Stay at Home Mom on READER MONDAY!

Happy FIRST READER MONDAY of March!! I'm excited to have Jaime Smith here today! She's is an avid reader and an amazing Goodreads player! She is awesome at promoting her favorite authors. Jaime is here to talk about how a stay at home mom can sneak in a little reading time with a couple little ones around the house. IT'S NOT AS EASY AS IT SEEMS!

So you would think being a stay at home mom would be a readers dream.

But not always the case! I am a stay at home mom to two little girls aged 1 & 4. I get up to to feed two little girls breakfast and find something for them to do that is entertaining. I pick up my book then and start to read. Ten minutes into the book there is the 4 year old yelling from the potty to come help her. After that is typically the demand to watch a movie. 

Great you think! 

Pop in the movie go back to book then baby comes wanting to crawl all over you and play. Ok that is always fun anyways. So before you know it it's lunch time and you make them & yourself lunch. Of course you got to feed the littler one in between your own bites. After lunch they start to get sleepy. 

YES! Just what you needed for a reading break. 

So you lay them down and once more dive into your book till the four year old eyeing you looks really sad and says, mommy read to me one of my books. So you go and grab a pile because after all my 4 year old can enjoy story time for an hour easily. All though I'm bummed about not getting to read my book, I'm over the moon that my little girl is following my footsteps in love of books! Also reading children books to your children is really such a precious thing that I secretly really enjoy. So the little ones then fall asleep on me finally during story time. 

I don't dare move them in fear of waking up. I can read now I think except my book it just a little bit out of hands reach now with two children sleeping on me. After about a hour and half the angels wake and are up and playing.

I usually can get in 30 minutes to an hour here. Then it's snack time & more entertaining them. Before you know it it's evening and the hubby is on his way home! THANK GOD! 

I'm one very lucky girl to have a great husband who knows how important reading is to me so when he get's home he takes over the kids duty and I get to read a good hour to two before supper! Then we work on putting the kids to sleep and having some alone time for just the two of us. Then it's off to bed where I presume will be major reading time now, only I'm so tired that I literally fall asleep with a book on my face. 

To add to this all I have extreme health issues with my heart so that makes everything twice as hard and causes me to be tired often. So basically my main serious reading time is the weekends when husband is home from work. 

I love reading so much and leaving reviews to help authors and other readers but I never can seem to keep up with the piles and piles of books but you know what I DON'T MIND! That is what it is to be a reader who is in love with books! Besides it's only 4 1/2 more years before both kids are in school and then I know I will have more reading time! 

Also as my girl's get older I hope that they will also continue their love of books and we will all be curled up on the sofa reading together! Family is all about love as well as books. You got to really appreciate both and how they can come in hand if your willing to make it all work.

*******************************
WOW! Jaime! You are a busy gal during they day. And I thought I was busy with three teenagers running around! Jaime is very talented! She didn't mention she makes amazing book marks! I'm sure she's taking orders! Just leave a comment to win a copy of my novel, STRUNG OUT TO DIE and one of Jaime's cool bookmarks!
(I will post the winner on Friday and you have one week to come back to claim your prize!)

Master GOODREADS!

Monday we took a dive into the waters of Goodreads and HEAD FIRST, if I say so myself!

Here is what you should have learned:
1) Join Goodreads. . .NOW!
2) Find and claim your published books.
3) Join the author program.
4) While you wait to be approved for the author program, beef up your profile.
5) Add your blog RSS or Atom Feed.

Simple. . .

Today we are going to explore how to get some of those 5 million people on Goodreads to notice us!

Why Goodreads? BECAUSE I said so. No, really. Think about it. There are three people who join Goodreads: READERS, WRITERS. . .um. . .okay, TWO BIG reasons! BUT the component is BOOKS!!

Everyone on Goodreads is there to connect over BOOKS. Good for us because that is what we do!

Today we are going to look at GROUPS and how to join them and why!

The people! Most of the people who belong to Goodreads are not only readers, but they are BLOGGERS! Bloggers who read, have readers who follow them, readers who read their blogs, and they write reviews. Like any other groups that are on other social networking sites, Goodread groups have rules about promotion and more, so you have to read all of those before you go and post what you think you can post.

NO SPAMMING!!!

How do you find these groups? Easy...
1) Click on the GROUP tab at the top of the Goodreads homepage. It will take you to a page of listed groups that are in columns: my groups, popular groups, ALL sorts of groups! On the right side you will see TAGGED groups or what I like to call TARGETED groups.

I joined a couple target groups for Chick-lit and Mystery. WHY?? Because that is my targeted reading group....duh!

Here you want to explore the groups, and see if they are right for you. THEN join! If the group is NOT right for you, after you have joined, they won't hold you hostage...simply leave the group and go to the next group.

It's a little like speed dating. (Is if I'd know....) But if I did have a history of speed dating...that is what I'd think it was like *wink*.

The groups that are categorized as POPULAR and RECENTLY ADDED, are ones you should definitely take a look at. These are obviously where readers are going to check out first.

2) After you join you will want to check out the BOOKSHELF in the group. YOU WANT TO BE ON THE BOOKSHELF!! How?

Easy. . .top left is a search box for the bookshelf of your group, simply type your name in and see if your book pops up. If it doesn't, your books will pop up and you simply click the add button.

Sometimes the moderator has to approve your book to be on the group bookshelf.

3) Members.
You want to know who the members are. You might even be friends with a couple of them.

4) Discussion tab! I LOVE THIS TAB!
This is where you will see all the topics or create a new topic in the group. It's great! You need to go in and introduce yourself in the introduction topic thread AND make sure you introduce why you want to be a part of the group...NOT BUY MY BOOK!! You have to be a genuine, likable author!!!
(OHHH. . .need blog post on likability factor!)

5) Events.
If there is an event scheduled for the group, like an author interview or skype session, it will be listed here.

6) Polls.
These are fun! Go into the poll section where you will be able to see what the readers LOVE or HATE.
In one of my mystery groups, the members vote on cozy themes they love best. Most of the time it is exactly the OPPOSITE of what NEW YORK PUBLISHERS say is selling!

Why did you need me to breakdown the part of Goodreads and why is it important to you?

BECAUSE THE READER HAS DONE ALL THE WORK FOR YOU! Let me retype that.
THE READER HAS DONE ALL THE WORK FOR YOU!! (that deserved two exclamation points)

* The reader has already put themselves in a genre. Your target audience.
* There are group discussions that you can participate in as well as take advice straight from your target reader!
* You can see who is active and who isn't. The active ones are your reviewers and bloggers!! GET TO KNOW THEM!
~check out those members
~see who has a blog or is a reviewer
~friend them
~follow them on twitter
~follow them on facebook
~offer a FREE copy of your novel for their review...HONEST review.
~participate in the group discussions and DO NOT SPAM!!
~look at the discussion threads and see if you can write a blog post that you can put in the thread. This will help you gain blog followers and readers.

All in all, Goodreads is a place to be genuine, commiserate with like-minded people, and meet some new bloggers/reviewers. Take the time to get to know them. Don't jump in and market yourself. REMEMBER, you are making an impression on them. You are giving them your branded image.  Be kind. Be smart. PARTICIPATE!

Tricks to using Goodreads!

As if me telling you that being on Facebook and Twitter isn't enough social media. . .GOODREADS is where you need to be. . .too!

Yes, you still have to be on Facebook and Twitter, but I also want you to start a Goodreads account.

Why?

Good question. You have a blog, website, Facebook and Twitter. You are reaching a lot of people this way, BUT are you reaching your READER target audience?

You know that I'm all about my readers! Goodreads is a place where readers and writers gather!

Think about this....readers join Facebook to connect with their friends, family, and maybe their favorite public figures (which include authors). Their main goal was to find lost people or keep in touch with family by sharing pictures, etc....

When someone joins Goodreads, they are there for the intent to connect by books. THAT is a plus for us! That is exactly what we are looking for.

Go to Goodreads and join. You will need to create an account. This is pretty easy and self explanatory.

NEXT. . .

I highly recommend that you join the Author's Program. You can only do this if you have a published book.
When you enroll into the program, you will be able to search for your book in the search box. If your book doesn't come up, you will need to ADD YOUR BOOK MANUALLY.
Wait. . . you aren't done. You will be asked to verify that you are the author. In the box where you verify, you will need to tell them that you would like to be enrolled in the the author program.

Then you will wait for Goodreads to verify who you are. This could take up to a couple days.

Don't sit on your laurels while you wait for them to get back to you about the author program. You are still a member from when you opened your account, so go to your profile page and beef it up. Be sure to add a profile picture (good one!) and blog site. You want to have all this done so when you do get approved for the author program, you are ready to go.

****IMPORTANT****
When you get approved for the author program, you are going to go back into your profile by clicking on your picture in the right hand corner. Click on edit. You will see a box that asks you to pick a URL user name. Make it simple, easy for people to find you! Mine is : goodreads.com/tonyakappes
Make sure you click save at the bottom of the page.

Now it's time to start building your "friends" list. Now some of my friends are carry over from Facebook and Twitter, while some are readers who happen to find me on Goodreads. Plus there is you! My blog followers.

Why blog followers? So glad you asked!!

You will need to put your blog RSS or Atom URL on your page. This will post your current blog posts on your Goodread page and you will reach more blog followers and that is NOT a bad thing.

How do you figure out the RSS or Atom URL of your blog? Here are a few simple steps that I took from the Blogger and Wordpress websites:

1. Go to your blog
2. On Blogger, scroll all the way down to the bottom and look for ‘Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)’
3. On WordPress, look to the right of the posts for ‘RSS – Posts’
4. Right-click on that link
5. Left-Click on Copy Link Address
6. Go to Goodreads
7. Click your name in the upper right corner to go to your author profile
8. Click edit profile
9. Under your picture, click add/edit blog
10. On the right side look for External blog feed URL
11. Click ‘change’ if the URL field isn’t showing
12. Right-Click in the space
13. Left-Click ‘paste
14. Your URL should now show up and look something like this: http://tonyakappes.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default
15. Click the add feed button

SHEW! Did that wear you out??

There are over 5 million people on Goodreads. I can guarantee that there are a lot of readers that read your genre, that would LOVE to connect with you.

Now that you are well on your way. . .I think this is enough for one blog post. Stay tuned for Wednesday when I tell you tips on how to connect with some of the 5 million friends!

OH!! Friday we have a special guest explaining everything you need to know about TRIBBER!!!