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Hello! One new thing I’m introducing for 2023 is a monthly social media chat in which I’ll catch you up with the ever-changing social media landscape.
In the first one, I’ll talk about Twitter, places to migrate to if you’re leaving Twitter, tools that can make that migration easier, and why you might want to establish a presence on some even if you’re sticking with Twitter.
Date: Saturday, January 7, 10 AM Eastern time via Zoom. It will be recorded and will go up later on the YouTube channel.
Cost: free for Patreon supporters; $5 and up patrons will be able to submit questions in advance
$10 for non-patrons
To reserve a slot, mail me at cat@kittywumpus.net, and if not a Patreon supporter or Rambo campus member, let me know how you’d like to pay.
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If you’re holiday shopping this year, you may have noticed there are problems getting stuff due to a combination of supply chain issues and here in the US, our beleaguered postal system.
Part of my solution is that I’m making a lot of my gifts this year, including my favorite gingerbread caramels, flavored marshmallows, and a family staple, chocolate spritz cookies. I’ve even invested in an old model metal cookie-gun for the last of those after going through several plastic ones. It’s always fun to take it down from the shelf.
Other people are getting presents like plants I’ve started for them, rocks I tumbled, and of course – plenty of books! The nice thing about the latter is that I can do it electronically, and Patreon supporters will get a special story on Christmas as a result!
If you’re shopping for a writer and were wondering what the Rambo Academy for Wayward Writers offers, here’s some options I’ve assembled. I’m happy to offer gift certificates for any of the following:
Recipient will get an electronic certificate, and you can choose whether they get it right away or on the actual day of the holiday you’re celebrating.
To order, or if you have questions, mail me.
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Writers get told they must blog, but not a lot of advice about it. I’ve talked about this more than once, most notably in Do Writers Need to Blog? No. and How to Blog Without Really Trying But Still Managing Not to Be Half-Assed About It. But another thing to consider beyond the content you’re producing is whether or not your readers are finding it.
If you have a blog, take a moment and type your name into a search engine. If your blog doesn’t appear on the first page of results, you have a problem. The further down the page it is, the harder it is for a reader to find it. Type ‘Cat Rambo’ in and you should see this blog on the top of the list, along with other links that go to me rather than that taxi driver with a cat named Rambo who drives around with his cat in the backseat or the Cat Rambo featured in an article about underwater pumpkin carving.
So — if you’re not on that first page –how do you remedy that? Here’s five ways to make your blog more effective by making it more discoverable when people come looking for you.
Check your front page. Does it include the name you write under? Not just your first name, not a cute pseudonym. And not contained in an image rather than text. If not, please add it.
Make titles meaningful. A title should give a reader a reason to read, often to answer a question that the title has raised. For example: what are the five quick ways I could make my blog more discoverable? rather than “Check this out” or “Here’s something startling.”
Use images. Visual content makes a post more engaging and it provides something when people are sharing it on social media. Visual content gets shared more often than text-only. And a post lacking an image may not be pinnable on Pinterest, which is a valid social media site for authors.
Look at your site on your phone. Google Analytics tells me over half my traffic is readers using their phone to read it; it would be foolish for me not to make it as readable as possible for them. What’s not appearing? What looks weird? Menus that look great on a computer screen and are easy to select and click with a mouse are often much more difficult to navigate on a phone’s smaller touch screen.
Use what’s available. Tags and categories are both tools that search engines incorporate when creating rankings and they make things more discoverable for your readers. The Related Posts plug-in that I use on this blog depends on tags in order to find and display similar content that may intrigue readers of a particular post.
Bonus tip: Link to other posts. Internal links can help your reader find relevant content without leading them away from your site, and they also favorably influence search engines. You might even create pages that consolidate information, like this page of Resources for F&SF Writers. Look at this page — I can count five different ways I’ve done this. Can you find them all?
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Want access to a lively community of writers and readers, free writing classes, co-working sessions, special speakers, weekly writing games, random pictures and MORE for as little as $2? Check out Cat’s Patreon campaign.
"(On the writing F&SF workshop) Wanted to crow and say thanks: the first story I wrote after taking your class was my very first sale. Coincidence? nah….thanks so much."
(fantasy, novelette) She was thinking complicated thoughts now, about things she was not sure that dryads ever contemplated: what it would be like to take an axe to a sailor, to cut a human down as they had cut her tree down. Sometimes they were so close. But there were so many of them, and she was chained.
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