Internet Etiquette: “Netiquette” #MissMannersIsWatching

I grew up in a world without computers, cell phones, Internet of any kind unless you count short wave radio; not even calculators. We had telephones with long, curled wires to allow us to move around in the kitchen when we talked on the phone or, during my teenage years, a wire long enough to take the phone in the closet for private conversations away from the big ears of my parents. The only conference calls we had was on phone extensions if you lived in a house with more than one phone or had a phone with a party line (more than one household using the same line.) Etiquette was fairly easy back then: answer the phone politely, ask who is calling, whoever called was the one to end the call (etiquette according my dad) and too bad if they wanted to talk on and on, and ending a call was also to be polite. Some families answered the phone by a greeting and then announcing the surname of the family. (example: Hello, this is the McNeal Residence, may I help you?)

Well, things have changed. First there was e-mail. No one knew what the rules were in the beginning, so it was an anything goes situation. My first publisher was considered innovative for offering e-books. An author’s book had to make a certain sales amount before the book was published in paperback. There was no “Publish On Demand” back then so the publisher had to curtail the cost involved with paperbacks by selecting only those authors who had proven their worth. (I wasn’t one of them.) Keep in mind this was before Amazon changed the world with Kindle. Good luck finding anything to read those e-books from other than a computer. What a drag. Anyway, like most publishers there was a private e-mail line for authors and publishers. Since there was no established etiquette for e-mail, people said whatever they wanted. I remember the day some of the authors were perturbed with how the publisher was handling things and complained about the lack of communication between the authors and the publisher. Things got heated. When I say heated, I mean scorch your eyes out heated. The publisher was as rude and antagonistic as the authors. In the end, the authors left en mass demanding the rights to their work back. I was so disturbed by the way all of this was handled by the publisher on a public forum even though I did not participate, that I quietly waited for my contracts to end and snuck out the back door. The once reputable and innovative publisher still exists today, but is a tattered, pale relic of its former glory after this rude behavior on a public forum.

Yahoo groups were once very popular. Authors and readers gathered into these groups to share ideas and excerpts and converse. There were times when people behaved badly even though, by then, groups published rules for on line behavior. Some excerpts posted contained very descriptive sex scenes and covers that left nothing to the imagination. Yahoo has made it next to impossible to post covers other than in attachments and yahoo groups have given notice that all excerpts must have a rating. Good news since there are some young people in those groups.

Since Facebook made its way to the public it has become a great platform for writers, but once again, the lack of etiquette has caused some problems. We call them trolls, those anonymous people who join a conversation and feel free to say degrading and negative things, call people names, and then disappear. But there are other abuses to etiquette on Facebook mostly due to a lack of understanding the correct behavior in this public forum.

Have you ever had another author blatantly use your Facebook page to advertise their work? Usually they do this when they are either accepting a friend request or thanking you for accepting their friend request—and then you wish you hadn’t when the cover of their latest book and buy tags show up with that thank you. Then there are those who post a thank you sometimes with a giant picture on your post instead of using private messaging. This is particularly annoying if you’ve just posted something on your page. I don’t usually do anything about this kind of post because I don’t think it’s intentionally meant to cause discord. Friend requests are sometimes from people believing somehow that Facebook is a dating site. Ugh!

Twitter is popular, but I have noticed people are quite free with their rude and indelicate remarks on this platform, especially regarding politics and opinions. I’m still getting the hang of hash tags so I’m not a Twitter expert, but I still recognize bad behavior and etiquette. But from what I’ve seen, Twitter almost invites poor etiquette.


So what are some actual rules about etiquette, or I should say, Netiquette? I did some research and here are a few rules I found for proper behavior on line:

1.  Use simple electronic signatures are enough

2.  Do not cross post (post the same message over many channels)

3.  Stay on topic

4.  Do not hijack a thread (my pet peeve)

5.  Do not bash someone or start a flame war

6.  Try not to use all caps because it may look like you’re shouting

7.  Since expression and tone are absent, be sure you make your intent known. Use an emoticon to show your expression or intent or employ an abbreviation such as LOL (laugh out loud) or BRB (be right back), etc.

8.  Minor misspellings or mistakes do not need your comment. If it is a major error, make your comment using basic courtesy or by private message (which is what I would prefer.)

9.  This is a personal peeve of mine: when you make a friend request, please don’t let your next request be for them to like your page. It gives the impression it was your sole purpose for the friend request instead of a common interest or belief.

10.  Above all, be kind.

    

For further reading about Netiquette:

Zen and the Art of the Internet:

http://www.cs.indiana.edu/docproject/zen/zen-1.0_6.html#SEC44

Matthew Strawberg’s Webblog 2009  The rules of netiquette

Sarah J. McNeal

Diverse stories filled with heart

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THE THREE 'C's

There are three 'Cs' in my life at the moment. The three are Cats, Colorado and Creativity. I'm sure if I took the time, I'd find more, but these three will do for now.

Cats! I love cats, always have and probably always will. As I sit here writing, I can look up at a photo my mother sent me. I was about two years old at the time. Our dog is lying on his back looking up at me. I am holding not one, not two but three cats in my short, two year old arms. I loved out dog, a collie mix, but the cats were something special to me. Even today I have two that share the house with me. Gabriel came to me because the wife of his owner got mad because he scratched their three year old. Of course my thought was, teach you child how to be around cats. But I was the winner. Gabe is so special, easy going and so loving. Of course he is primarily a black cat. (Did I say, I love black cats?).

Gabriella came to me from a co-worker. She was from a litter and no one would take this sweet little black kitten. Since I had an eighteen year old at the time, I knew Gabe would be alone soon. As a result, I took Gabby in and she soon was ruling the roost. She lives life on her own terms, and sticks to it. Still, she and Gabe manage and both bring me a lot of joy.

Gabe on the left, Gabby on the right

Colorado! I've talked about my adopted state many times. I look out my windows and see the mountains. Pikes Peak is always in view, except for those few cloudy days. And speaking of cloudy days, we get very few of those. We average over 300 days a year where the sun shines at some point during the day. 

I also am enamored of the history of the state, and the region I live in. While many areas were settled by people who were 'leaving' for reasons wide and varied, Colorado was settled because the people wanted to be here. Usually it was for the mineral that came out of the ground. What most may not know, Colorado was a large volcanic plateau. Pikes Peak is not a volcano, it is solid granite, but a lot of the area around the peaks were very active. That activity created the minerals, gold, silver, gemstones and more, that brought so many to this region. Also the clear, dry climate was a haven for health seekers even as the gold seekers were heading to the mountains. 

Pikes Peak seen from the Northeast

Creativity!  As I've moved from my first and second career, I decided I would try writing. I love telling stories, you could have asked my mother when she was alive, of the validity of that statement. What most may not know, I've always had creativity as a focus in my life. 

I started performing for audiences when two and a half. I've always sang. I started playing the piano at five, and sometimes still sit at the keyboard. Unfortunately the piano I inherited from the lady who raised my mother was destroyed by the flood. I've written plays, music and even recorded, both as an actor and musician. Yes, I've done film, even directed a short movie. I've taught acting and worked as a semi- and professional actor. 

Helen (Hunt) Jackson at Seven Falls

All these 'Cs' fuel my life and my determination to keep doing what I love. There are other 'Cs' and more, but the three I mentioned are at the forefront of what is happening in my life now.

What is your focus? What fuels your life? What makes you happy? That's the joy of life. We all have those things that make getting up in the morning worthwhile.

ALSO: If you have been following, you know that Prairie Rose Publications and its imprints are now doing a themed 'blog a book scene' marketing tool.  If you are not on the Yahoo Group, just watch Twitter for the hashtag #blogabookscene and if you see it, retweet it. Check with Kaye Spencer if you wish to know more. 

Thus ends my first Sunday blog post for Prairie Rose Publications in 2018. It's a great venue to get your name and work/passion out there. We can all grow if we support each other. Life changes, but friends can be forever.

Doris Gardner-McCraw -

Author, Speaker, Historian-specializing in
Colorado and Women's History

Member of National League of American Pen Women,

Women Writing the West,

Pikes Peak Posse of the Westerners

Angela Raines - author: Where Love & History Meet

For a list of Angela Raines Books: Here 

Photo and Poem: Click Here 

Angela Raines FaceBook: Click Here

TWITTER-pated, Part 2

This is my second completely unofficial tutorial on using Twitter. These ideas are what works for me. If you haven’t read TWITTER- pated– Part 1 which was posted on the Fire Star Press blog on October 16, 2015, you may access it by clicking HERE.

In Part 1, I touched on hashtags  (#). I put a hashtag in front of FireStarPress – all one word with no spaces – to “file” the tweet under that name. I do the same with Prairie Rose Publications. It is the same concept as using tag words. When I send out tweets, I add one or two #hashtags, usually my author name and the blog name. This serves two purposes:

• Followers can click on my hashtags and see not only the tweet they are currently reading, but all other tweets under that hashtags. 
• I can find my own tweets. This is especially helpful when I want to reuse a tweet without having to retype and look up the shortened link. I can copy and paste the text of the tweet and find my twitter banner that goes with it and upload it with the media button.

 

My previous tweets that also include #FireStarPress in the message will also be there. I can go back into any of those hashtag accounts and find all my tweets. The same is true for all my tweets with #PrairieRosePublications.

 

Here is the issue with using hashtags. If you use acronyms to keep it short, such as #PRP for Prairie Rose Publications, you will find all manner of tweets on all manner of topics that have nothing to do with Prairie Rose Publications under that hashtag designation – Peel Regional Police, health care facilities referring to platelet rich plasma, and pre run poop, just to name a few. I tried all manner of abbreviations for Fire Star Press, Prairie Rose Publications and Sundown Press. The tweets get so lost in what is already there that the point of using the hashtag is negated. So, I have discovered it is just best to use the following:

• #PrairieRosePub or #PrairieRosePublications for Prairie Rose Publications. I’ve been spelling out the full name, but #PrairieRosePub is shorter and no one else seems to be using it for now. It allows for a few more letters in a tweet. It will be effective until such time as a drinking establishment or some other entity joins that hashtag. Then we need to share or move to the longer name.

 

• #FireStarPress for Fire Star Press 
• #SundownPress for Sundown Press

I haven’t composed any tweets for the other imprints for this publisher. For those who do, I would avoid joining a hashtag category that features a myriad of other businesses and categories other than book publishing.

Using a hashtag for my author name allows me to see all the tweets I have made whether they are for my own blog, publisher blog, purchase link or any other website or social media site.

Here is how I go about making what I call a Twitter blank. First of all, once I realized that a visual with a tweet is more effective than just words and hyperlinks, and that a book cover alone often looks distracting rather than appealing, I also figured out that I could easily spend all day making twitter images unless I came up with a system. My system involves developing templates, or blank except for the logo and URL twitter images, that I can use over and over. They do the following:

• Add value to my tweets 
• Save me time  
• Develop name and brand recognition not only for my publisher, but for my own name and my own blogs

I quickly learned that if the visual is not the right dimensions, the Twitter program will cut off part of my image or lettering. I started by using the proportions of 2:1, the 2 being the width and the 1 being the height. Those looked okay on the computer screen, but some of my wording and the logo were cut off on my phone's Twitter screen. 

I changed the proportions on my photo editing program to the following:  7.9 width : 4.15 height. I also go with 150 dots per inch (dpi). I know the default is usually 96dpi for anything that goes on the internet. However, sometimes at a resolution that low the lettering turns out fuzzy and Swiss-cheesy, not professional looking at all. I have more luck with a higher resolution. Sometimes I will change it to 300dpi (keeping the proportions the same), save it, close down the program, go back into the program, bring up my template, add my text, save my final image, then lower the dpi and save it again. A lot of hassle. I stick with 150dpi to cut a lot of that out.

After I got my twitter blank formatted and saved, I was ready to make a template. For the publisher logos, I used the Snippet tool on my computer to capture the image. 

Next, I used my photo editing program to add an image to my twitter blank.

Next step was to size the image and position it on the blank background. After that, I brought up the text tool to add the blog URL.

 A word here about fonts. I am personally partial to Arial Rounded BT Bold because it is crisp, bold, doesn’t tend to run together and is easy to read. The other fonts in this example are good, too, if they are available to you and they reflect your style. Some work better if you bold them. The important thing is if  you want to save time, decide on a few fonts you like best – preferably near the top of your list of options where they are easy to find – and stick with them. You will lose a lot of time if you play around with fonts every time you want to put together a simple twitter image.

 

Here is my text with the Prairie Rose Publication URL. I made it large enough to be readable, but small enough so it and the logo together do not take up a lot of space. That leaves plenty of room on the template to later add pictures from a blog or a book cover and a one sentence hook or tagline.

Save your Twitter blank/template with a unique name. For example, I would save it as PRP [name of color] twit template. Keep it in a place on your computer that is easy to find. You can use this template over and over for different Tweet images.

On the templates for my personal blog, I add my Twitter name in addition to my blog URL. For my logo, I use my nameplate I add to most of my blog posts. On some Twitter templates I use a Facebook or blog banner.

The last and perhaps most important piece of advice is to save this template where you can find it easily. As the saying goes, DO NOT REINVENT THE WHEEL. Reuse your same blank with the logo and URL over and over. When you want to create a new image to market a new book or to promote your most recent blog post, bring up this same template and add to it, saving your completed twitter image with a new file name.

With my Prairie Rose Publication twitter template saved to my computer, if I decide to promote either one of my books or a blog post I’ve written, it is a quick and easy process. I bring up the template on my photo editing program. Next, I add the image of the book cover or other photo.

I size the image, perhaps tilt it and/or use my photo program to add a border or some other decorative element.

Then I add the text. In this instance I copy and pasted the tag line from my online media kit for this book (To see more about creating an online media kit, click HERE. Just remember to come back when you are finished.) The Word document used Times New Roman, so I stuck with that font. I centered it, bolded it, chose the best font size in order to effectively format it on the image, and saved it using a unique file name. 

Finished! This tweet image I saved in the online media kit file for this book so I can use over and over. If I had prepared this to promote a blog post, I would have saved it in the file for that particular post. Other general use tweet images I save in a dedicated Twitter file on my computer.

Not all of our tweets should be about trying to sell our books. We also want tweets that will help develop name recognition for us. 

As an author, it was a milestone in my life when I knew people started recognizing my name, were aware what kind of books I wrote, and could even discuss the characters and settings. It has been exciting to me to have people tell me when they see my name on a book, they buy it. There is no substitute for good writing, but when we are competing with a host of other good authors out there, it doesn’t hurt to work on a little “branding” to develop name recognition.

Along with sharing good information to educate our readers, a lot of effective branding is designed to appeal to the emotional side of the brain. If you have not already done so, now it the time to create a file of images that generate emotional responses--what I call my Warm and Fuzzy file. Out of concern for copyright issues, most of these images are my own photographs. Others I have included for ideas I can create. Imitation is the sincerest form a flattery—as long as it doesn’t violate copyright. I have been filling my Warm and Fuzzy file with pictures of cute animals, funny things, beautiful scenery and happy people—those pictures that will generate an emotional response. 

Along with a little saying, these types of pictures are excellent to add to your Twitter templates with your author logo. They are intended not so much to inform or push a product as to prompt the reader to FEEL. And, hopefully, a connection between that positive feeling and your name will develop in their memory.

This cute little portrait of a girl holding a book I found on the public domain section of Wikimedia Commons. The written sentiment is one almost all writers can appreciate.

I keep these tweets short and sweet. I may link them to my Amazon Author Page or my blog. I hashtag them to my name. The tweets with these types of images I like to send around in a new tweet every two weeks or so. I'll go back in my hashtag account for #ZinaAbbott, find the tweet and copy and paste the wording and hyperlinks before I add the image.

One of the objectives is to strike a chord with the tweet reader enough to motivate them to star the post to let you know they liked it. Better yet is when a follower will RETWEET the post and share it with their followers. Retweeting is how we broaden our reach beyond our immediate group of followers.

There is a comprehensive help section on Twitter. I searched only what I needed to get started. I access them by clicking on my thumbnail image. It is also where I can go to Log out.

This concludes my Twitter-pated tutorial on some of the ways I have learned to use Twitter in my book marketing. I hope I have presented a few ideas helpful to you. As promised in my first Twitter-pated post, at the end of this post I will add some Twitter blanks/templates with the Prairie Rose Publications logo and blog URL which I developed for my use. Please feel free to save them to your computer and use them with your tweets.

And, this is the twitter banner I will use to promote this blog:

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

 Zina Abbott is the pen name used by Robyn Echols for her historical novels. Her novel, Family Secrets, was published by Fire Star Press. Her novelette, AChristmas Promise, along with the first two novellas in the Eastern Sierra Brides 1884 series, Big Meadows Valentine and A Resurrected Heart, was published by Prairie Rose Publications.

The author is a member of Women Writing the West, American Night Writers Association, and Modesto Writers Meet Up. She currently lives with her husband in California near the “Gateway to Yosemite.” She enjoys any kind of history including family history. When she is not piecing together novel plots, she pieces together quilt blocks.

Please visit and follow the Zina Abbott’s Amazon Author Page by clicking HERE.

Zina Abbott Author Links:

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