Facebook Friday: 2 Status Tricks

The two tricks I am sharing today may be already known to a lot of you, but there are enough new Facebook users that I think these are useful.

First Trick - Hide people from your stream:  This is especially nice when you use your personal facebook page as your author page and you have a lot of people you don't really know in your stream.  Really simple to do.

1. Move your mouse over the upper right hand side of any status and an X and a text box with the word "Remove" will appear. 

2. Click on the X and you will be given the following choices:

3. Choose one and Poof! the status is gone.

You can also use this strategy to hide all those games your friends play.  If you do these steps on a game status, one of the options will be "Remove al posts from blah blah blah".  Blah blah blah is the game, such as Farmville.

NOTE:  If you have a fan page, it's not a "Remove" X that shows up, but a Settings wheel and you only have the choice to remove the post or hide the post, not hide all by a person.  You can also view your hidden posts at any time by clicking on that option under "Wall" on the left side of your fan page.

Second Trick - Post status updates that can be viewed by only certain people: If you have something you'd like to post, but you only want your writer friends to see it, for example, use this option.

1. Type your status update.
2. Click the lock on the bottom right of your status box. 

3. Choose "Customize". 
4. From here you can hide from specific people or lists of people or make visible to specific people or lists of people.

NOTE:  If you do this on a fan page, you only have the choice to customize location.  This could be helpful if you were going to a city for a book signing and want to let everyone in that area know but keep it from everyone else.

Hopefully these status tricks make your Facebook life a lot easier.

And now for something completely different:  Join me tomorrow for a brand new series called Savvy Sensations.  This series will highlight other bloggers who are out there building a following.  I think it will be very beneficial.

So do you use the Facebook tips suggested here?  Did you already know about them?  Do you think they're useful? Let me know, I love to hear from you!

Google Documents

Last week I shared my love for Google Reader.  This week I'm continuing my Google praise by sharing Google Documents.

Google Documents allows you to create and edit documents online.  Here's the highlights:

1. It's online.  This is really the best thing about Google docs.  You can upload your word processing document or spreadsheet to Google Docs and then anywhere you have internet, there's your document. I love this. I use it for lots of items I want to keep with me always.
2. Sharing.  If you are collaborating on anything, this is the way to go.  Say you want to work on a project with someone in another location.  You can both edit your document in REAL TIME.  You can see changes as the other person types.  I used Google Docs last year for a class project.  So much easier than emailing back and forth.
3. Privacy.  Even though you can share your docs, you don't have to.
4. Documents can be created or uploaded.  Either start your documents from scratch in Google Docs, or you can upload a word or excel sheet that you've already created.  
5. Publishing.  You can easily publish your documents to your website or blog.  Or email as an attachment.
6. Thousands of templates available.  Here's some examples: calendars, family budget, contact forms for websites, resumes, presentations, schedules, calculators, surveys, the list goes on.
7. It's free.  No explanation necessary.

There's more. Seriously. Take a tour and find out yourself.

Do you use Google Docs? Do you think it could be useful? Do you love Google as much as I do?

Tooting and Passing

I'm tooting and passing again today.  Tooting my horn and passing on an award, that is.  I have been given an award from Kate Larkindale, an awesome fellow blogger I met during last month's blogfest.  Kate can be found at Fiction and Film and is a writer and a movie theater manager. I worked in a movie theater as a manager for years and loved it, just FYI.

Thank you, Kate! I'm truly honored.

The goal of this award is to spotlight up and coming bloggers who currently have less than 200 followers. The rules of the award are:

1. Thank the giver and link back to the blogger who gave it to you.
2. Reveal your top 5 picks and let them know by leaving a comment on their blog.
3. Copy and paste the award on your blog.
4. Have faith that your followers will spread the love to other bloggers.
5. And most of all - have bloggity-blog fun!

And here's my picks:

1. Michelle Fayard at Bird's Eye View Michelle is absolutely the best at building online relationships. Not only does she comment on what seems like every blog she follows, she also seems to be there first. She Tweets shout-outs and emails when she's left a response to a comment you wrote. I highly encourage y'all to take a look at what she's doing if you're trying to build your online image.
2. Christa at Christa Writes  First, I love the colors of Christa's blog. It has an immediate happy feel.  Next, she is a mom who blogs and avoids housework. My kinda mom.  Third, she has a series entitled "Inside the Author's Studio", a play on the Bravo Series "Inside the Actor's Studio", which is just brilliant. Christa's blog exudes with personality. Check her out.
3. Jaye Robin Brown JRo is another very supportive online community builder.  She also has a design template that I love, easy to look at and draws me to return.  She's a working writer mother and I admire her resolve to continue writing midst all the busyness.
4. Andrea Mack at That's Another Story Andrea's one of the few blogs I follow that's really dedicated to Middle Grade - my category of choice.  She has a great Alphabet series of Middle Grade writing.  It helps inspire me when I'm stuck on my own MG stuff.
5. Amber Plante at Suspending Disbelief  Another blog that's easy to look at.  Believe it or not, this is important.  I love Amber's personality.  Her posts are both relevant and personal, which isn't always an easy task. She's an editor and her tips are very helpful.  She's already received this award from someone else, but I had to give it myself.  

Congratulations everyone! Thanks for what you give the blogging world!

FAMP: A Message From Your Target Audience

I am so excited today to feature my very first guest post from Madeline Bartos of My Capricious Existence.  If you were here yesterday, you saw that I honored Madeline with the Versatile Blog award.  Madeline is brilliant, passionate, and outrageous. But today I asked her to post because she has an asset we can all benefit from: she's a teenager. So this From a Marketing Prospective blog post is advice directly from our target audience. Take it away, Madeline:

First off, I want to thank Laura for asking me to guest post. It was like someone asking me to rant. Yeah, I was all game.

Today I want to talk about what I like and dislike about author blogs. Being some of you aren't published yet you're only writers, but this will totally apply to you, too.

I suppose I'll start off with the positive first!

Madeline Bartos

Things I Like About Author Blogs

1.) They’re pretty. There. I said it. I’m being shallow, I know. But it’s so true. People judge books by their covers whether you tell them to or not. If your layout is pretty, maybe your content is just as good, too!

2.) I learn something I didn’t know before. Reading blogs is time consuming. And quite frankly, people are selfish. There has to be something in it for them. So when I learn something I didn’t know before and get something out of a blog, I don’t care that I just invested 5 minutes reading it. Besides helpful posts, I also love resource pages where writers share their favorite links.

3.) Spill your knowledge about being a writer. This is similar to learning something I didn’t know before, but only it’s learning something about the life of a writer. Whether it’s showing off your writing space, spilling about your writing routine, or sharing ways to get rid of distractions, I love reading it! The life of a writer is half the fun of being one.

4.) Link Within. This has to be my all time favorite blog widget. If a blogger has helpful posts, I can sit there and click on other posts that show up in the Link Within for ages. (No, really. I love those things. I hate you for having them and gobbling up my short attention span, but I really do love them.)

Things I Dislike About Author Blogs

1.) Posts that are hard to comment on. I love to comment on posts. It lets the blogger know that I read what they had to say, and I enjoyed it. Some posts are just so hard to comment on. I sit there starring at the screen, struggling about what to write besides “Great post!” It’s always a lifesaver when questions are asked at the end of the post, making it super easy to comment.

2.) Posts about things completely unrelated to writing. It’s a writing blog after all. Sure, a little unrelated personal post here or there is all right. It's always good to share with readers. I don’t mind reading what’s up with personal life, but when it starts to become post after post about your cat, I just don’t care anymore. I want to read about your writing life, not personal life.

3.) Long posts. Unless every single line written is pure gold, I don’t want to read an extremely long blogpost. I simply don’t have the time. Make your point, make it hard, and make it quick. That’s why I‘m such a huge fan of lists in blogposts. You don’t even have to read the little blurbs after the point, because you get it the first time around.

Once again, thanks for having me Laura! I enjoyed being able to ramble and rant.

Thank you so much for sharing, Madeline! And because of your suggestion, notice I added that Link Within widget on my own blog.  Please check it out everyone.  It's very easy to install and makes your blog look awesome.

Did any of Madeline's comments surprise you? How does your own blog measure up? Have you added the Link Within widget? What are you waiting for?

Blog Awards

Last week I was honored to receive the Versatile Blogger award from Michelle Fayard of The Bird's Eye View. It's taken a week but I'm now ready to complete the rules.


Here are the rules for accepting this award:

1. Thank and link to the person who nominated you.
2. Pass the award on to five newfound blogging buddies. 
3. Share seven random facts about yourself.
4. Contact the winners to congratulate them.


I've met so many new amazing bloggers this past month and it was so very hard to pick five to pass this award on to, but here's who I finally settled on.

1. Sarah Pinneo I met Sarah at Querytracker (one of my obsessions) and always appreciated her comments there. Then her awesome blog's name Blurb is a Verb immediately drew me. Sarah's blog is a great companion to mine as she addresses publicizing of books, sharing tales from those who are already doing it.
2. Emily R. King Emily's blog is beautifully designed and easy to read.  I particularly like her Mentor Mondays where Emily highlights other bloggers. Speaking of which, I will be featured there myself on August 8th. You know you want to go check it out. It's a great one stop source of blogging and querying info. 
3. Madeline Bartos First, Madeline's teenage viewpoint is an asset to all of us old folk.  But more importantly, I adore Madeline's complete rants about everything she comes in contact with. At a young age, she does more right than a lot of more experienced bloggers.
4. The East Coaster I so admire the goal of the East Coaster to be published in a year. This blog spotlights the real inside journey of a year in the life of a querying and self-publishing author.  
5. Gennifer Albin Gen is another I met through Querytracker.  She's an experienced Mom-Blogger and it shows.  Her story from query to agent is AWESOME; ask her to tell it sometime.  Most exciting though is her blog's support to mommy writers through WraHM - Write at Home Moms.  See the badge over there to your right? I'm pretty sure her upcoming book is going to Rock the World. And she's cute and humble, too.  

Whew. That was hard.  Now for the seven random facts about myself:

1. I originally started out in acting and singing.  I got my BA in Musical Theater and had been accepted into the Master's program at the New School (you know, where they film Inside the Actor's Studio), but I got distracted by a boy. Who I later married. So it's all good. 
2. I'm an only child.  
3. I can't tell time on a digital clock.  True story.  I find it easier to judge how much time I have before something else by looking at the amount of pie that's left on the clock.  Like if I have to be somewhere at 10 and it's now 9:30, I see I have half a pie before I have to be wherever.  When I have a digital clock, I translate the time to pie amounts before I really grasp the time.
4. I also tell "time until" in tv show lengths.  So if I have a full day in the office, that's 8 hours of Lost.  Or my husband will be home in half an hour, that's 1 episode of How I Met Your Mother.  Or I only got 4 hours of sleep, that's 1 Breaking Bad, 1 Mad Men, 1 Walking Dead, and 1 Project Runway. Yeah, I might have a tv watching problem.
5. I'm always late. For everything. I wonder why.
6. I have three daughters, one dog, and a husband. My baby just turned two yesterday! Happy Birthday Emmalyn :) 
7. I am the music director for a church.  I oversee 6 choirs, and direct 5 of them: 2 adult choirs, a youth choir, a children's choir, and a bell choir.

So now you know more about me and the blogs I love lately.  Go check them out.