How to use this Page

For the past few weeks we've been discussing tips, techniques and writing trends in children's books. But a writer's job doesn't end with the completion of the novel. Oh no. There is so much promotional writing that authors do -- especially on the internet. There's blogging, Facebook, My Space, twittering, and so many other ways to connect with your readers and other authors on the Net. This week we are going to focus on a few of these. But before we jump into the world of internet opportunities, let's discuss how to write for the web.

Now many of you may already know this, but for the internet newbies, we should discuss the importance of keywords. These are the terms people use when searching the internet. (They are also what spyders use when categorizing pages on the internet.) They are incredibly important. So, you want to write text that is "rich" in keywords. An example of a keyword would be the term "children's book."

Of course, writing rich keyword text is good, but also using the right keywords is better. Some keywords are searched more often than others. For example, the term "children's literature" was searched on Google 110,000 times last month. Not bad. But the term "children's books" was searched 450,000 times. So, in the very first sentence of this post I had a choice of using the term children's literature or children's books. Both made sense in the context of the sentence. You can see which one I chose.

Now how do you know which terms are searched the most? The easiest (and free-est) tool is Google's Adwords Keyword Tool. Type in a potential keyword, and the tool will give you the number of times it was searched as well as the rankings of other similiar terms.

And that leads us to the writing prompt for this week:

One of the great places to place rich keywords is in the biography that you fill out for all those different profile pages. So, write a 25 word and a 50 word keyword rich biography. Remember to write it in 3rd person and to make sure you mention the title of your novel if it has been published or soon to be published. Otherwise, try to pack it as full of keywords as possible. You want your name to come up on search engines even when people don't specifically search for you.

If you would like feedback on your bio, post it at Get Me Out of the Slushpile!.

© Copyright 2006-2009 Madeline Smoot. All rights reserved. May be excerpted and duplicated for educational purposes.

In April I will be speaking at a conference here in Austin. It won't be publicized for a few more days, so I'm going to be mysterious about it until then.

At the conference I will be doing a session on Online Marketing with an emphasis on blogging. Now because of the way this conference is structured, I anticipate most of my audience to be beginner or even "new to the concept of blogs" bloggers. I thought one interesting way to introduce them to the kid-lit-o-sphere would be to offer them advice from other friendly bloggers.

And that's where you come in. I would love it if everyone would post a friendly piece of general advice for novice bloggers in the comments section of this post. Then, I'll use the advice (with your blog address attached of course) during my presentation. If for some reason you do not want me quoting your advice or would prefer to remain anonymous, please let me know. And then in 10 weeks time when I invariably post my presentation, you'll be able to see what stellar advice all of you offered to the next wave of bloggers.

I think I would like to make this presentation a little more interactive then most, so I'll probably have more questions and want more advice in the future. Just so you know. :)

© Copyright 2006-2009 Madeline Smoot. All rights reserved. May be excerpted and duplicated for educational purposes.

I always encourage my authors to blog. I've started encouraging my authors' characters to blog although to give her credit, Septina has been blogging even longer than me. Blogs are a great way to talk with the kiddie lit community at large, to talk to fans, and to generally have a springboard for discussing the stuff that doesn't make it into the books.

And it turns out that I'm not alone in my thinking. PW did an article on it last week, but I can't find the link now. Search their site. And if you're wanting to learn how to blog, Mother Reader does a great and entertaining job discussing how to Be a B-List Blogger. I'm to scared to try the scorer myself. I'm afraid I'd end up a Z-lister. My blog's self esteem bucket wouldn't be able to take it.

And my internet at home is still down, so I haven't been able to check email for three day. I was so anxious about not having seen it, that I actually got up this morning and threw up. If that isn't internet withdrawl, I don't know what is. And yes, I realized just how sad it sounds.