believer. Socialbro is a free app. Anyone can download it. The information it organizes and the tools it provides are invaluable if you are using Twitter to market anything.

Here is a list of SocialBro's Features.

• Browse Your Twitter Community
• Back up Your Community
• Twitter List Management
• Easy Follow/Unfollow Back Tools
• Fast Communication with Your Community
• Search, Filter and Sort All Twitter
• Dashboard
• See Your Twitter Community in a Map
• Get the Best Stats
• The Best Time to Tweet
• Tag Clouds

SocialBro, An Impressive Twitter Tool

Socialbro also lets you know who is not following you back so you can unfollow them. Have you ever noticed how someone with 4000 followers, follows about 4000 people? Or if they have 7000 followers, they follow around 7000 people? I noticed this trend before I understood it.

Twitter is like Goldilocks--picky. You can be banned or shunned for aggressive following, aggressive unfollowing, for tweeting too much, for tweeting too little, for churning, for stealing, for spamming, for getting followers too fast, for getting followers too slow or for having an imbalance between your followers and who is following you. With Twitter, you want to be just right!

When your followers closely equal your follows, you are in safe territory (unless you're a celeb, see below). The rest of it is trial and error for me. I have honest intentions, so I'm not concerned that I'll spam, churn, steal or be too aggressive.

Who knew, right?

SocialBro exposed my Twitter weaknesses. I was following people who, after weeks, were not following me back. I got rid of all of them except the few professionals whose tweets I love, i.e. Darren Rowse at Problogger. I can only dream of the day he might follow me back!

Darren Rowse has over 150,000 followers and he follows about 600 people.This is an imbalance that is "allowed". A celeb type will generally have more followers than people they follow. It increases their influence and authority. Their tweets become valuable. They are not going to be shunned or kicked off of Twitter for being famous. In fact, their tweets carry all the more weight. If Ashton Kutcher were to tweet about The Pet Washer, my sales would go through the roof. Celebs play by a different set of rules. Twitter recognizes that. 

It also shows me the people who follow me that I have neglected to follow back. I'm able to see them all in one place and rectify my oversight. Twitter is a marketing social website for me, not a personal one. I don't put pictures of my kids and pets on Twitter.I am looking to connect with a quantity of quality people, primarily, authors, readers, bloggers, editors and publishers. It's where I promote The Pet Washer. It's fun, but it's business.

SocialBro has given me a glimpse of the iceberg that is Twitter. The more I learn about Twitter, the more I realize how much there is left to learn. I'm excited to get a handle on this beast! 

To Do: If you are looking to market yourself or your book, consider downloading SocialBro today. Don't hit the iceberg, Twitter the iceberg!

Follow me on Twitter and I'll follow you back!

Follow @JenniferDiaries

Jennifer Lynn Alvarez
Author of The Pet Washer
a novel for girls aged 8-11

Day 60--Three Reasons to Care About SEO

What is SEO and why should any of us care? SEO is the acronym for "Search Engine Optimization". Who cares about SEO? Bloggers care. Website owners care. Authors care.

1) I care because I have a product to sell.

My goal is to promote my books, not my blog. Right? Wrong. It's both. I sign every post with my name and the name of my book. My book is for sale on this blog.

My blog readers are not the intended audience for my children's book, true. But the fortunes of my book and my blog are intertwined. I am first and foremost, the author of The Pet Washer Series and, soon, a YA novel. My blog's success can influence my books' success. We are a package deal.

2) I care because readers complete me.

The transaction of writing is not complete without a reader. Who wants to blog into space for eternity, never to hear an echo back? I don't. I'm addicted to readers. Readers bring my words to life.

If you have a blog or a website, I'm guessing you want readers too. This is why SEO is so important. I started blogging in 2009. I did not understand SEO for my first two blogs. My friends subscribed and the rest of my traffic was accidental and insignificant. These blogs were personal so I didn't care. I wasn't selling a book or looking to network. I did want readers though and, I am here to tell you, they don't magically appear.

3) I care because I want to network with others in my field. 

This blog is about book marketing. Who knows the most about book marketing? Other authors! Through this blog, I'm meeting professionals in my industry. Many are more successful than I and they are willing to help. I've learned how to price an ebook, how to put on a successful speaking presentation and I've received reliable book marketing advice. See my page on guest posts to read these articles! 

I've had the privilege of chatting with best-selling authors to brand-new authors, bloggers, book reviewers, cover designers and readers. I made a connection to a reputable copy editor who I ended up hiring.

There are few authors in my town. I need this online community to support me. If I don't optimize my SEO, they won't find me and we'll never connect!

How do you optimize your SEO now that you care?

This is the article I read today about how to optimize SEO. I found this article through a tweet by the Duolit self-publishing team, who referenced an article by Taleist who linked to a free, informative article on the subject by Brian Carter, founder of Copyblogger.

Here is the link to the free article--it's amazing! It's everything you need to know about optimizing your SEO!

To Do: Check out Brian Carter's article and apply what you can to your blog or website. Sell your product, gain readers and make new friends! Again, this link is free and does not require your email address or account registration. It's a gift! Open it!

Jennifer Lynn Alvarez
author of The Pet Washer
fun book for girls aged 9-12

Day 22--Facebook Fan Page

Do you have a Facebook Fan Page? Every author should have one! They are free and they behave better than blogs or websites (at least for me). They also have viral potential.

I have 46 "fans" right now on, The Jennifer (Author) Diaries, Facebook page. Those 46 fans have over 10,000 contacts between them. If every single fan shared my page or a post on my page--I would reach 10,000 people. This is how I can branch out of my inner circle of influence.

Today I contacted my Facebook readers. I reminded them that The Pet Washer is still on sale at Amazon in kindle and paperback formats. While doing this, I noticed that I have a few new readers. I looked the new readers up and was thrilled to see that I don't know them! Three new fans, two from India, like my page! One posted The Pet Washer under his favorite books.

This touched me to my core. I'm thrilled that my friends' kids are enjoying The Pet Washer, but to learn that people I don't even know have discovered the book thrills me too. As an added bonus, I get to see their lovely faces on Facebook and that means a lot. I have quite a few British and Indian readers on this blog--but I can't see them. The photos elevate the fun factor for me.

I penned a greeting to my new readers and welcomed them to my page. I included a link to this blog. I believe it's important to do more than just post info about my books on my Facebook page. I want to thank my readers and get to know my readers too. It should be a community, not a message board. The same goes for this blog--I crave your comments. I want to read your opinions. I want to know what has worked for you when it comes to book or blog promotion and marketing. I want to share ideas and encourage each other! Writers work alone but they cannot survive alone! Thanks for being part of my community!

(Please CONTACT me if you would like to submit a guest post. You can promote your book, website, CD or blog at the same time! I'm looking for short articles about book or blog promotion and marketing. It's easy! Let me know what has worked for you and explain how you did it. Promote yourself and add links to your work in your byline! )