Today the Dragon Wins

"Today the Dragon Wins" offers information from Fantasy Author and Professional Editor Sandy Lender. You'll also find dragons, wizards, sorcerers, and other fantasy elements necessary for a fabulous story, if you know where to look...

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Sandy Lender is the editor of an international trade publication and the author of the fantasy novels Choices Meant for Gods and Choices Meant for Kings, available from ArcheBooks Publishing, and the series-supporting chapbook, What Choices We Made.

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Friday, October 16, 2009

Does it Matter Who Follows You?
Or…The Dragon recommends careful online social networking

As many of you know, I completed a month-long online book tour in June. During that tour, I garnered a lot of attention at Twitter for the first ever Tweeterview with my good author friend Jamieson Wolf. During the week leading up to the Tweeterview, which you can read in its entirety at a special blog site, and in the weeks after, I found a plethora of twitterers lining up to follow me. That’s fantastic! More followers means more friends in the cyber world. It also means more flow of information and more folks to announce the release of Choices Meant for Kings to.

Some of those twitterers were not the type I want following me. Now, some marketers would look at that statement and think I’m insane. A follower is a follower is a follower, right? I don’t think so. Anyone looking at my profile and seeing that twitterers with names including “boobs” or “nasty” or “hire my body” or other less-clean examples would start to wonder just what kind of content I was providing to attract such clientele.

I don’t provide content that would attract such clientele. Nor do I wish to provide such content.

So when a twitterer with a questionable name links to me, I check into the situation to see if I should block that person from following me. If the name (or profile photo) is only marginably questionable, I’ll take a quick peek at his or her profile to give him or her the benefit of the doubt. A quick judgment call later and I either block or move on. It takes something eye-catching or downright intriguing to get me to follow back because, frankly, I have no time in my life. You have to offer some pretty interesting-to-me content for me to follow you on twitter. (or be a real-life friend or member of Duran Duran)
“Some days, I just want the dragon to win.”
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Saturday, July 04, 2009

We Have Winners!
Or…The Dragon gives away books to celebrate successful online book tour

I haven’t posted at this blog for a month (or so) because I’ve been posting at a bunch of other places since June 1 for my third online book tour. The great news is the tour has been a great success. I’m surprised at the hits to this site. We went from 23,320 to 23,791 with no new posts from me. Odd stat, but cool to have folks checking in to learn more about me. My rank for Today the Dragon Wins at Technorati went from 376,090 to 269,519, which isn’t fabulous, but, hey, I’ll take the improvement. What I found bizarre is that, after being showcased (and linked) on 20 or so blogs, Today the Dragon Wins’ authority at Technorati went from 15 to 14. Methinks Technorati needs to adjust their system, eh? (There's a nifty green button at the upper right of this blog post where you can link to "favorite" this blog on Technorati, if you're so inclined.)

On Twitter, I went from 59 followers to 1,649 thanks to my participation with my good friend Jamieson Wolf in the Internet’s first live Tweeterview. (You can read the full transcript at this blog.)

I joined facebook in the middle of the tour and now have 125 connections there. At Amazon, my page for Choices Meant for Gods gained another five-star review and my ranking improved overall. Its best was 59,884 one Friday (late morning).

In other great news, I met some fun people during the tour. From the hosts to the visitors, fantasy readers with excellent ideas and senses of humor made me thankful for the time, energy, and dollars I put into the tour. It was worth it. Now, I get to give a little extra “thank you” to a few of those folks. My tour organizers pulled names from those who left comments each week during the tour and here are the winners who will be receiving hardcover, first edition, personalized copies of Choices Meant for Gods in the mail!

The tour host winner is Cynthia Eden. We had the most comments (29—not counting duplicates or my comments) the day she hosted me at her site.

Week One Winner: Pauline Baird Jones
Week Two Winner: My Newest Stalker, Mysti Holiday
Week Three Winner: Lisa Lawmaster Hess
Week Four Winner: M (love the Bond reference!)
Week Five Winner: Deborah Panger

With the comments link below, please join me in not only congratulating these folks on winning a fabulous vacation-in-a-book, but also in thanking them for supporting me during the tour with their kind words. It was a fantastic journey.

(You can also follow this blog so you're notified when I update with news.)

“Some days, I just want the dragon to win.”
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