Easy as A, B, C . . . from BB
In this electronic age, more and more ways of drumming up business are available to today’s writers. In fact, they’re not just available, they’re all but required. We can use blogs, tweets, Facebook contacts, Good Reads reviews, Pinterest posts, etc. And each comes with its own “language.” One of my computer-savvy writing buddies, Charlene Raddon, has kindly put together a “vocabulary” of blogging items. Amazing, the things we writers need to know about these days! You may find these helpful:
BLOGGING TERMS
Author Interview: An interview of an author conducted by the blog owner. Questions are usually sent to the author by the blog owner, the author answers them and sends them back by email. Authors can be contacted directly or through a publicity agent. Contact information usually is found on the author’s website. Authors can approach a blog owner and request an interview.
Advance Reader Copy: An Advance Reader Copy (ARC) is an unedited version of a book provided to booksellers, journalists, book bloggers, etc. Usually distributed three to six months before a book’s official release.
ARC Tour: An ARC tour or a traveling ARC tour is a promotional tool used by promotion companies, authors or publishers to get a book reviewed and to promote titles. A tour host site (such as Goddess Fish) puts out a call for book bloggers interested in reviewing a book and hosting the author on their blog. There are usually regulations that bloggers must follow to participate. The first blogger is sent the ARC, with a certain time limit allowed to read the ARC and send it on to the next blog on the list and so on. In the world of legacy publishers, ARCs can be made available 3-6 months early. Not so with digital publishing and small press. Electronic publishing times are usually faster than print, so there’s little time to provide an ARC before publication.
Blog Tour or Virtual Blog Tour: Blog tours are hosted by promotional tour sites or a publisher, similar to an ARC tour except that reviews aren’t required. Blog tour posts can consist of everything from an author interview, guest post, giveaway, chapter excerpt, book trailer, etc. Participants (book bloggers) are invited by the host site or the publisher. Tours can last anywhere from a few weeks to a few months.
Guest Post: A post written by another blogger, author, friend, etc., for your blog. Sometimes a guest post is used as part of a blog tour. The topic of the post can be decided by the host blog, or the guest participant.
Klout: A measurement of online influence (don’t ask me how Klout is measured).
Meme: “An idea, behavior or style that spreads from person to person…” according to Wiki. Memes within the book blogging world have evolved and changed to better benefit the blogging platform. For book bloggers, memes have become synonymous with networking and sharing content. Bloggers invite people to link to, pass around, and participate in ideas/features. Examples of book blogging memes; Top Ten Tuesday, Waiting on Wednesday & In My Mailbox.
Monetize: To convert something into money. Monetizing one’s blog usually involves setting up advertisements.
Review Request: A request to have a book reviewed sent by an author or a publisher to a blogger who offers reviews.
SEO: Search Engine Optimization. According to Wiki, SEO “is the process of improving the visibility of a website or a web page in search engines via the “natural” or un-paid (“organic” or “algorithmic”) search results.” (Don’t ask me to explain this either)
Tags: Words used in a search engine to help people find your blog
Twitter: A social networking tool, like Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest, etc. Twitter allows users to send and to read text-based posts up to 140 characters in length to followers.
Vlog: Video + blogging = Vlogging.
Widget: Fancy little tools added to sidebars, such as Facebook widgets, “Buy link” widgets, etc.
Have questions about writing (grammar, punctuation, getting published, etc.)? Brenda Bensch, M.A., a teacher of multiple decades’ experience in Utah’s university/high school/community ed. classrooms (English, fiction/non-fiction writing, study skills, drama, humanities, debate, etc.), invites you to “Ask The Teacher” at http://BenschWensch.wordpress.com
See you day-after-tomorrow for Thursday’s 13
The ABC Writers Guild 