Hit play and listen to Desiree’s magical voice take you to a virtual EPICon 2014

“I must say as to what I have seen of Texas it is the garden spot of the world. The best land and the best prospects for health I ever saw, and I do believe it is a fortune to any man to come here. There is a world of country here to settle.” – Davy Crockett, Alamo defender, 1836.

 The Alamo

In December 1835, during Texas’ war for independence from Mexico, a group of Texan volunteer soldiers occupied the Alamo, a former Franciscan mission located near the present-day city of San Antonio. On February 23, 1836, a Mexican force numbering in the thousands and led by General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna began a siege of the fort. Though vastly outnumbered, the Alamo’s 200 defenders–commanded by James Bowie and William Travis and including the famed frontiersman Davy Crockett–held out courageously for 13 days before the Mexican invaders finally overpowered them. For Texans, the Battle of the Alamo became an enduring symbol of their heroic resistance to oppression and their struggle for independence, which they won later that year. (ref. http://www.history.com/topics/alamo)

The Menger Hotel Ghost Stories

Ask any employee or regular visitor to the Menger and chances are good you’ll hear about more than one sighting of apparitions and ghosts in the hotel. For instance, Sallie White was a chambermaid at The Menger Hotel. One night, as the story goes, she stayed overnight at the hotel after an argument with her husband. She may well have stayed at the hotel with another man. The next day, her husband threatened to kill her. She was later attacked by that same husband in March of 1876 and died two days later. According to the hotel ledger, the hotel paid the funeral cost of $32.

According to legend, Sallie White roams the halls of the hotel’s Victorian wing. She is described as wearing an old long gray skirt and a bandanna around her forehead. She is usually carrying towels, which she never delivers.

One man had an encounter with a rude maid. He described the maid who ignored him to the from desk. The uniform he described the maid wearing was from the late 1800′s, which was when Sallie worked at the hotel.

Another popular story is about another famous Texan, Captain Richard King, founder of famous King’s Ranch. King was a man of great wealth who had a suite at the Menger. It is said that when King received news of his impending death following an illness, he spent the last months of his life in the suite. It was at the hotel that he wrote his last will and said his farewells to friends. King’s funeral was held in the parlor of the Menger. Now it said that Captain King appears occasionally and is seen entering his room, The King Suite. Many guests and employees claim to have seen him. As the story goes, when he enters the suite, he does not use the door. Instead he walks right through the wall in a location where the door was once located. (ref. http://gorvtexas.com/menger.htm)

San Antonio RiverWalk

In Texas, water has been a lifeline for many generations for centuries past. The San Antonio River is a source of a South Texas Treasure, The San Antonio River Walk. Development of San Antonio and its most popular tourism attraction has come a long way.

1536
Alvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca, a shipwrecked captive of Indians, visits the interior of Texas, sees and describes the River.

1691
June 13. Domingo Teran de los Rios, first Governor of the new Province of Texas, accompanies Father Damian Massanet on his return trip to East Texas. Camping at a rancheria of Payaya Indians on a stream called Yanaguana, someone said “let’s celebrate mass and rename the stream ‘San Antonio’ because it is Saint Anthony’s day”

1716
The Spanish Council of war approves a site on the San Antonio River for a fortified presidio (fort). This same council also approves the request to establish a mission at the site.

1718
Martin de Alarcon, Governor of Texas, names the presidio San Antonio de Bejar in honor of the Duque de Bejar, The Mission of San Francisco de Solano is moved from the Rio Grande to merge with Mission San Antonio de Padua. The mission is renamed Mission San Antonio de Valero. The presidio, the villa and the mission comprise the municipality named San Antonio de los Llanos (of the Plains) by Governor Alarcon.

1719
Mission San Antonio moves to its second site on the east bank near the present day St. Joseph’s Church on Commerce. (Too many dates to list here – read more at http://www.thesanantonioriverwalk.com/history/history-of-the-river-walk)

THE SCHEDULE and Amazing Talent of Instructors (something for everyone)

(click the EPICon graphic below the chart for full details or visit www.epicorg.com)

The Electronic Publishing Industry Coalition eBook Competition

Who can be an eBook judge?

Since the eBook Competition is a peer judged competition, our judges are professionals in the ePublishing industry. Published authors, publishers, and editors make up our judging pool.

The only qualifications, besides a professional affiliation, is that you love to read and are able to objectively evaluate what you’re reading.

Isn’t it hard to judge? Doesn’t it take a lot of time?

Judging in the eBook Competition judging process is actually pretty simple. This is a very brief description. More information is available in the eBook Judge Instructions.

The Judge Coordinator or, as we like to call her, the Competition Drone, sends each judge a list of assignments. This contact will include all the information you’ll need. You’ll download the assigned works using links included in the email.

In the Preliminary Round, you’ll only read the first three chapters of a full length book, or the first 10% of a short work. That should give you a pretty good idea of the quality of the writing, editing, hook, setting, etc.

In the First Round, you’ll read the assigned works in their entirety.

In the Final Round, you’ll read all the finalists in the category to which you are assigned.

In the Preliminary and First Rounds, when you’ve completed your reading (either the first three chapters or the whole entry), you’ll go to the judging form. You will receive a link to go to the appropriate form for the works assigned, either Fiction, Poetry, or Non-fiction.

You’ll enter your name and email address. This is to give you credit for your scores.

For Poetry and Non-Fiction, since they have their own form, you’ll just enter the title of the work you’re judging. For Fiction, you’ll also indicate the category.

Each form has a series of areas. You will score each area from 1 to 10. The method on our form is a slider. You can drag the little button or click on the line to get the number you want.

For Fiction, you will indicate whether the work is in the wrong category.

For Fiction, Poetry, or Non-fiction, you will indicate whether you believe the work should move on to the next round.

Fill in the Captcha.

Click on Submit.

Done!

In the Final Round, you’ll read all the finalists in a category. Then you’ll score each work according to the same scoring areas as were used in the Preliminary and First Rounds. The last step is to rank each entry.

That’s right, sports fans! Only one form to fill out in the Final Round. Of course, it’s a long one, but it’s just one., Then you’re…

Done!

Filling in the Preliminary and First Round forms takes only one to two minutes if you have your mind made up already. If you have to give it some thought, it’ll take a little longer.

Filling in the Final Round form can take up to five minutes, but it’s the only one you’ll have to do.

Ready to be a judge? Register Here!

Beauty, Style, & Grace Cristo

I’m going to confess right now that I have never had such delight in doing any other interviews as I have with Dan and Grace Cristo. These two are simply beautiful, inside and out. What a treat this has been in getting to know both of them. Of course, I suspected as much about Dan having learned much about him through Triberr. Then I joined his Atomic Tribe where I found out more about that fascinating mind of his and I mean – fascinating. If you don’t follow him, you can HERE.

I will never forget Dino Dogan’s reference of his own admiration in the simplicity of Dan’s Bio which stated “I build stuff.” LOL. Yep. Very cool.

And then I learned about Grace.

I honestly do not know who is the most blessed in this beautiful couple’s relationship, but I do know they would both point to each other if asked that question.

What a special time this has been for me and I know you will fall in love with Grace just as much as I have. This little lady is gorgeous and talented.

As a writer myself, in visiting her blog aptly named Boy Married Girl, I found myself entertained by her style, humor, and practical magic of putting words together the way she does for a pure entertaining experience. Click on the banner at the end of the interview to visit but be prepared to smile and become enamored of her style yourself.

I wish to one day meet these two but with them on one coast and us on another, well…for now, I’m content and humbled to be able to host these interviews.

My friends, I give you…Grace Cristo (you’ll find the questions in the box next to the amazing photos).

The Interview

GRACE: Dan and I met years and years ago at a Summer camp we both worked at, but because I’m 5 years younger we hung out in different crowds and never really interacted. We’re still not sure if we ever even spoke one word to each other, but years later when we started dating his friend who also attended the camp reminded him that he had pointed me out and said he “thought I was cute.”

I had also thought he was cute way back when and in 2007 we reconnected through social media(facebook) when he sent a friend request my way. I wished him a happy 25th birthday and from that point on we started emailing each other A LOT.  He seemed like a really nice stable guy with good morals and similar goals in life to me. So YEAH I was definitely interested in him A few weeks later he made up some excuse to go see his sister in Nj and asked if I wanted to meet up with him. He picked me up and we walked around a town and ended up in a coffee shop. We(or should I say I) talked for a good 3 hours. I was confused about how the date was going because he didn’t give me many signs one way or the other. He didn’t seem bored but he was very quiet and he even seemed maybe a little shy. He also didn’t flirt with me once. I KNOW.WHAT.THE.HECK!  So I left the coffee shop thinking “Did that go well or not?” Within a few minutes he sent me a text asking to call me that night. After I got that I knew it had in fact, gone well. He later told me that he was so happy I carried the conversation because he could not think of one thing to say, that his mind literally drew a blank every time he tried to ask me something.

We started dating shortly after and because we were a 3 hours drive away, we talked so much on the phone that we got to know everything about each other pretty quickly. It also made the weekends really special because that’s the only time we could see each other. He also once drove the 3 hours in a really bad snow storm to come see me

We started dating September 2007, and were engaged by June 2008, then married by April 2009. I was only 21( a month shy of 22) but a lot of people were really shocked I was getting married and though no one said it to me, I think they thought I was way too young. Whatever, haters gonna hate.

GRACE: It really doesn’t. But a few weeks ago we celebrated his mom’s birthday so I just sang Happy Birthday really quietly. But had anyone asked who the terrible singer in the crowd was, I was prepared to blame it on one of the grandchildren Dan has told me that I have hit notes that have never been hit before. I disagree, they have been hit before and probably by someone on youtube with a million dislikes doing a cover of a song.

GRACE: My job was actually getting really stressful AND my boss was super inappropriate so I was so happy to quit. After the last and final incident with my boss, Dan actually called his cell phone telling him not to contact me ever again and if he needed any info like passwords or client info from me, he would have to go through Dan. Was pretty awesome of my husband

I LOVE being a trophy wife. Not that I actually live what most people would think of as a trophy wife lifestyle. I don’t go shopping or to the spa. (fun fact: I’ve never had a manicure before in my life. And I get my hair cut maybe once a year.) I like having free time for art projects, cleaning/laundry, grocery shopping etc. All the little things that are hard to keep up with when you have a job. I love going for walks and now that it’s nice, I’ve been going on long walks with my parents dog. I also bring my friend lunch all the time who has young kids and is in need of some adult company. Some people ask me if I get bored, but I really don’t. It’s not like I sit and watch tv all day, we don’t even have cable, or netflix. Guilty of some hour long stints on Pinterest.

I am not the real brains behind Triberr, but I keep half the founders of Triberr alive and well, so I’m pretty influential myself.

GRACE: Cereal is Dans fave meal if he’s making it himself because it’s the quickest thing to eat and then he can get back to programming. He doesn’t have one favorite meal because he likes to try new things but he’s most likely to order steak/fish if we go out. He is NOT picky, he will eat almost anything, even gross leftovers that a dog might not eat. I have had to start throwing things out in order to keep him from poisoning himself. He once tried to eat his leftover cheesecake from the cheesecake factory and the whip cream had gone bad and he almost threw up.  We were low on food the other night and he made himself an english muffin with hershey’s syrup and peanut butter. He also puts cheese-its on just about anything he can. Funny thing is, he’s actually a really good cook himself when he wants to be.

GRACE: Pretty sure it was dinner with my parents. Haha.  Like I said before, we lived 3 hours away. So, our second date was actually a whole weekend staying at my parents house. After he got to my parents house, he met my parents and then we went out to a park/duck pond and just walked around taking pictures of the swans and then sat on a bench talking. He told me to “tell him everything about myself starting with the day I was born.” And I’m pretty sure we went out to dinner that night. Leaving the 3rd date or day we actually hung out, at my parents, for dinner. Poor guy, but my family is really nice so they didn’t grill him or say/do anything embarrassing. But he did end up sleeping in the basement with my two brothers which had to be kind of awkward for him.

GRACE: Well my grandma said that Dan wasn’t very happy to marry me on our wedding day because he “didn’t smile enough.” Yeah grams, because I held a gun to his head to get him to marry me, I guess I left that part out of the proposal, oops.

My parents love him though! He taught my mom how to text, bought her an ipod nano and spent hours filling it up with her favorite music and sermons. He gave my brother our old macbook computer so he or my parents wouldn’t have to pay for one when he could’ve sold it instead. He is very patient with my mom on the computer, even when the other night she asked him how to copy and paste.

My brothers get along with Dan and really like him but are as different as you could get personality wise. Both my brothers are really goofy, athletic, go to the gym, build muscles, drink beer kinda guys. But my older brother did say, “Dan, you are the only one who can get my wife to laugh at any jokes.” My sister in law even admits she doesn’t find most people funny, but she finds Dan’s dry, unexpected sense of humor hilarious. As do I. But I can make Dan laugh, and that is hard to do.

If you are looking for some conflict or something juicy I could tell you about the girl that was so in love with Dan that after we started dating she asked him to send her a picture of me to see what I looked like, and then friended me on facebook and tried to be my BFF and wanted to know details about my wedding and stuff. She actually still tries to be my friend haha, it’s kind of weird.

GRACE: Hmm, we haven’t had too many disastrous situations thankfully, but our last apartment was so crappy and at one point it seemed like everything was falling apart at once. Our shower head broke so I had to take a shower by filling up some tupperware and dumping it on me, our fridge was leaking, our neighbor was singing chinese opera and then mysteriously disappeared. Like legit disappeared one day and left all his stuff in the apartment above us, even his car was left in his garage with a flat tire. The police never found him. We also used to get ants coming up from the cracks in our floors and even termites, hundreds of them that would swarm in the bathroom and shed their wing all over. GROSS! I think I said something to Dan like, “well at least we could open up an insect petting zoo here and make some money.” We would just make jokes all the time because that’s all we could do until our lease expired and we were SOO out of there!

GRACE: Hmm, I wouldn’t say he is a morning person but he’s pleasant in the morning, and he can actually do pretty well on limited sleep. He is definitely more of a night owl.  I am absolutely NOT a morning person and he lets me sleep in while he goes to work. Just the other day I was up at 7am with him because I had a headache and he says to me, “What are you doing up? You need to go back to bed!” It was one of the most awesome things he has ever said to me.

GRACE: I answer them really sympathetically… Like, “I know, I’m really sorry there is only one of him and I have him.” He is so patient and kind towards me that I really never feel insecure or unloved. He also appreciates everything I do and will always let me know, even if it’s just me doing the dishes. And sometimes when I feel like I don’t do that much and he works two jobs and I didn’t clean the house or get much done because I was having a rough day, he doesn’t ever make me feel bad about it. Yes, I would say he is a hero. We are lucky ladies, aren’t we?

Click on the banner below to learn more about this amazing woman.

INTERVIEW WITH DAN & GRACE CRISTO

As a romance writer, I have a habit of watching people. Being inspired, if you will, by one’s behavior as a potential influence in who I feel is worth mentioning to my readers in my novels. Someone they may find interesting or even fascinating. (My husband is my real life hero so he’s in a lot of my stories). Even so, profiling people is a passionate past-time of mine so it has somewhat become ingrained as instinct and, according to sources, I’ve gotten quite good at it.

As most know, Triberr is a HUGE megaphone for writers because our blogs are our main communication to let our readers know who we are, upcoming news, releases, and what we write. So, I’ve spent a lot of time learning about Triberr and those who founded it.

What my instincts began to read about Dan Cristo and the amazing person I noted prompted me to find out more. I would have to say now that the perception of who I suspected him to be underestimated the man, person, and husband, I discovered.

I am excited, in awe, and humbled, that Dan and his wife, Grace agreed to the following interview.

Dan, first of all, thank you so much for taking time out of your busy schedule to answer a few questions. Especially these – lol. I have to admit, I’ve been a fan of yours for quite some time. At first, it was your painstaking care of the Triberr clan (that would be us) and how you patiently and diligently answer concerns and even some fears. Then the genius of explaining to us in simple terms what was obviously a complexity by it’s very nature on issues of Triberr we couldn’t quite grasp. I was simply amazed to see such a genuine individual in this sometimes crazy cyberworld. Go figure…a nice guy. A good one.

But it didn’t stop there because we found out about Grace…your wife. This time another element emerged. One that would stir up all those things us writers write about.

A love story. One so natural and beautiful…well, anyone reading the answers in your interviews will see the gorgeous depth of your relationship.

So..you and Grace agreed to this Dan, so you can’t back out now. I gotcha!

Here we go:

We’ll start with Dan and continue with Grace’s interview the next time. The questions are shown in the blue boxes with Dan’s answers next to them.

DAN: Grace and I first met at a Christian camp when we were young. I’m 5 years older than her, so we didn’t really hang out in the same social circles as teenagers. In my early twenties (her late teens) I distinctly remember talking to a few of my guy friends about her, thinking she was cute, but I never did end up talking to her at any of the weekend retreats we attended. It wasn’t until a few years later that we connected through Facebook. By that point we knew who each other were, and we formed early impressions, but never held a conversation.

DAN: My first reaction is to try and find a solution to whatever the problem is.  I hate seeing her sad or unhappy, so I try to “fix” it – which usually consist of giving her lots of advice as to what I think she should do. Most of the time she just wants me to listen and comfort her, but I always see it as an opportunity to fix a problem. I think secretly I want to feel like her hero for fixing it and making her happy again.

She is rarely cranky. If she is it’s because she’s hungry and tired. For example, my car has been having problems starting lately. When it finally started, I drove it immediately to the car dealer to get it serviced, and she arrived later to pick me up. She asked me if it was the same dealer that we previously looked at cars. I said it was, but later found out that it wasn’t o.0

So she drove to the wrong place, and we had a very confusing phone call trying to find each other. Haha.

When she finally arrived at the right dealership, about 10 minutes away from where she was at, she was pretty upset. I was frustrated too, but I realized that it wasn’t a big deal and got over it a few minutes after she picked me up.

She was upset for a good while longer, which made for an awkward car ride. I understood she was upset, apologized, and changed the subject to something else. She didn’t feel much like talking, so it was, as I said, a little awkward.

In about an hour she ate some food, realized she took the whole thing a little more personal that she should have and apologized. I had forgotten about the whole thing by then.

In general I don’t keep any grudges, and I rarely remember any wrongdoings. If she wrongs me, I forgive and forget, even if she doesn’t ask for it. I literally cannot stay mad at her. Even if I think I have a valid reason for being mad, I’m usually the first one to apologize and try to make things right. “Never let the sun go down on your anger”.

Before we got married we listened to a Christian marriage CD series, and one of the takeaways was about how couples often keep a “registry” of all the wrongdoings the other has done. Then when they get into fights, they use that register to recall all the failures and mistakes the other has made in the past. We were urged never to do that, and I’m happy to say that after 4 years our registry is pretty much empty.

DAN: The first year it took a little getting used to me spending so much time on Triberr, and on Skype with Dino. Like a cat she used to climb on my keyboard with a look like, “Hey, I need some attention”.  And by “look” I mean she would actually say, “Hey, I need some attention”.

She now accepts a few of the quirks that come along with a startup like Triberr.

1)    I need long spaces of interrupted time to program. I’ve explained it to her in terms she could understand – sleep. When you go to bed, you don’t instantly fall into deep sleep. You start in a light sleep, move down the REM cycles to the really deep sleep where you wake up feeling refreshed. If you get woken up, you need to start from the lightest sleep level again. Programming is similar. You can’t just tackle a complex problem in 5 minutes. You need to really focus on it for an hour or two before you can solve it. If you get interrupted, you lose focus and have to start again. For that reason, she knows I can’t respond to questions when I’m in deep programming mode.

So she’ll ask me, “hey, are you focusing, or can I ask you something?” which I can usually respond with a yes or no without breaking my line of thought. If I am focusing, she checks back with me in an hour with the same question. She’s very patient and understanding in that way.

2)    Nights and weekends are devoted to programming. She expects me to program from about 9am to 10pm on weekends, so she makes plans to go to her parents and walk the dog, or hang out with friends. If I tell her that I won’t be programming, she’ll want to hang out, but by default she expects to entertain herself for the most part.

I think she views Triberr as a short term time sacrifice that will one day let me work from home, and buy us a house. She likes the fact that I’m not wasting my time playing video games or going to bars, but rather sees it as a 2^nd job that can help us achieve a better future.

DAN: Ha. I guess I answered this in the last question, but I can give a few more details.

Since I wake up at 7am for work on weekdays, I’m usually up around that time on Saturday, playing on my phone for an hour or two while she sleeps. At around 9 I’ll get up and eat some cereal. If anyone cooks breakfast, it’s her. Probably some eggs. I’ve attempted to make pancakes for her, but it didn’t quite meet her standards for food consumption. lol

She’ll get up shortly after, get on the computer for a bit, then drive about 20 minutes to her parents to play with the dog.  I’ll program for 12, sometimes as much as 15 hours. She’ll get home around 6 and will make some dinner. Around 8 or 9pm we’ll watch a few episodes of Shark Tank, Kitchen Nightmares, The Office or Duck Dynasty on Hulu or Amazon then go to bed. We got rid of broadcast TV years ago, and even got rid of Netflix about 6 months ago, so we spend very little time watching TV. I usually have YouTube playing some music in the background while I work though.

DAN: Not really. We only have 1 standing date night a year, and that’s on our anniversary. We always go out to “The Verve” which is a fancy French restaurant in Summerville, NJ. Other than that we’ll sometimes go to the Cheesecake factory if we’re in the mood for something a little more special.

In general, we’re both homebodies. Our ideal night is ordering in some Ahi Tuna from a local restaurant, and eating it in bed while we watch Shark Tank. We hate wearing “real clothes”, much preferring sweat pants and tee-shirts. The only time Grace likes getting dressed up is for weddings, which I’ll comply, but I’m not crazy about it. I considered creating a stylish line of comfort clothing called “BLOGGERWARE”. Essentially, I want to wear loose fitting cotton clothing all year long, and if I can’t find the perfect clothing, I’ll go ahead and make my own clothing line J

Fun fact – we really don’t celebrate birthdays or holidays. Sometimes we’ll go out for dinner, but we never exchange gifts. Valentines day is just another day for us. The only thing Grace really wants is the occasional bouquet of flowers, which if I do get her flowers, it won’t be on a holiday. I’ll just pick a random day.

Grace likes celebrating most holiday traditions, but I’m pretty opposed to them. I get turned off by the commercialism and pagan origins. She’s hung around me enough to know that holidays are just another day to me, so she doesn’t expect much from me on them. I think it’s a good thing though. So many couples add needless drama and stress on their relationship worrying about holidays and special events. Every holiday or event has to be bigger and better than last year or people will be disappointed – that’s just not sustainable. We’ve taken the opposite approach – every holiday is smaller and expectations are lower. This past Christmas we didn’t even go out. Just stayed home and chilled. No gifts, no decorations. No travel, low key and low stress. I think we’ll live longer because of it.

DAN: I certainly wasn’t nervous. In fact, I distinctly remember the 5 minutes of the day where I was nervous, but that was about an hour before the ceremony. After that I was fine.

My only real thought I had during that whole ceremony was just about how gorgeous she was – our wedding photos are like glamor shots in a wedding magazine.

I don’t mind public speaking or standing in front of people, so I was fine chilling at the front while people filled the seats. Those few minutes between when you first get to the front, and when people start sitting down are a little awkward though. Everyone is super smiley and wants to make eye contact, meanwhile you can smile back, but you can’t move or talk to them. You’re kind of just waiting for the ceremony to start, and it feels like an eternity. Then things start, and it’s great because everyone takes their gaze off of you, and stares at the back of the room for the next 5 minutes. Haha.

After that it’s easy, because you can stare at each other. We had a number of really talented musicians play a few songs during the ceremony, which made it a little long, but the time didn’t matter much, because we were pretty much just looking at each other, smiling and reading facial cues. It was great.

DAN: No real memorable goof-ups during the ceremony. We played it really conservative with the dancing. It pretty much consisted us hugging, swaying back and forth, slowly rotating in a circle. 

DAN: I think the platform is a reflection of what Dino and I wanted for ourselves. I was a brand new blogger at the time that didn’t really get blogging or social media. He had been blogging for a while, and being the connector that he is, he had built the online relationships needed to get his content shared. He completely understood the concept of blogging communities within blogs far before I ever did. He really wanted to get me into his “circle” of bloggers. He knew that they would share and comment on my posts even if the posts weren’t great, simply because I was in the circle.

So if anything, he really paid it forward with me by inviting me into his network, even though I didn’t really bring anything to the group. Triberr is simply a way of codifying that whole experience. 

FOLLOW DAN CRISTO’S ATOMIC TRIBE HERE

 STAY TUNED for…GRACE CRISTO

Let’s start first of all on the “WHY” Ste’ Kerwer’s Dukeo.com blogs should be placed on my Triberr’s auto sharing:

1) TRUST

Let’s face it. There are some blogs out there that are very far removed from what I believe in.  Since I don’t personally use social media to sell my own agenda, why in the world, would I want to sell someone else’s?

Ste’ Kerwer does not play that game. I can rely on his material and content to be free of such volatility and geared toward being helpful to the reader regardless of what the reader’s view on anything is.

2) HIS BLOG TITLES

I have to admit, I am sensitive to this topic. After all, my social media following sees everything I share and there are many re-sharing efforts because I pay close attention to whether or not the blog title interests me. If it is boring or even negative, I won’t share it because the relationship I am building in the social cyber-sphere is important and I want to build it – not lose it, by filling streams with information that is not useful or fun.

3) BLOG CONTENT

This guy kicks-butt in knowledge and is so very helpful to ANY and ALL persons who have a blog. I mean, it blows my mind on the quality, not to mention, the giving nature this guy has in sharing his knowledge.

Here’s the beauty of making my point. I’ll list examples of Mr. Kerwer’s blog titles and you tell me if you’re prompted to read more.

-Writing Blog Content – Keep it Simple

-Frequently Asked Questions on Links

-Formatting Images for SEO

-Why You Should Use “You” and “I” in Your Posts

-How Do You Create Trust Without Ever Seeing A Face?

-Viral Blogging

-The Rhythm Method of Blogging

-How to Find Free Pictures for Your Blog

-When the Blogging Stops

And these are just to name a few. In fact, to show you how tantalizing these topics are, I admit I had to stop writing this blog post within this very moment because a couple of these titles provoked my interest and I had to check them out. Doesn’t he know I’m on deadline? He probably has a blog about that. LOL

Okay now…just to be transparent. Ste’ Kerwer is in one of my tribes in Triberr but I don’t know him personally. The guy probably doesn’t even know my name but I hope he knows how much he is appreciated by his Triberr-mates. I have certainly benefited from his sharing.

Which brings me to the ONE & ONLY reason WHY I WON’T put Ste’ Kerwer’s blogs  on auto-sharing in Triberr.

BECAUSE I use my Triberr stream like the headlines of a newspaper. As a result, I do not want to miss a single blog from Ste’ Kerwer and auto-sharing goes straight to the approval stream and thus, in my busy day, I may miss this opportunity of growth.

Check out Ste’ Kerwer at Dukeo.com. It’s worth the visit.

Coffee Time Romance & More’s Best Books of 2012

Tiger by Laurann Dohner

Tiger works to give his people a better, safer life and has no desire to take a mate. He watches his friends fall for human females and he is clueless to the allure. The universe is testing his determination in the form of a beautiful female who calls him Angel.

Zandy thought she was a two-time loser in the marriage department and now spends her days avoiding men. Unfortunately she proves she is definitely a three-time loser when she falls for a man determined to be just a friend with benefits.

Tiger discovers fighting the urges of the animal part of his genetics is becoming more difficult and he begins to wonder why he was fighting instincts at all. Before he can tell her how he feels he is injured and a misunderstanding drives Zandy away. Tiger learns he not only drove his mate away but she has been taken by the enemy.

The Insightful Review

The New Species series is an outstanding read and readers find themselves addicted to the characters. Tiger has been a stand-up guy for his friends and their mates and to finally read his story was pure pleasure. Zandy is the perfect mate for him and watching their rocky road to happiness was an adventure. I love the world Laurann Dohner has created for her reader’s pleasure and will keep visiting as often as she can make them come alive. If you love paranormal then New Species is for you, but I must warn readers you will never be able to stop at just one.

Delane
Reviewer for Coffee Time Romance & More

Some people just have the gift to captivate my interest. Dan Cristo from Triberr is such a person…thought-provoking and inspiring. Want to learn something worth knowing? Join his “tribe” invitation at the end of this post. His posts are ones that I always make time for.

Drill Bits and Butterflies by Dan Cristo

I had yesterday off. I’m not sure why some companies consider Martin Luther King Jr. day a national holiday and others don’t, but ours did, and I made good use of it.

I woke up around 8 o’clock to a panic stricken doorbell followed by obsessive pounding on the front door. Our over zealous maintenance lady wanted to check our apartment’s heating system. I left our super a voicemail last week about the heat not turning on consistently, and I specifically said, “DO NOT COME BEFORE 11 O’CLOCK!”. Whatever.

Regardless of awakening, I was up, so I decided to get an early start on some web development work for my startup, Triberr. Dino Dogan and I have been building Triberr for almost two years now, and the time has come for a massive redesign.

We completed the graphic design portion last week, and now we’re move on to connecting the interface to our database so things actually function. My goal for the day was to get the new Tribal Stream working, and I did, but it took me 12 straight hours of coding. For those not on Triberr, the Tribal Stream is similar to Facebook’s news feed. It’s the core of the site that has to be great, or people won’t use the site.

At about 10 o’clock at night, Dino hits me up on Skype. He’s very excited about a new idea – a completely reimagined Tribal Stream. Now you could probably imagine how I felt about blowing up the Tribal Stream I just spent my day creating. Needless to say it didn’t bring a huge smile to my face, but I heard him out, and we ended the call with his usual, “Just sleep on it” closing argument. “Fine” I thought, now back to the task at hand – finishing the Tribal Stream.

An hour later Dino pings me on Skype again. He’s got a few more reasons why we should implement his new re-imagined Tribal Stream. At this point I was like, “Look, your excitement level for this is a 9 right now. Mine is a 2. We need to get within 2 or 3 points of each other for us to continue the conversation”. It’s true, I just wasn’t in the frame of mind to objectively evaluate a new, crazy idea. To me it was solving a problem that didn’t exist, and I had real trouble trying to visualize what this might look like on the site. I was the drill bit, Dino the butterfly.

Critical vs Creative

People are usually typically critical or creative thinkers.

Critical thinking is a very deep, focused way to think about problem. It involves precise, persistent analysis of the issue at hand. For example, artists who need to either write a lot of music, or perhaps finish their novel, tend to take a writing retreat where they leave behind the distractions of their current environment to a cabin or something where they can emerse themselves in their writing. Often publishers or music labels will give deadlines to their artist to raise their stress which helps produce critical thinking.

Creative thinking on the other hand is more shallow and broad. When you’re thinking creatively you start with a problem, then you move outward to look at the problem from a variety of perspectives. It’s the typical, “Brainstorming” process where no idea is a bad idea, and the goal is to get people to throw out as many ideas as possible. This usually works best with a larger group of people with diverse backgrounds, because each will have slightly different perspective.

Drill Bits and Butterflies

Critial thinking is like a drill bit, and creative thinking is like a butterfly. A good company has both drill bits and butterflies. The creative thinkers who dream up innovative new ways of doing things, but left alone they’ll have a drawer full of great ideas that never see the light of day. Critical thinkers who are great at execution and incremental improvements, but lack really ground breaking innovation.

Steve Jobs Was a Butterfly

Take Apple for example. Steve Jobs was clearly a creative thinker, and Woz was the quintessential critical thinker. Together they built an amazing company. When Jobs left Apple, they failed to innovate, and the company almost closed. After his return Apple came out with the iMac, iPod, iPhone, iPad, iTunes and other amazing products that disrupted entire industries. Now Steve is gone again, and the company is back in the hands of a critical thinker.

Butterbits and Drillfies?

It is possible for one person to be both a critical and creative thinker? Yes… just not at the same time.

I can see this in my own life. During the day I’m a Director of SEO Innovation butterfly. I’m responsible for coming up with new, innovative ideas for our agency.

Outside of work, I’m a tech founder and lead programmer for a startup. There are bugs to fix, customers to support, and a redesign to implement. Site’s don’t improve themselves, and there is a lot of pressure to make Triberr better.

After I finish my work day as a butterfly I have an hour train ride home. I try to read a book or watch a movie in an effort to clear my mind and switch thought modes. When I get home I eat some dinner and start coding. It’s a daily metamorphosis.

Creative Thinking Environments

If you need your team to get creative, first remove them from their current task-based environment. Make sure they are well fed, stress free and in a good mood. Focus on creating fun, encouraging laugher and building trust. This type of environment is a petri dish for great ideas.

Critical Thinking Environments

If you need your team to get things done, create a critical thinking environment. Remove distractions like TV, meetings, email and IM. Outline goals, set objectives, prioritize tasks and give short, firm deadlines.

Make sure they have the proper resources to get the job done. This means things like food should be abundant and accessible. No need to leave the office for lunch, bring it in. Make sure their tools are top of the line so they don’t run into any blue screens of death. Be available to answer questions and give guidance. Nothing is worse then waiting on someone to get back to you with an answer.

Most importantly…

If you want creative and critical thinkers to work together, don’t put them in a room until they are within 2 or 3 points of each other. Switching between being a butterfly and drillbit is exhausting, and can’t be done well on the fly.

If you need people to switch gears, first evaluate the situation. Try to identify which type of thinking is best for the problem. Once you know if critical or creative thinking is required, adjust the environment to facilitate it. Introduce your team to the adjusted environment, and slowly bring the room to a boil, so to speak, so that everyone is on the same page with what they need to accomplish, and how you’d like them to think about the problem at hand.

My Next Post

You feeling this post? If so, consider joining my tribe on Triberr. You’ll get my next post delivered to your inbox, plus bunch of other cool stuff. Almost 50 people so far. They can’t all be wrong, can they?

How to Use Facebook and Twitter to Build an Audience and Romance Your Readers

(with Publicity Expert – Joan Stewart & Christine Buffaloe)

What to Expect:

During the first hour, Joan will teach Twitter, where she has a following of more than 25,000 people. During the second hour, Christine will teach you about Facebook and discuss the strategies she uses for her many author clients to promote their expertise and sell more books. Come with your questions! Miss this free webinar and you’ll kick yourself later.

You will learn this about Twitter:

–The Number One “Law of Attraction” on Twitter that will pull people to you like a magnet

–The most important thing you want your followers to do–and how to encourage them to do it

–Tips for writing enticing, irresistible tweets

–The Top 4 Twitter directories where you must have a presence so readers can find you

–The 8 best ways to use this site so you don’t waste time

–18 ways to find content to tweet

–What other romance writers are doing on Twitter to build an audience

–The 3 most important things to include in your Twitter profile

You will learn this about Facebook:

–The difference between a Profile and a Page and why you need to have both

–Why this a valuable marketing tool with tremendous potential…but only if you use it correctly

–What content to share on your Profile and what to share on your Page

–Fun ways to share content and encourage people to Like, Share and Comment

–How to find relevant content and share others’ content on your page

–How to use your the Notes tab to post “teasers” from your book(s)

–The big benefit of tagging other Facebook users, and how to tag

–How to add tabs, such as a free landing page, using Tabsite to breathe personality into your page

Seating is limited

Click here to sign up for Marketing For Romance Writers or click below: 

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MarketingForRomanceWriters/

(Once you sign up, introduce yourself and mention the Twitter and Facebook Webinar and we will make sure you receive the link.)

About Joan & Christine:

Publicity expert Joan Stewart, also known as The Publicity Hound, has an international following of authors, speakers, experts, publicists and others who want to self-promote. She’s  a former newspaper editor who has written four ebooks about publicity and has contributed to more than 60 books on publicity, marketing, publishing, social media and small business. You can find her online at PublicityHound.com. Her German Short-hair Pointer named Bogie takes Joan on walks twice a day. They live, and try to stay warm, in Port Washington, Wisconsin.

Christine Buffaloe of Serenity Virtual Assistant Services has been managing projects, including social media, for her small business clients for more than five years. Authors, speakers and experts rely on Chris to train them on social media, manage their social media accounts, teach them Internet marketing, provide customer service, and oversee their online shopping carts. Chris lives in sunny San Diego, California, where she knits, takes her dogs for hikes, walks in marathons and rides her Yamaha motorcycle.

Karenne Lyn at Coffee Time Romance & More!

Plain and Simple, the woman is a giver. She shares her time, she shares her knowledge, she shares her humor and let’s not leave out her fabulous sarcasm but it is only of the most delightful kind where chuckles are a given with a demand for more.

Most importantly, however, Karenne Lyn shares her Coffee House. From advertising that meets any budget, a shared calendar so authors can share their news, contests, a plethora of events to feed the most discriminating participant’s desires, fabulous promotional opportunities, featured spots, chats, workshops, and a “book store to die for”, and oh yes, I just have to mention the new Steampunk design and opportunity that’s been crafted – yeowza!  And these are just a few things she has cultivated for you, the author.

Circulation and readership is amazing and reflects the blood, sweat, and tears that make Coffee Time Romance & More the success it is today – successful because it helps others be successful.

Essentially, Karenne Lyn provides a perfect atmosphere for authors to take their brand and business to the next level.

Having said that, today I want to introduce another opportunity Coffee Time Romance & More is providing and this newest adventure is designed with the same philosophy of helping authors in this competitive world of social media attention.

We are proud to present:

2013’s Latte Likes

Here are the mechanics of how it works:

Give your Facebook Page some caffeine-love with a taste of Latte Likes!

Coffee Time Romance & More has brewed up an idea you are going to “like”.

As is Coffee Time’s tradition, we seek ways to recognize and reward those who go the extra-mile-for-style!

Is that you? We are on the hunt for that special Author Facebook Page that stands out and gets the love it deserves…or in Facebook lingo – “likes”.

Beginning in January of 2013 (NOW) and continuing through December, we will be trolling pages for that unique social media encounter. One that makes it a pleasure to stop by, to stay awhile, to stamp into the visions of guests, the knowledge in knowing what liking a page is all about.

And hey…don’t be shy or feel you need to wait on us. We welcome your recommendations as well, even if it’s your own page.

Here’s how it works:

There will be an opportunity for (2) Authors to receive this recognition per month.

One week to nominate the first potential recipient and the next week to “like” them. The amount of “likes” followed by a comment on the page (to keep count of actual admirers) will take place the following week, then we’ll repeat it again for the next round to nominate the second author’s page.

Here is what the authors who are nominated for this recommendation receives:

- All those “Likes” and with it, mega exposure

- Recognition in Coffee Time Romance & More’s high-traffic newsletter – Café Chronicles

- An advertising Package with Coffee Time Romance & More

And in December of 2013, we will hold a final and separate vote for the 24 nominations of the year. The results? One lucky recipient will receive via random drawing – drum roll please… an iPad Mini!

But wait! Coffee Time Romance & More doesn’t want to forget those “likers” who make the “likee’s possible so one person who participates in the “likes” (per author “likes” nomination) will receive via random drawing a “Book & Beverage” package (see below).

- $5 Starbucks Gift Certificate

- $10 to spend at Coffee Time Romance’s Book Store

We are so excited about this event and look forward to seeing the ingenuity and clever pages to be discovered.

We just know we will “like” them.

SO…let the “likes” begin. Submit your recommendation HERE.

Then tune in next week for the announcement and commencing of the nominated “likes” on Coffee Time Romance & More’s Facebook Page.

The Duplicate Content Myth. Busted! by Dino Dogan

If you search Huffington Post for the phrase “This article originally appeared in”, you get over 11 thousand results. That’s 11 thousand pieces of duplicate content.

Of course, this is one of million examples I could have listed. Every big site, from Forbes, to Mashable, to RWW, to you name it…sais they’re doing us a favor when they syndicate our content.

Clearly, these big sites are not getting punished by Google for duplicating content, so there has to be something deeper going on.

What We’ll Cover

There are 3 things I want to cover in this post.

1. What “duplicate content” rule is designed to do
2. How it works when big blogs duplicate your content
3. How Google handles Triberr Reblog

But first…

In case you just fell off a turnip truck, duplicate content is when someone takes your writing and posts it on their site.

This is often done maliciously, because we’ve all been force-fed the golden rule. Content is King.

Here’s the thing about that…

1. Content is King because without it Google has nothing to index.
2. If there is nothing to index, there is nothing to show in search results.
3. If there is nothing to show in search results, Google is not making any money. But also, no one is coming to your site, and consequently, you’re not making any money.

Or so the conventional wisdom goes…

Notice however, that “Content is King” has nothing to do with the quality of content.

Google has incentivised the quantity of content, NOT quality. This is because Google makes money with our content. For a very elegant explanation of how that particular hat-trick works, watch Dan Cristo in this video.

So, nefarious types figure they need content, and stealing it is an easy way to obtain it.

Note: Even tho I keep saying “google”, same rules apply for all search engines.

The Rule

Google has created the Duplicate content rule to thwart nefarious types who are stealing our writing.

The fact that some bad people may re-publish my content is not really a bad thing. It’s just more of my work being displayed in other places.

We all want as many people as possible to see our work, right?

So, it’s important to understand that republishing in and of itself is not a bad thing. It’s the attribution that creates the problem. Specifically, when no attribution is given to the original author. THAT is bad.

So Google, in its infinite wisdom, has created a rule.

Duped Content Rule

Whenever Google crawls any content, the content gets a timestamp. All things being equal, content with an older timestamp wins.

So, it shakes down like this….

1. You publish a piece of content
2. Google indexes it, and assigns it a timestamp.
3. Content thief copies your content
4. Google indexes stolen content
5. Google runs side-by-side comparison, and finds 2 pages with same content
6. Page with an older timestamp wins search placement

So, if Google does its job right, you win the search placement.

Note: Content thieves try to sidestep side-by-side comparison by using applications called  “article spinners”, which substitute certain words with synonyms hoping to make stolen content different enough.

Bottom line, Google has pretty weel solved the duplicate content issue. Unless we’re talking about your content being republished on big sites.

Republishing with Permission

Sometimes, however, duplicate content is taken from your blog and re-published (syndicated) with your permission. This usually means that the authorship is carried over as well.

On an interesting psychological side note, we’re not so protective of our audio and video content since the author can be seen and heard. In fact, we WANT people to embed our podcasts and videos.

Also, the newest form of content, Infographics, is designed to be republished. Something to keep in mind, since we’re discussing the evolution of content distribution. Anyways…

Many popular blogs “steal”, and have in fact built their empires on republished content.

For example. If you search Huffington Post for the phrase “This article originally appeared in”, you get over 11 thousand results. That’s 11 thousand pieces of duplicate content.

Of course, this is one of million examples I could have listed. Every big site, from Forbes, to Mashable, to RWW, to you name it…sais they’re doing us a favor when they syndicate our content.

Clearly, these big sites are not getting punished by Google for duplicating content, so there has to be something deeper going on.

Let’s crack open the hood, and see what’s underneath.

Problem Right Now

The problem is, even when your content is republished (with attribution) on a site like Huffington Post, it’s NOT you who gets better placement in search results.

This is because giant sites like HuffPost have a greater authority (in Google’s eyes) than your tiny little blog.

Think about that for a second.

1. You write an awesome post.
2. It gets syndicated to a big blog
3. Google gives preferential treatment to the big blog
4. You lose traffic that was meant for you

That sucks in my book.

Now, many writers see this as a trade off. The logic goes that if you’re syndicated to a big site, you’ll get more exposure. But, here’s the thing.

You will NOT get more exposure. Your content might. But not you.

This is because big blogs (like HuffPost, to stay with the example) have an overpowering brand identity.

Readers don’t go to HuffPost because of 1 specific author. They go there because it’s HuffPost.

Ask yourself, out of all the articles you’ve ever read on big blogs, how many authors can you actually name?

Syndication Done Right

Triberr decided to fix these pesky little problems once and for all.

Triberr plugin enables you to syndicate|reblog|republish (article spinner? ) posts you find in your tribal stream.

I’ve written an extensive how-to guide on the reblog process here, so I won’t be repeating those details in this post.

So, what happens when your tribemate reblogs your post?

Let’s use you and I as an example:

1. You publish a post
2. Google crawls it and timestamps it
3. I reblog it with a single click
4. Google crawls the same post on my blog and timestamps it
5. Since both our blogs are of similar authority, YOUR post gets higher ranking in Google
6. You get the traffic you deserve

Authorship is carried with the post, no matter how many times it’s reblogged. The Author box is tied to the content. Neither author, nor “re-blogger” need to worry about this. Triberr takes care of it.

But, here’s the real kicker. Here is something you and I have that HuffPost does NOT have. ZERO loss of engagement.

ZERO Loss of Engagement

When your post gets syndicated to HuffPost, the comment systems are completely disjointed.

Comments on your blog are not visible on HuffPost, and vice versa.

With Triberr plugin, comments are “mirrored” across every instance of the post.

This means that if I reblog a post that already has 20 comments, those comments will be visible on my blog as well.

Also, this means that any comments left on my blog, will be visible on the original blog as well.

MAGIC!

Here, try it for yourself.

Three blogs, one post. Check it out. Note the comment section. It is identical.

1. petrafisher.com/21-linkedin-tips-from-7-experts
2. diyblogger.net/21-linkedin-tips-from-7-experts
3. integratedalliances.com/21-linkedin-tips-7-experts

What did I tell you? ZERO loss of engagement. BAM!

Editor in Chief

Big blogs have another advantage. They have a full time staff.

It takes time to coordinate guest posts. Edit them. Create author bios. And bunch of other tedious nonsense.

Reblog takes care of it all.

Oprah Approved

When Reblog feature was still in the skunkworks phase, we called it Project Oprah, because it was truly inspired by her.

You see, Oprah tapes her show in Chicago. But then, that show gets syndicated across 100s of TV stations across the world.

Does Oprah care her content is not shown on “her” TV station? Nope. She only cares that you see her content, and that you know that it’s her who created that content.

There, It’s Done

People have been asking me for months to write a post specifically addressing the duplicate content issue.

I hope this covers it. And I hope you Reblog this post.