#WWoW!: @dochappycamper Asks What is a BlogHop and Why Do I Want to Be in One? #amwriting #MyWANA

Welcome to Tammy's Tidbits here on Writer's Words of Wisdom. The last time I visited with you I had told you I was taking a step back and re-prioritizing my world as a writer, publisher and veterinarian. I'm still working on paring things down to be more manageable—not overwhelming.

In that vein, I'd like to talk a bit about a networking tool for bloggers and by extension authors. For those of you who don't have a blog, you should get one up, or at the very least do guest spots on other blogs to get you, your brand and your books out in front of as many people as possible. I've already talked about blogs in other posts, so I won't go into that again in today's discussion about BLOG HOPS.

What is a blog hop?

It's an "event" where blog owners sign up with the link to their blog in order to share their content and network with other bloggers and gain more exposure for their work (blog or in our cases books). There's usually a common theme such as a specific holiday and is made up of bloggers/authors who write about similar topics or genres.

Do the participants have to write about the same topics or in the same genres or can anyone join?

The whole concept of the hop is to get more exposure and to network with like-minded individuals. As a romance author you wouldn't want to join a blog hop made up of mostly Sci-Fi or horror authors would you? Very few if any people interested in those genres would want to stop in to see your work. 

Bottom line: blog hops that are successful don't have a mishmash of participants. They have a common theme and topic/genre across the board in order to draw in as much response from those outside the networks. Their goal is to introduce new readers and followers to their work.

How long do hops generally last?

Usually only one day, but there are some that last as long as a week over a busy holiday season. I found that if a hop goes longer than three days, you end up not getting very much interaction or new visitors by the end of the event. The most response occurs over the first three days.

How do you join a hop?

The hosts of a hop will advertise on social media when they've opened up the sign up sheet for their hop. They'll also include all the rules, theme and if you're required to have a prize offered for those who visit your blog. It all depends on the hosts and what they wish to do, but some will also have a grand prize where the winner is drawn from the names of all the people who left comments on the various hops. The more stops you make, the more entries the "hoppers" get in the various giveaways.

The most common form to use as a sign up "sheet" is created using Linky Tools. I'll talk that more on another day, but in short it's a way to add your information to the sign up sheet. Linky Tools converts that to a clickable link that will show up in the blog list. This list will then be made available for all "hoppers" to click on to move from blog to blog.

What if I want to organize a hop but only include members of a specific group I participate in? Will this work?

No. You'll only reach a specific number of followers—the very same number you have now and no "new blood." As host, you'll want to give all participants the chance to broaden their fan base. You can't do that if you all share the same pool of readers and most of them are members of the group and yourself.

Now if your intent is to share only within the group and have a way for members to "hop" around between your member blogs, then YES this sort of blog hop would work but it won't bring you more outside traffic. You do this sort of hop using a "private" linky list. All of that is described on the Linky Tools page.

So go ahead and sign up for a hop and meet more bloggers and writers within your genre. Not only will you find authors new to you, you'll be introduced to many more potential fans as well. Get a few hops under your belt and maybe you'll want to host one for yourself!

Until next time,

~Tammy

Learn More About Tammy

Tammy Dennings Maggy is a best selling, multi-published poet and erotic romance author with Siren and Sassy Vixen Publishing. Her writing explores many facets of romance from ultimate betrayal to finding your soul mate. Her poetry serves as a companion to her novels and has inspired entire series all on their own. Tammy and her alter egos Lia Michaels and Stephanie Ryan and Tawny Savage make up the core authors at Sassy Vixen Publishing and together they've created the shared world series Temptations Resort. Look for the first books in that series to come out later this year.

Now happily married to her own Muse and soul mate, she continues to live her dream and act as secretary to all her characters demanding to have their stories told.

Check out:

Tammy's Website

Tammy's Blog

Tammy's Books on Bookstrand, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Smashwords,  and iTunes 

Sassy Vixen Publishing

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If you'd like to share your experiences in the publishing world, please contact us about setting up a guest appearance. We'd love to hear from you!

#WWoW! Holiday Hops! Authors: Join Now.

Looking for promotion opportunities this holiday season? There's a lot going on you can still get involved with. The holiday season is a great time to promote your books. Many readers are getting ready to take some time off and relax... with some good books. So get your books out in front of them!

Marketing for Romance Writers is hosting a holiday blog hop from December 13-15, 2013. Any author with a holiday-themed book is welcome. You have to be a member of MFRW but it's free to sign up and the benefits far surpass blog hops. SIGN UP HERE.

The Romance Studio hosts PARTIES. Authors can sign up, submit a blog post, join the contest and engage with readers. They have an actual party site so you draw from a new circle of potential readers.Their Christmas Party is from December 17-23, 2013. CHECK THEM OUT HERE.

Romance Beckons is hosting the Merry Mistletoe Blog Hop from December 20-23, 2013. All holiday-themed books or blog posts are welcome. SIGN UP HERE. No donation required. Each site is just asked to provide their own prize.

The Winter Spanks Blog Hop is being hosted by Spanking Romance Reviews. It runs from January 2-4, 2014 so it's a bit after the holidays but it gets to readers during that post-holiday hump. CLICK HERE to
Sign Up.

Okay, what are you waiting for? There's got to be at least one of these that suits you. Hurry! Get signed up and start promoting your books during this holiday season!

Paloma

WWoW!: @dochappycamper Shows You How to Use Static Pages to Your Advantage #blogging #MyWANA

Welcome to Tammy's Tidbits here at Writer's Words of Wisdom and my ongoing series on how to tailor your website/blog to your advantage.

This week I thought I'd focus on using static pages for more than just a list of your favorite links or your book covers. In May of this year, I participated in a blog hop hosted by the Four Seduced Muses. The Caliente Blog Hop ran from May 6th through May 10th. That's Monday through Friday. Five days where my continuous blogs would be "occupied" daily for the hop, OR I could still have my regular features on all of them AND still have a dedicated spot where folks who are only interested in the hop could go without having to wade through five or six days worth of posts. This was where I used the static pages to my advantage...and to yours.

Depending on what blog platform/host you use, the steps to set up the pages can be a little different than what I'm going to show you how to do today. Since I use both Wordpress and Blogger, those will be what I focus on in this post.

My main website and blog is Behind Closed Doors. It's on the free wordpress.com server but I purchased my domain name so the official URL is www.authortammydenningsmaggy.com.  The following description and photos will apply to this particular blog. If you go to the site, you will be taken to my landing page, or HOME. I made this static page my website. There you can see the navigating tabs at the top where you can find the Blog, My Poetry, my other sister blogs, guidelines, etc. It's in that menu I put the tab for visitors to find the Caliente Blog Hop page.

To get started in wordpress, click on DASHBOARD, then APPEARANCE, then PAGES, then ADD NEW.

Now you get a template page very similar to what you would normally see when writing a general post for your blog. Set it up as you desire even with a scheduled date and time for it to go live. You can post it immediately if you wish, but for my purposes, I made it the first day of the hop.

Now go to DASHBOARD and then MENU. You'll see a page like the following.

Do you see the boxes next to the pages there in the middle of the screen shot? Those are where you can check off to choose what pages you wish to include in the menu. You can have many pages set up and not easily accessed with the menu tabs. These stay "hidden" until you provide the link for folks to access them. I did that with my Now and Forever Series tab. There you will find blurbs of my books and also links to the first chapter of each one. You can only access the first chapter pages by that link.

Now in the right column of the screen shot above, you see the list of items in my menu that will appear at the top of the Behind Closed Doors website/blog. I can move the order around with the idea of giving the Caliente Blog Hop tab greater visibility. I will have it at the end, so it will show up as the last tab and easily accessible. Now at any point during the blog hop, people can visit that page simply by clicking on the tab in the menu at the top. If they wish, they can also tour around my site and check out the other guests I'll have on my blog during the hop.

For Blogger, the steps are a little different but a bit easier than with Wordpress. Click on DESIGN at the top right of your blog, then PAGES, then ADD NEW.

Go ahead and create the page the way you want it to look. The photo above is taken from my alter ego Stephanie Ryan's blog. She'd participated in the Caliente Blog Hop too. ;-)

After you have the page the way you want it, go ahead and publish it. Don't worry, you'll be able to change the status of it in a moment.

See how Stephanie's Caliente Hop page is listed in the page menu? Here is where you can change the status of the page by reverting it to draft. That way it keeps it "hidden" until you're ready for it to go live. You will have to go in there and publish it manually as blogger doesn't have a way to schedule the pages at specific dates and times like Wordpress does. Here's what the dashboard looks like when you revert the page to draft.

Why have a separate static page in order to participate in blog hops? 

Well, I used to do a new post every single day of the hop I was participating in and found that the first day or two got the best response, but then only a few folks came back daily. So I thought I would take that to heart, and just have one dedicated page to the hop and go about my regular blog business at the same time. Now that I have three pen names to manage, this is the best option for me. I can enjoy the hops and continue to promote myself, my pen names and fellow authors.  Also if you end up participating in hops that overlap or occur at the same time, this allows you to have a separate page for each one and still be able to keep the visitors and their contest entries separate from each other.

So go on. Set up pages for blog hops, your own contests, or even a store to sell your books. That's my next project for the Sassy Vixen Publishing website! Enjoy!


Until next time...
~Tammy