Tag Archives: Romance Writing

Here to Stay #MFRWAuthor

Last month the Internet bristled with discussions of the 50 Shades movie. So many wanted to express their opinion on the effect that movie might have on the morals of the general population. Opinions are wonderful, we all have them and fortunately so far we have the right to express said opinions.

Except I heard a few too many references meant to be ‘cute,’ which disparaged romance books. “Suitable for a Mills and Boon” “Reads like a Harlequin romance” and several more allusions to the poor writing of genre books, in particular Romance. Funny, I hear few if any remarks about the unreality of murders being solved by the local florist. Or any mockery for super charged super hero loner adventurer billionaire sharpshooters. Yet these books are devoured at a great rate. Not as great as Romance but…

I’ve been around Romance writers for, oh dear, almost thirty years. I’ve heard the same mockery countless times. Even the publication by the University of Pennsylvania Press of the Dangerous Men and Adventurous Women: Romance Writers on the Appeal of the Romance did not stem the tide of mockery. Just a few days ago a cover artist referred to Romance books as “trashy,” explaining that they’re not ‘high literature.’

Which is a shame since we know not only is Romance the hottest genre, Romance writers are some of the best trained, most supportive writers around. More to the point: Love stories have been around since before the written word, and will be here long after we have spread ourselves out into the Universe. The story of people meeting and being willing to take a chance on their future is timeless.

Romance is here to stay.

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Filed under Promotion, Romance Writing

So…Triberr

Triberr is in some ways the final stop on our journey to better self promotion.  It’s also one of the niftiest ways to help ourselves and each other build our platforms. The real beauty of Triberr is the ease of operation. Once you’re set up, it’s mostly a matter of stopping by to help your fellow tribe mates into the Twitter stream.

Step one is your blog which you’ve written to be not too long, of general interest, and interesting enough to grab people’s attention.  Step two is your participation in Twitter , which you can use as a route to Triberr and also as a networking aid all on its own.  Step three is Triberr, where your blog, which has been linked to Twitter, will now be forwarded by as many people who know people who know people on Triberr.

BLOG—TWITTER—TRIBERR

Which means what, you’re no doubt wondering.  Well, I have today 1,357 Twitter users following me, or at least they have me in their “follow” section. A fair number of people but not really enough to help much with sales or promotion. Through Triberr, and my nine tribes and 128 tribe mates, my “reach” is now 289,399 potential readers.  Kind of impressive, don’t you think? Especially considering four of those tribes have the same six people (which happens as you’re building your tribes.)

So now, instead of having to publish all over Facebook and my discussion groups “Hey, look, I did a BLOG,” all I have to do is let my blog publish into Twitter, and through Twitter to my Triberr stream, where if I want I can spiffy up the title a bit more, and it will be moved “upstream” through the efforts of my tribe mates, whose blogs I push upstream when I visit once or twice a day.

Winter’s coming, time to hunker down and write

To be a good tribe mate, you do need to visit at least once every couple days and once a day is better.  You sign in, then go to “Tribal Stream” and approve blogs from your tribe mates.  You have the option not to approve if for some reason you don’t agree with the subject matter, but in general the bloggers who have made the effort to link to Triberr through Twitter write well enough you generally don’t have to worry.

Through Triberr I’ve found blogs I would never normally have found and it seems others have the same experience since I’m getting new followers every week, many of whose names are totally new to me.  The best tribes have rules about what you should write, how you should format your titles, and how often you should help promote. For example, once this blog shows up in “my posts” I’ll be changing the title to ‘Mona Reveals Triberr Secrets’ then I’ll add some hashtags like #writing #Triberr and maybe #romance, since that is what Mona writes.

To the question of, is Triberr worth setting up, then following arbitrary rules? I’d have to say absolutely yes, Triberr is more than worth the time and effort to get set up, and to spend a little time every day helping others who are helping you.

On future Mondays I’ll be sharing some of the great blogs I come across or maybe information I’ve picked up along the way. And I’ll be fleshing out some of the information I’ve shared so far as I learn more.  If anyone has any blogs they’d like to reference please do.  Even though I spend far more time than I should reading blogs I never find all the good ones.  With Winter coming up awfully fast we’re all going to be needing more to read.

I’d hoped to have a link here to the Black Opal Books Author Blog, where I reveal how I ended up with a writing alter ego but it’s not up yet so I’ll do that another time.

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