I am excited to announce that the final installment of my Next Move, You're Dead Trilogy titled Erebus,  is about ready to be sent to the Beta Readers!  This has been a long, hard road, but I know everyone will enjoy the outcome.

I plan to hold a contest to give one lucky reader a FREE copy of the ENTIRE Trilogy each week, so stay turned for how to win!

Why You Might Be Breaking Facebook Rules and not know it By: Lili Tufel

Thank you so much, Linda for inviting me to be your first guest blogger. I am truly honored. Linda and I met while we were both indie publishing our first novel. She went on to publish again and continues to write regularly. I’ve taken a different path. I started a new business, Tufel Media. I still consider myself a writer and will always write because it’s embedded in my genes, yet I’ve not published my second novel and my writing has slowed quite a bit. After some reflection, I realized that this one thing, the business of writing books doesn’t define me. I have an entrepreneurial spirit, a sales background, a love for teaching. I’m a mom. I homeschooled my kids.  I continue to teach at my church. I helped manage a company that was sold to an e-commerce business for millions of dollars. I’m a Realtor and have listed and sold a million-dollar-home in nine days. There are so many other elements that make me who I am. Social Media is second nature to me. I found that because I was able to navigate social networks with ease, I could help others who were struggling. After trying to help a few business owners, I found that they’d rather pay me to do the work for them. And that’s how Tufel Media began.

At Tufel Media, it’s our business to stay ahead of the trends, stay on top of rules and regulations and know all the dos and don’ts. Today, I’m going to go over some Facebook rules for fan pages. This doesn’t apply to personal Facebook pages. Personal Facebook pages are intended for personal use. If you look under “Statement of Rights and Responsibilities” under “Registration and Account Security” it states, “You will not use your personal timeline primarily for your own commercial gain, and will use a Facebook Page for such purposes.”

Here’s why you might be breaking Facebook Rules and not know it:

Under “Facebook Pages Terms”

Covers may not include:

i.    images with more than 20% text;

ii.    price or purchase information, such as "40% off" or "Download it on socialmusic.com";

iii.    contact information such as a website address, email, mailing address, or information that should go in your Page's "About" section;

iv.    references to Facebook features or actions, such as "Like" or "Share" or an arrow pointing from the cover photo to any of these features; or

v.    calls to action, such as "Get it now" or "Tell your friends."

Did you know that cover images can not include more than 20% text? Is your cover photo compliant?

Be sure to follow me on Facebook.com/TufelMedia where I will be posting a series of helpful tips on how to make sure you have 20% text on your cover photos. Also, check out our blog at TufelMedia.com/blog for more helpful hints. Here’s a post on how to prepare for Facebook’s latest “Graph Search” by editing your privacy settings: http://tufelmedia.com/2013/01/25/getting-ready-for-graph-search-on-facebook-privacy/

I’d love to hear from you. Follow me on Twitter:

@Lili_tufel

Check out my Bestselling book SAND: The Colonel’s Daughter on Amazon US and Amazon UK.

I am excited to announce that Lili Tufel of Tufel Media will be joining me on Monday, January 28, 2013 as a special guest blogger.  She has graciously agreed to share ideas on how we can improve our social media presence to help with reaching followers and potential customers.

As stated on her website, Tufel Media.com: Social Media is the most effective way to acquire highly targeted customers.

Are you a busy professional who recognizes the importance of social media, but simply don’t have the time?

Tufel Media helps you establish a brand presence on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Instagram, Pinterest, LinkedIn and many more.

We help you build a social media empire by creating and managing accounts for you with fans/followers.

I don’t know about you, but I can always use information on how to attract followers for my writing business.  We put so much time and effort into our businesses, be it writing books or running a small retail business and with today’s new social media, we have the opportunity to reach more people than ever before.

I know Lili will have some great pointers for us, so I hope you’ll come back and learn some great ideas to help you improve you social media presence.

Lili is also the bestselling author of the thriller SAND: The Colonel's Daughter available on Amazon.

As I got out of my bed this morning, I found myself consumed with a feeling of pure contentment and peace.  I know you probably wonder what special thing happened to bring about my mood, but to be honest it was just my life and the joy I have living it.  So many times, we find ourselves caught up in the everyday drudgery that we forget to stop and just enjoy the simplest things.  Like the way the dew sparkles like diamonds on the grass as it’s kissed by the sun for those first moments, or how the animals scurry about in search for their morning meal.  Too often, we forget to stop and enjoy these simplest pleasures of life.

Being an indie writer can distract you from those pleasures.  You find yourself so caught up in the lives of your characters that you sometimes forget to live your own life.  Then you add all the long hours for editing, formatting, and promoting that soon this career choice has selfishly consumed every hour of your day.  So, why would someone choose to write?  In spite of what everyone may believe, it’s not for the riches or fame because I have yet to see either.  No, it is for something much simpler.  You see, a writer has to write because we have a story inside of us begging to be told.  Some have a great love story, others a terrifying book of monsters or vampires while writes such as myself, love to spin a tale of thrills and suspense.

Therefore, tomorrow morning when you climb out of your warm, cozy bed take a moment to look outside and enjoy those simple pleasures that life has to offer because before you know it your life will be over and you would have missed it all.

Hello,

Linda L Barton-Indie Writer here and I’m ready to jump into the World of Blogging with everyone else.  So, let me see, where do I start?  I guess a good place would be to tell you why I write, and the reason I chose my genre.

I had a friend ask my once why I write and I had to admit the question stumped me for a few moments, but then it came to me.  Since the dawn of time mankind has loved to tell stories; from the cave man carving his tales of the Great Hunt on the walls of his cave to the great authors of today who have a story burning deep inside of them with the need to be told.  Now, I'm not trying to say that I'm a great author, but I do have stories inside of me that I love to share with readers.  I've tried to write Romance and SciFi, but I soon learned I love to write dark and twisted stories were the reader loses themselves in my world and begins to question their own reality.

My debut book was Next Move, You're Dead. When I was ready to publish for the first time I sent it to an ex-publisher who specializes in helping first time authors.  I had read his newsletter for months as I finished my book, so when it was time to take the next step I sent him part of my manuscript to see what he thought.  While he told me that he enjoyed it, he also told me that I hadn't followed the proper rules in laying out my story plot.  While I was thankful for his feedback, the suggestions he offered not only completely changed my story, but also took all the mystery and surprise out of it for the reader.  Therefore, I decided to take the chance and believe in the story as it was written.  You see, that's what's great about being an Indie Writer. We make the decision on what to write and publish, so if it's a failure we have only ourselves to blame, but if it's a success....well, then it's time to do the Happy Dance and grin like a damn fool.  So, while I haven't written a New York Best Seller yet, I have written a few books readers seem to enjoy and with the help of my friends "the voices", I'll write many more.

So, welcome to my little blog and I hope you drop by often to see what crazy stuff I'm up to and hopefully you’ll leave me a comment.