Are we women or are we chickens?

I know there are way more important things in the world to get upset about, but sometimes little things can really get under my skin. My latest pet peeve is the term “hen lit”. Have you heard this term? It’s used to describe books aimed at older women. Here’s a nice description by someone who does a better job at explaining these sort of things.

It comes from the term chick lit, which to tell you the truth I was never crazy about anyway. Chick Lit, in case you’ve spent the past decade or so living in a cave is fiction that centers on young women of which Sex in the City is a pretty good example. No not all chick lit is Sex in the City, some of it’s way more complex and some of it’s way more vapid. Generally, though, these are light-hearted fun books. They’re not really my cup of tea and for some reason whenever I heart the term Chick Lit I translate it to Chiclet which makes me think of that gum my grandmother always had at her house.

Still, there was always something cute and fun about the term Chick Lit. Plus Chick sounds like Chic which is a good thing, and since most of the characters in Chick Lit books are all about being Chic it sort of works. There is something slightly demeaning about the term if you think about it too much, but these aren’t books you are supposed to think about too much anyway.

But now I am seeing the term Hen Lit all over the place and it is really, really annoying me. It’s a stupid term. It doesn’t really fit the type of books, and when I hear the term all I can think of are, well, hens.

The term Hen Lit doesn’t make me think of gum. It doesn’t make me think of French words that describe the act of being stylish and trendy. The term only makes me think of a bunch of not very intelligent birds ambling about in some farmyard. It’s hard for me to not see the term as demeaning and a put down to the books that it describes, which again, for the record, I don’t usually read, but still it seems like these books deserve better.

So, here’s a challenge to you, if not the dreaded Hen Lit, what should we call these books?

Fasten your seatbelts

This is just a warning that I am working on a few website modifications and things might get a bit bumpy and look a bit strange around here the next couple of days.

The Versatile Blogger Award

Angie over at Daydream Believer was kind enough to award me The Versatile Blogger Award. There are a few rules with this one, but I’m a rebel and I might bend a few of them.

The first rule is to link back to the blogger who gave me this award. The link to Angie’s blog is above, but in case you missed it, click here to visit Daydream Believer. Like me Angie is a reader and a writer. Well, I think it’s a rule that all writers have to be readers, too! Anyway, if you have a chance please stop by her blog and say hi.

The second rule is that I need to share seven things about myself. I always have trouble with these lists so to make it even harder on myself I have decided to make mine a numerically based list. What does that mean? Well it looks like this:

One, the number of siblings I have.

Two, grade I was in when I decided I wanted to be a writer.

Three, the number of names I have. The middle one is Carin.

Four, the number of pets I have.

Five, the number of kilometers I ran regularly in high school. (Astute readers might be able to figure out that I was on the cross country team.)

Six, the number of places I have worked, not counting temporary jobs or really, really short-lived ones.

Seven, the number of cars I have owned.

Okay, now that my brain was officially fried coming up with those seven things, it’s time for the third rule, which says that I need to pass this on to 15 bloggers. This is where I plan on doing some big time bending. I mean, if I’m listing 7 things about myself, wouldn’t it make more sense to list 7 recipients? Especially if my brain is already fried from coming up with those seven things about myself? Yeah, that’s what I thought too. So here, in no particular order are 7 versatile bloggers worth checking out:

1. My virtual world and real world friend Sam.

2. The newly agented and kayak-rolling Terry Lynn Johnson*.

3. Fellow story lady and 2011 debut Kathy McCullough.

4. Reader, writer and fellow 2011 debut and fellow Fluxian (or whatever the appropriate adjective is to describe authors whose books are published by Flux) Medeia Sharif.

5. Another one of those reader and writer types, Heather McCorkle at Heather’s Odyssey.

6. Writer and reader Paul Greci whose nature-inpired writing advice posts are always a delight.

7. . . . and finally, YOU! That’s right, if you are reading this consider yourself awarded.

To take part, feel free to write your own blog award post and bend these rules any way you see fit.

* Terry is also a 2011 debut, but as I believe I mentioned my brain is fried and I couldn’t figure out a way to work that in without it sounding too clunky.

The strange case of book promotion

Today I am welcoming writer Jeff Widmer who shares his knowledge about how to use social media to promote your book. Jeff Widmer is a writer, editor and mentor. The author of The Spirit of Swiftwater, he works for marketing agency swb&r in Bethlehem, Pa. Jeff and I will be panelists together along with author Gloria Mallette at the Monroe County Book Expo.

The strange case of book promotion

by Jeff Widmer

For many writers, the publishing business resembles the Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde: It presents ahandsome face during creation and a monster after that. Once we’ve experienced the passion of writing, the rest seems like a slog through the dark alleys of Edinburgh.

The rest, of course, is called marketing.

Some people believe the latter has gotten easier with the advent of social networks. But a Twitter account is like a handbill in an alley at night: if you can’t drive traffic to it, few people will see the message, let alone pass it on to others.

That means whether the work is published by you, a university or a commercial house, marketing is still a challenge that requires a dose of strategy, a lot of time and a bit of luck. With apologies to Robert Louis Stevenson for the liberty I’ve taken with his theme, here are three areas to consider when tacking the job.

Traditional networks
By far the best way to promote your work is to take charge of the process. Consider yourself a business and marketing an essential part. Create a plan and a budget. Then you can:

· Work with your publisher’s publicity department. Help write the release. Go on tour with other writers.
· Hire your own publicist. It’s expensive but might pay if the publicist can put you on TV.
· Do it yourself. Distribute releases, schedule signings and submit articles to trade publications. Make presentations to professional and civic organizations. Position yourself as an expert source in your field. Sign up for Help a Reporter Out. HARO connects journalists with sources. Register for free daily e-mail messages.

Digital networks
Create a brand for you and your work by creating:

· A website with your name as the domain name.
· A blog on that site. A cheaper alternative: create a blog with free software like WordPress.
· Video interviews for your own YouTube channel.
· Book-related photos for sites like Flickr.

Social networks
According to consumer measurement service Nielsen, social networks and blogs now account for one in every four-and-a-half minutes online. And three of the world’s most popular brands online are social-media related—Facebook, YouTube and Wikipedia. (The most popular? Google.)

Joining the conversation has become de rigueur for writers. Unfortunately, establishing an account on Twitter and Facebook doesn’t guarantee followers. You have to cross-promote your brand, using one network—traditional, digital or social—to promote the others.

Some suggestions:

· Post updates about your writing process, your characters or your life to all of your sites—blog, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Bebo, Orkut, Tumblr, Flickr, YouTube and others.
· Post interviews with authors on your blog.
· Invite other writers to guest-post on your blog, and ask them to return the favor.
· Comment on websites and blogs and link comments to website or blog.
· Establish a community on a free site like Live Journal or a paid site like Ning and encourage visitors to post their own material.
· Use a service like Twitterfeed to automatically feed your blog posts to Twitter.
· Use applications that port your Twitter feed to Facebook and LinkedIn.
· Use a dashboard like TweetDeck to monitor social media from a single screen.

That should help you keep Mr. Hyde in harness.

Video contest update

I had some technical difficulties with my funny ladies video contest (sorry, Christina, but I can’t get that file to open!) so Em, you are the winner! I can’t seem to embed the video here, but if you want to see a great little commercial spoof click here. I guarantee you that it will bring a smile to your face this Monday morning with no scary side effects.

Funny authors

Love this:

Book-related humor

It’s been a busy week, even though it is only Tuesday, but I don’t want to completely neglect the blog. However I am tired and not feeling witty or creative. So instead here’s some book-related humor that came by way of an email forward from my father:

Confucius say, “If you are in a bookstore and cannot find the book for which you search, you are obviously in the . . .

What I’ve read over the past 2 weeks

For awhile now,  I’ve been trying to keep up with participating in a weekly group blog in which we all share what we’ve read over the past week. Well, being busy I missed last week’s blog, and then today turned out to be pretty busy as well. So, I am just now getting around to getting something posted.

In light of this, I think instead of trying to post a weekly summary, going forward I’ll just try to highlight what I’ve been reading one book at a time.

In the past two weeks I’ve read . . .

two very different graphic novels: French Milk by Lucy Kinsley which is a sort of travelogue done as a graphic novel and (Tammy Pierce is) Unlovable by Esther Pearl Watson which was based on a teenager’s diary from the 1980s that was found in a gas station bathroom, and that description alone was enough to make me pick this one up – I was glad I did;

two very different young adult novels Stop in the Name of Pants by Louise Rennison part of the ongoing Georgia Nicolson series which is loaded with hilariosity and Handcuffs by Bethany Griffin which is a much more serious novel about love and obsession that would make for a great book discussion. I also thought the bit about the blogger who bullies her classmate was very topical and lends itself to additional discussion questions.

Right now, I am in the midst of reading a short story anthology filled with post-apocalyptic stories, Wastelands edited by John Joseph Adams and listening to the audio book of Zeitoun by Dave Eggers.

What are you reading?

It’s group blog time once again, It’s Monday What Are You Reading? is hosted by Sheila at One Person’s Journey Through a World of Books.

Most of the reading I’ve done this week has been off of a computer screen, and it’s been stuff that I’ve written as well as the revision notes on what I’ve written, none of which really lends itself to a book review.

The only books I made it through were Jeff Vandermeer’s wonderful guide for authors, Booklife: Strategies and Survival Tips for the 21st -Century Writer which was filled with all sorts of helpful advice and wonderfully strange graphic novel called Percy Gloom by Cathy Malkasian.

I began and was quickly sucked into Hush, Hush by Becca Fitzpatrick, which has provided some much needed escape from things.

Booklife: Strategies and Survival Tips for the 21st -Century Writer

I’ve read some books with marketing tips before, but they either seemed too dated or not something that would help much with my own journey as a writer, but Jeff Vandermeer (it’s always nice to reading a writing tips book by an author I actually know) has succeeded in writing a book filled with relevant advice. The section covering the writing life in general was less helpful perhaps, but did give me a you are not alone sort of feeling. I love the fact that in order to get writing done he would have his wife hide the phone and the internet router in the morning before she left for work. Anyway, for anyone who is at the stage in their writing journey where they are starting to think about book marketing do yourself a favor and get your hands on a copy of Booklife.

Percy Gloom

This graphic novel by Cathy Malkasian was both bizarre and beautiful. The title character is a strange, little man who goes off to follow his dream of being a cautionary writer, but then gets sidetracked by a few different adventures along the way. It’s all set in a world that is a bit off from our own world and has the feel of a modern, though very weird, fairy tale. It was a quick one-sitting sort of read.

What’s next?

I hesitate to commit myself to anything because I’m not sure what my reading week will hold. I do plan on being on the road a bit so will probably get through an audio book or two in the next week, and, of course, I am expecting to finish up Hush, Hush soon.

What about you, what have you been reading?

Why you should use Google Analytics

If you have a blog or website, and are interested in keeping track of the traffic that visits your site Google has a wonderful FREE (Isn’t there some rule that says that the word “free” must be written all in caps? I’m pretty sure there is, but I’m too lazy to get up and consult Strunk and White.) tool. Google Anayltics tells you who is visiting your site and how long they spend there and which pages they visit. There are all sort of pretty graphs and charts and things, most of which I don’t entirely understand.

But the number one reason you should use Google Analytics is that you can find out what search terms are bringing people to your website. Without Google Analytics, how would I know that one of the top search terms that bring folks to this website is, “poems about making a deal with the devil”. Well, I don’t know about you, but I certainly feel enriched by that bit of random data.

I feel like I should do something with this valuable marketing information, but I have know idea what to do with it. Do you use Google Analytics? What is the weirdest search term that has brought people to your web site?