Liebster Award and Warning About Photos on Social Media

Hi Everyone,

Everyone loves to win awards, and I have been given the Liebster Award by Author, Mary Jo/Casey Clifford. You may click on her name to learn more about her.  Below is what she had to say about my me and my blog:

Sandra Marshall: I knew of her first through online groups. She’s a well rounded woman and author who has done a great deal in her life. Her blog is much like her life. You never know what she’s serving in her weekly blog but it’s sure to add to your knowledge.

One of the things, I have to do for this award is give it to five other bloggers, but I have only nominated four bloggers.  I will be listing another blogger, but it's the first time I've read their blog, so I'm not giving an award yet. 

Here are some rules for the winners:

1. Link back to the person who gave it to you and thank them.

2. Post the award to your blog.

3. Give the award to 5 bloggers with less than 200 followers that you appreciate and value.  Uh, oh, another person has removed their blog.

4. Leave a comment on the blogs to let them know that they have received this award.

1.  Romance Books 4 Us is receiving an award because their blog is so diverse.  They have authors, editors, readers, models, actors and all kinds of professionals who blog and do interviews on their site. 

2.  Stacey Joy Netzel is not only one of my favorite authors, on her blog she's showing off her latest canned goods.  How many young women do you know who still can?  This is one of the reasons, I follow her blog.  Also, she loves Colorado like I do. 

3.  Judy Ridgley is an author, but I like this blog because she writes about horses.  If you need to know something about horses then this is the blog to go to. 

I'm sorry that I just don't have time to visit many blogs, and when I do it's hit and miss most days.  I regret that I only get to Casey's blog once in a great while because she's a wonderful author.

This blog URL I'm putting here because it's going to help all social media users and not just bloggers.  http://www.roniloren.com/blog/2012/7/20/bloggers-beware-you-can-get-sued-for-using-pics-on-your-blog.html

This applies to FB, Twitter, MySpace, Pintest as well as blogs and others.  You need to use only your own pictures.  I've recently heard that there is a scam going on at Pintest, but I don't know much about it yet.

Thank you for reading my blog today, and I'll see you next Sunday.

Sandra K. Marshall

http://www.eirelander-publishing.com

Do You Come Back to Read Responses to Your Comments?

Hi Everyone,

The reason, I'm asking this question is because I'm curious to know if it's even necessary to leave a response to those who leave a comment. 

Another question, I have for you is do you read the comments after reading the blog?  I personally find many of the comments more interesting than my blog. 

Thank you for reading.  I'll look forward to reading your comments on this topic. 

Sandy
http://www.eirelander-publishing.com

Mid-America Romance Author's Retreat and Blogmania

Hi Everyone,

First, I'm going to tell you about blogmania again. You are missing an exciting time and a chance for thousands of prizes if you don't join in. Learn more at this site http://betweenthelinesandmore.blogspot.com/2010/04/blogmania-early-bird-check-list.html or read the blog I posted on Monday.

Last week I missed posting on Sunday because I was at writer's retreat at Basswood Inn from Friday night to mid-Sunday morning. To give you an idea of what's involved with a writer's retreat read the list below.

We arrived around 5:00 p.m., unloaded our cars and helped others with theirs while the ones who arrived earliest helped set up the food. The first night we all contribute to the food pantry. lol There's enough food the first night to keep us going all weekend. lol

As we continue to munch and drink various beverages, we sit around long tables listening to readers and critiquing the work everyone has brought to be read. During this time we stop occasionally for a break and have a drawing. Everyone at the retreat has the their name in a pot where if their name is drawn they have a chance to win a prize. Some of those prizes were awesome, and I was envious of the winners.

Did I mention we munched and drank more. lol

We did more critiques and quit about 10 or 10:30 at night to break off into groups to visit. Many went to bed early in preparation for an early day on Saturday.

The next morning, we were up early trying to get to showers (mind you there was only three bathrooms for 37 people) to make it to breakfast at 8:00 a.m.. Our breakfast was wonderful thanks to our wonderful chef, Carla Cassidy, and author of a hundred books. You can visit Carla at http://www.carlacassidy.wordpress.com

At nine o'clock sharp we were sitting at our long tables for the first of many workshops on Saturday. I don't remember exactly what order the workshops were presented, but here is what was presented to us.

World Building is an important part of writing a story, and we learned a lot about doing it in our class World Building 102. This topic could be a blog all by itself, so I won't elaborate here. This class was given by Gretchen Jones and for some reason I do not have a website or blog for her.

We had another workshop on promotional items given by Marianne Stephens. In this class, we received lots of promo advice. All advice was good for those who are pre-published and published. This course told you how to get you and your brand out there before you become published. You can learn about Marianne Stephens at http://www.mariannestephens.net/

The next class was about humor, heat and hooks and tells you about the elements of a scene. Since Katy Madison will be doing a workshop at Romance Author's of America (RWA) conference this summer I will not go into detail here. You can visit Katy at http://www.katymadison.com

Break: Eat and drink and be merry. lol

We had a workshop titled, A Writer's Business Plan Template by Laura Phillips. She can be found at http://www.lauraphillips.net/ This course is very important for anyone, whether writer or business owner. There were things I should have been doing but hadn't even thought of them.

Carla Cassidy gave a class on writing romantic suspense. I'm always learning new things from Carla and she manages to come with great workshops. You can learn more about Carla at http://www.carlacassidy.com

Did I say we ate? lol Again. All the time. lol Yep, we took a break for food.

After we ate some of us walked around the pond or out to the fishing dock to walk off some of that food. lol During our breaks, we often walked as well as visited and ate.

Break time is over and we're ready to hit it again. Back to having our precious work read and critiqued. This is serious work because this is when we learn what works and doesn't work in our work in progress (wip). We get the tough questions and we have to answer them in order to continue with our wips. Thanks, Kari, for one of those tough questions.

After a late night, we wake in the morning for another breakfast before starting to work on critiques. I had to leave earlier than the noon checkout time, but I had a great time. Much thanks go to the organizers of this wonderful retreat.

Thanks goes to Sunny Cole for collecting all of the wonderful prizes. You may learn about Sunny at her blog, http://www.authorlyncash.blogspot.com/

I also want to thank Katie who clarified some things for me. Did I tell you that this retreat is paid for by our local RWA chapter MARA. Everyone brings food for Friday night, and we give a small amount of money to our blessed organizer for food, which she buys the ingredients and fixes the food for all of us.

It's a terrific retreat and worth joining MARA just for it. You may visit MARA's website at http://www.mararwa.com to learn more about this writer's group.

Thanks,
Sandy
http://www.eirelander-publishing.com/addiction.htm
http://www.skaymarshall.com

Blogmania Contest

Blogmania Early Bird Check List:
We want all of our visiting guests in our first Blogmania Event scheduled for April 30th to Get On Their Marks-Get Set…
It’s not time to go yet, but if you want to have the most fun and scoop up as much loot as possible, here are a few Early Bird Reminders to help you do just that.
1. 1. Be at any of the blogs participating in the Blogmania Event as early as possible on April 30th. The easiest way to find a Blogmania Blog is to look for the Blogmania Badge.
2. 2. This is an international event, so understand that there will be some differences in time zones. My advice is to start early and stay late to catch all the blogs.
3. 3. Each blog will have their own giveaway requirements. Read them carefully, follow through, and then move on as quickly as possible. If you run across a blog that you really like and want to spend some time exploring, copy their URL and then visit them after Blogmania is over.
4. 4. We will have a 100+ blogs for you to visit. Each one will post their number like this. ( This is blog 47 of 100) This is to help you keep track of which blogs you’ve visited, and which ones you still need to reach. I’d suggest that you prepare a blog sheet which is numbered from 1 – 120, then mark off each numbered blog as you visit them.
5. 5. All blog links provided will also have a number like (Blog 89 of 100). Look for the blogs that you haven’t yet visited and follow those links until you’ve checked off all the blogs on your sheet.
6. 6. We have all types of blogs participating in Blogmania, which means that the range of items in their giveaways are diverse. I have previewed many and they are awesome.
7. 7. Why not contact a friend and partner up. Compare notes, share loot, or organize your own friendly neighborhood Blogmania Competition.
This is our first Blogmania Event, but it isn’t our last. Blogmania is a bi-yearly Giveaway Extravaganza. In fact, our next Blogmania Event will start September 15th, and do we have some cool stuff planned for you! So keep in touch with our Blogmania Blogs, because they will be giving sneak previews, secret codes, and who knows what else in the weeks and months ahead.

Sandy
http://www.eirelander-publishing.com/addiction.htm