Yes, this post will explain how you can make $100+ per month through your website, and to make sure we are on the same page: I am talking $100 and maybe a little more. I don’t promise a $10,000 monthly income with virtually no work, and you sitting at the swimming pool of your home in the Caribbean, sipping your vodka martini – shaken, not stirred. If I knew how to get there, I wouldn’t be sitting here in my small office typing posts on blogging or running a website.

Through the years I have written a number of posts on the everlasting online scams that promise you the path to riches by running your own website, and I am proud that I was able to save a few people from losing their well-earned money by reporting on these scams. It is sad, though, that most people find my articles after the fact, and the majority of them are unemployed.

And also through the years, the same question came up again and again: How CAN I actually make money through the Internet? The discouraging answer was always, that you can’t, based on the assumption that you can create enough income to pay the groceries, the mortgage, etc. But to stay with the truth, there are a few ways to contribute to your income, or, in the least, ease the financial burden.

In this article I will cover the most basic – and easiest way – to make those previously mentioned $100 and maybe a little more. Ironically, it’s the same method that scammers promote to make millions of dollars, but this is where the scam starts. First, there is no secret formula; it’s all common knowledge in the internet community. Secondly, you can create a little money, but – and here comes the harsh reality issue again – you need to invest some work and maybe some money.

Also, for the record, I am not the guru on making money through your computer. Again, it’s common knowledge. On the other hand, I will also NOT ask for your credit card information before I disclose my “secrets, guaranteed to work”…

You Need A Website

Duh! That was obvious. If you don’t have the funds to pay GoDaddy.Com and the likes, there are free services by Google (Blogger.Com), WordPress.Com, and others. If you can afford roughly US$100 per year to pay an Internet provider like Go Daddy.Com, have a look at the FREE book I wrote on Professional Blogging. Again, yes, it’s FREE. I wrote it some time ago, and it’s not entirely up to date, but it contains some helpful insights on running a professional blog (I don’t separate the term blog from website; in all consequence it’s the same thing). To download the document go to our section on Professional Blogging.

For additional information, see also my post Ground Rules For A Successful Website.

Add Advertisement To Your Website

This is the part where you can make the money, but before we get to it, let me just make a serious statement. First of all, there is never ever a guarantee for success. That depends very much on the nature of your website and your involvement. Secondly, addressing the involvement, success comes only through investing blood, sweat, tears, and time. Again, see the above mentioned post.

Have a look at this very website, FrogenYozurt.Com, which took me more than three years and roughly 4,800 pages to get where I am now, and that is the where some of the roughly $100 per month through advertisement come from. On the other hand, I use the website primarily to promote my product line, namely the literature I publish. Also, I don’t use Google Ads for business-related reasons. The Google Ads that showed up on my website did either promote my competition or, even worse, the previously mentioned scammers. In all consequence, I cannot fight scammers and, at the same time, promote their business. Nevertheless, I do recommend using Google Ads for the mere purpose of creating income.

My recommended ad strategy is:

First, create a website and add some content. If you are not familiar with the process, make sure you get the necessary information either through the Internet or get a book on the topic. You can also download and read my document (See above).

Sign up at adsense.google.com and create an affiliate account. The application process is easy, and you should get approved fairly quickly. The Google website contains all the information you need, and there are even books and Internet resources on the topic. You will earn between a few pennies up to a few dollars per click, and if your website concept works, you can easily make $50 and more per month.

However, do not rely entirely on Google ads. You can sign up for additional affiliate accounts, and they will not collide with each other.

Next, I recommend to become an Amazon.Com affiliate (https://affiliate-program.amazon.com/). Amazon provides code for banners and images that can be easily integrated into your website. The application process is as easy and painless as Google. Amazon.Com pays a flexible percentage of actual sales that resulted from the click on the ad. The more sales you create for them, the higher the percentage will be.

The next service I recommend, infolinks (http://www.infolinks.com), requires that your website is already active for a while. I believe, they require a six month lifetime of the website. You can see their impact on this website through the green highlighted hyperlinks, and they work as a perfect addition to Google Ads.

These are, in a nut-shell, the affiliate programs that, with the exception of Google, worked for me. I have tried a myriad of other services, but they either provide minor quality (I chose my words very, very carefully here…) or they accept only websites in the range of The New York Times or The Washington Post.

The More Websites You Have…

Last, but not least, a brief flashback to the getting-rich-fast-scheme… As I have explained, it is possible to make $100 and maybe a little more per month through your website, that is, one website. And here comes the light-bulb popping up above your head: If I make $100 with one website, I could create a decent income by creating a total of 30 websites or even more. This might work when you spend 25 hours a day to maintain your website – you get there by skipping the lunch hour. You get the point; this equation doesn’t work. It will take great efforts (as I wrote a lot of blood, sweat, tears, and time) to create sufficient web traffic, and, rather than spreading content over several websites, concentrate on one large website. Search engines love large websites.

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There’s a definite science and a definite art to making websites rank #1, which is SEO, or search engine optimization. When it’s done right, your business gets found by thousands of new people daily — and secures you new levels of online profits and success.

The key to a successful website is not based on a secret formula, but a simple list that, if followed meticulously, will create a solid basis for good website traffic. Nothing in this post is really new, but those who just started off with a website might find this hands-on approach valuable.

The Very Basics

When you run a website, you will be faced from the very beginning with search engine optimization (SEO), and SEO is treated at times like a science. However, concentrating on SEO alone will do nothing for your website if you don’t follow the very basics.

The most important features – and you can call it the first SEO-related measure – are content, content, and … content. Yes, that means, the more posts you put on your website the better. That also means, it will take quite some efforts to build up a sizable website, meaning you need to invest blood, sweat, tears, and time.

The next, very important SEO measure is unique content. Yes, you can save some valuable time by scraping content from other websites, but search engines love unique content, and they will detect that your posts are a mere copy. In turn, they will punish you with low rankings and effectively kill all website traffic that comes from these search engines.

Also, if at all possible, make sure that your posts relate roughly to the same topic. Your website and your posts should have a common theme like automobiles, toys, fitness, etc. Search engines prefer such websites.

Search engines also like frequent updating, which indicates not only new content, but that the website owner is serious about online presence.

Many of us use blogs as a web presence, and there are many free blogging services available, however they come with the disadvantage of a more or less unattractive website name (e.g. johndoe.blogger.com). This very website started off as a blog and grew into something bigger, and I chose the name FrogenYozurt.Com because nobody actually forgets the name once they have heard or read it. Ideally, your website name should indicate the theme of your site.

Make sure your website name is registered for at least two years, if not more. Many scam websites exist only for a year, and search engines need yet another indication that you are serious about your website presence.

Structure Of Your Site

Besides search engine optimization, you should also consider your readers’ behavior. For instance, you don’t want to turn them off with a dark-purple background and light-red fonts. They’ll get annoyed and will go somewhere else, and, again, search engines will pick up on that. They simply measure the time a visitor stays on your site, and if the vast majority leaves within shortest time, they will punish you with low rankings.

The same is true for navigation, meaning how you lead visitors through your website.

My recommendation – to address either topic – is to use an online service that supports WordPress, a blogging software. This very website, FrogenYozurt.Com, runs under WordPress, which makes it possible to add new posts easily and within shortest time, as if you were using a word processor. The other advantage is that WordPress provides literally thousands of great, professionally looking designs that are very easy to install. If you don’t have the funds to run your own website, I recommend to sign up with WordPress.com – It’s free.

Structure Of Your Posts

The same rule applies as before: Do not discourage your visitors with bad design or bad content. Watch the length of your articles – don’t overdo it; make sure the content is appealing. A word count of 500 to 1,000 is sufficient.

One of the most important SEO terms is: Keywords. Search engines need keywords to determine what you are writing about. I won’t go into many more details here; the subject has been covered ad nauseam. Just so much: Make sure, you define keywords individually for each of your posts.

Other important search engine parameters are the title information and the description. Let me explain what that means: Each post you write has a title, which, in many cases, reflects the actual file name. However, the file name and the title are two different parameters and should be separated. Search engines look primarily at the title to get a first indication what the post is about, but, while the file name can be as long as needed, titles should not be longer than 60 characters. Most search engines use only the first 60 characters; the rest is cut off and won’t help at all in terms of satisfying search engines.

The same is true for the description. Each posts has a separate description and its maximum length should be 160 characters.

Publish your work

While search engine optimization seems to be the name of the game, do not rely entirely on the fact that search engines will find you eventually. Every single time you post a new entry to your website, you need to promote it. You can call it “agressive marketing,” and the simple rule is that only the wheel that makes the noise gets the grease.

In order to create attention beyond search engines, you need to open accounts with:

• Facebook
• Twitter
• Google+
• Tumblr.com
• digg.com
• reddit.com
• and more…

Let me make that point again: Every single time you post a new entry to your website, you need to promote it by posting a reference to these services. The combined power of all these services will create web traffic, even without the help of search engines.

There are a myriad of other, more sophisticated measures to boost website traffic for the serious website owner, and I have every intention to publish them here. For the time being, see my tips on WordPress blogging in our section on Professional Blogging.

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There’s a definite science and a definite art to making websites rank #1, which is SEO, or search engine optimization. When it’s done right, your business gets found by thousands of new people daily — and secures you new levels of online profits and success.

Well my last house guest did not make herself quite as at home as I had hoped. Sure she ate my food and commanded the remote control, but compared to her own tidy home, where shoes are not allowed, she clearly felt that my home was not worthy of the same regard.

June arrived off the plane with a nasty sniffle. Blowing through an entire box of tissues, she explained that she must have contracted some form of the Black Death from those nasty Petri dishes known as airplane seats. I certainly empathized. After a flight, my first instinct is to strip, shower and apply fresh clothing.

As her nose turned red, her eyes black and the rest of her a scary, post-mortem green, she asked to lie down. I pointed her to my bedroom, handing her a bath towel and showing her the location of the bathroom on the way. Meantime I continued preparing the bed in the guest room.

I had expected that she would either stop to shower, or perhaps remove her outer clothing, before flopping onto the bed. But when I returned to the room an hour later, I found June under my sheets, fully clothed except for her shoes. Fighting back the urge to retch, I woke her and sent her to the spare room that was now ready with fresh sheets, whereupon she jumped under the covers still fully clothed and returned to her slumber. Three days later both my husband and I were sick, which was not helped by the fact that I was eight months pregnant.

In the following days, June’s level of cleanliness did not improve. The kitchen seemed to spontaneously explode just by her entering it. Chocolate powder never quite made it into the glass, butter never quite onto the bread, and when the soup bubbled out of the pan, she made no attempt to clean the stove. Instead, she grabbed her tenth box of tissues, blew her nose and slumped off into the living room.

And finally there was the dog. We repeatedly asked her to keep the fuzzy little creature off the furniture, but were ignored every time. Anyone who lives with children knows what it’s like to nag someone a hundred times, only to have them ignore you. It turned out that June had decided that the dog on her lap, was not the same as the dog on the couch. Well silly me.

Eventually, the dog, having figured out long before its owner that it was unwelcome on the furniture, chose to settle on a tapestry that lay folded on the floor. As I entered the living room to find the dog clawing into the beautiful wedding gift that we had planned to hang on our wall, whilst June ignored the whole thing, I finally lost my cool.
“What is she doing?” I yelled.
“Burrowing,” replied June. “It’s what she does. She has terrier in her.”
“Well she’s gonna have a knife in her if you don’t get her claws out of my tapestry.”
Did my house guest apologize? Absolutely not. She fixed me with wounded eyes as she lifted the dog back onto the couch.

Finally June left, at which point I would have heaved a sigh of relief were my nose not so blocked that I couldn’t breathe.

June came and went without leaving us gift.

In spite of everything, I was sad to see her go. Not because I enjoyed having my house treated worse than a rock star’s hotel room, but because she is a friend whose company I enjoy. When I was not busy wondering whether rats would move in, I enjoyed scouring the city together in search of the best hot chocolate. And being chocoholics is just one of the many things that bind us, not to mention how much I enjoy our conversations that last for hours. All of this is why we became friends. My husband has officially banned her from the house, and I certainly agree with him, but can I realistically ban her from my house without banning her from my life?

If I tell June that she was a terrible house guest, she will no doubt be offended, justify herself fiercely and artfully turn it around so that I wind up in the wrong. Isn’t that what we all do when faced with criticism? To quote Dale Carnegie, “Let’s realize that the person we are going to correct and condemn will probably justify himself or herself, and condemn us in return.”

With that in mind, I have chosen not to confront June. And though she thinks our friendship is intact, I can’t help but resent her. Not so much because she disrespected my home, as because she would never admit to it or apologize for it. Having said that I am pretty certain that one pleasant visit with June on neutral territory, is all it will take to cure my anger. After all, she is charming and I’ve already mentioned that I like her. But even when I am ready to forgive her, I know my husband never will be, and that June will have to remain forever banned from our home.

No good will come from criticizing me...

Annabelle

A Life Lived Ridiculously
When a girl with obsessive compulsive disorder falls in love with a sociopath, she must fight for her sanity and her life.
http://www.ridiculouslife.net/

And how many of you just hung your heads in horror and said, Why why why why?? FOR GOODNESS SAKES, not another social media site that I HAVE TO contribute to in order to succeed, or else risk disappearing into the great abyss known as failure.

I mean really? Doesn’t all the pre-existing social media already suck the life and soul out of your day? Do we really need another added to our endless to do list?

I am very unhappy about Google +. I just don’t have time for it, as well as for everything else !!!!!!

Annabelle

A Life Lived Ridiculously
When a girl with obsessive compulsive disorder falls in love with a sociopath, she must fight for her sanity and her life.
http://www.ridiculouslife.net/

Blogging can certainly be fun if that’s all you’re doing it for. You get to put your emotions into words, perhaps get a debate going, even learn a thing or two from someone you’ve never met and probably never will meet. But if suddenly your intentions change so that you are blogging for readership, credibility, or some other reason where the difference between success and failure becomes an issue, then blogging switches from being fun to just plain old hard work with little reward.

Most depressing is when you have taken the time and trouble to write something that you are certain is interesting and provocative, but the response is minimal to say the least. Insult is then added to injury when you open your daily newspaper to see paid journalists regurgitating the same tired nonsense, while you remain forever trapped in obscurity and dogged by feelings of failure.

One recent article particularly irked me. It was published in a mainstream newspaper by a journalist complaining bitterly about the noise from her young neighbor’s apartment. I certainly agreed with her that she shouldn’t have to endure someone else’s loud music, and had I spotted this in a blog, would most likely have responded with my utter sympathies. But this was published in a mainstream newspaper with a readership of almost 1.4 million. The article was neither clever nor original, though I’m sure that her insightful statement that “85 decibels of Led Zeppelin seeping through your walls are unwanted nerve-frying babble,” would have elicited one or two nods of agreement from the general public, though most probably from frustrated bloggers who’s mission in life is to get you to read and comment back on their equally unoriginal thoughts.

As it is, our journalist did blog about her noisy neighbor and boasted that she received a “wave of messages and comments agreeing” with her. Well if she thinks that everyone enjoys the same blogging experience, then she is blissfully deluded. Without the luxury of the mainstream media at one’s fingertips, blogging may start off as fun, but will rapidly escalate into a full time battle against your own insignificance.

I have been blogging for about four months, and what started out as a fun experiment has rapidly escalated into a nagging reminder that I am at best, mediocre. I don’t believe that I am the only one to experience it this way. Bloggers have become so desperate for validation that they join blog farms and discussion forums where every subject line is entitled “follow me and I’ll follow you.” This is clearly the work of people who have crossed over from blogging for fun to blogging for results. And there is nothing fun about that.

So do you get bogged down by your bogs? I think the answer is yes, absolutely. Unless you are able to achieve an enormous readership (whether or not you deserve it, as in the case of our journalist) or you have a very thick skin.

AnnabelleRC

A Life Lived Ridiculously
When a girl with obsessive compulsive disorder falls in love with a sociopath, she must fight for her sanity and her life.
http://www.ridiculouslife.net/

Ok we get it, spam is bad. No one wants their newsfeed clogged with thousands of irrelevant adverts, or even relevant advertising, but a thousand times a day. We get it!

But I also think many people are taking their loathing of spam too far…

Let’s say you’re a writer with a new book about to come out. You may join writer’s forums. And let’s say your book has a heavy rock-climbing theme, so you’ll probably also join rock-climbing forums. And in all these forums you’ll talk to hundreds of like-minded people who’ll be happy to learn all about you… all that is except for the fact that you’ve written a book!

The moment you so much as hint at your achievement, bam the petty police (we all know who they are, every forum has at least one) send you hostile and bitter emails that this forum is not the place for self promotion.

Well if you’re a writer in a writer’s forum, then, one should be surprised if you DIDN’T have a book up your sleeve.

As mentioned before (this needs to be repeated, lest some self-righteous petty betty who didn’t read the first paragraph, says something asinine about spam) there is a difference between alerting relevant parties of your new product and bashing them over the head with it in the form of spam. A huge difference!

My editor put out a press release in which she explained that thanks to her fabulous editing, my book has found a publisher. Well of course I shared it to all my social media. It appeared on my Facebook wall (once) in relevant Facebook groups (once), on twitter, stumbleupon and LinkedIn (all once), among others. For the most part people were receptive and offered congratulations. But then there was the bitter mafia, who accused me of everything, from spamming to even faking the press release. One group member said that my publisher wasn’t sufficiently well known for me to claim that I had found a publisher, whilst another said that the press release contained “too much extraneous capitalization,” which made her suspicious.

The best was the sour puss who wrote “is this self promotion or are you advertising the services of your editor? If it’s the latter then fine, but if it’s the former then it has NO place in this forum!” Then what exactly is this ‘writer’s forum’ for, you sad, miserable witch?!

By the end of a day that had started upbeat and full of hope, due to the arrival of the press release, I was totally deflated and broken by so much hostility and plain nastiness. I must add that my book exists purely for entertainment purposes. I am not trying to sell anyone on a concept or a product, so I don’t see the harm in letting people know that it’s out there.

So what promotes this apparent aversion to other people’s attempts to make something of themselves? Is it envy, the desire to see someone fail, or the fear that someone might succeed? And if that is the case, then don’t worry petty police, by the time your done muzzling and breaking the spirits of people you’ve never even met before, many I’m sure will have given up hope and abandoned the project.

As for me, I’m still fighting the good fight, trying to navigate the increasingly strict rules of social media and the oversensitivity of petty people.

Because I may or may not have a have a novel coming out. I’d love to tell you more about it, but can’t in case it offends someone. So I’ll just say this, the title begins with A. Also I have a website, but you can’t have the link because giving someone a link is a major spam crime.

So if you want me you can find me on Facebook and LinkedIn, talking about everything and anything, and always diligently avoiding mentioning that I may or may not soon be a published author.

Oh, and if another person tells me to join google+, I’ll throttle them – I get abused on enough social sites as it is.

Annabelle
(PS, in case anyone is wondering, the most vicious petty betties live on LinkedIn, so beware…)

 Annabelle

A Life Lived Ridiculously
When a girl with obsessive compulsive disorder falls in love with a sociopath, she fights for her sanity and her life.
http://www.ridiculouslife.net/

Yet again, it appears I needed that slap in the face and re-confirm my experience.

Let’s have a look at the numbers of my last AdWords campaign: Between August 7, 2011 and September 1, 2011 I paid $234.27 (minus $100 per coupon) for a “whooping” 321 clicks! Compare that to 40,000+ visitors with 80,000+ page views per month. I got all this through good content, tons of content, frequent updating, and simple SEO. Also consider the percentage of fraudulent clicks that help make money for the advertising websites. Google tells you it’s only a very low percentage. I dare say that the actual percentage is far higher, maybe even beyond ten percent. Google is good when it comes to detecting clicking fraud, but eliminating them takes away from their profit, and, after all, they can’t just catch everything.

And yes, I could have gotten a lot more clicks (= visitors) had I spent more money with Google. Their support people contacted my several times per email, and they were sure, they had some very valuable tips for me. All these valuable tips, mind you, will always result in spending more money. Even if the quality of my selected keywords was not high, I still managed to get the maximum possible clicks for my money.

If I took the before-mentioned numbers, and I had the goal of increasing the number of visitors by, let’s say, ten percent (= 4,000) I would have to invest almost $3,000 per month!

And no, I am not willing to spend thousands of dollars to create more traffic. I’d rather spend some more time updating my website. Visitors flow in without Google AdWords. And with a hypothetical annual budget of $36,000 (I wish I had it…) I would still spend my money more wisely.

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Boiled Peanuts

A Novel by John Patrick Doyle

A Peeping Tom Goes Nuts Over A Blind Girl

Paul Kirk is a librarian and one of his town’s quirkier residents.  In a childhood home lacking parents (his mother dying of MS and his father an alcoholic) Paul had imagined himself a member of the neighboring family. Now in his late twenties, Paul vicariously participates in the households of his community. His peeping-Tom proclivities express his awkward need for social bonding.

Then Paul meets Bronwyn, a counselor who is lovely, independent and blind. She has inherited her Aunt Phyllis’ house and is newly arrived in town. When Paul first sees Bronwyn at church, he knows he wants to be part of her life. As the mystery of Aunt Phyllis unfolds, Bronwyn and Paul become more deeply involved as they learn about Phyllis’ secrets and how they relate to Bronwyn and her past, but Paul’s peeping ways may ruin it all. [Read more...]

Boiled Peanuts is available through Amazon.Com, Amazon.co.uk, Barnes & Noble, and any other good bookstore.

We had to light candles.  Sure we couldn’t see come nightfall, but there was a definate gain to this.  I actually was able to tell when my body was telling me that it was tired.  Checking on my cellphone, it often read 10:30, but that’s beside the point.  The point is is that if the house had electricity, I would be up, playing an MMO/RPG, writing or drawing instead and end up severely fatigued the next day.  I did not feel that way.  On the contrary, I felt well rested and rejuvinated.

Another boon to having Irene stop by is that my family finally got to have some family time.  In today’s day and age, there are so many options of things to do OTHER than being with one’s own family that it was strangely refreshing to sit down and play a game of scrabble with everyone.  In my house hold, my dad would be busy watching SyFy channel.  My mom would be working on her classes (she’s a Prof).  My brother would be playing PS3 and XBox 360 games and I would be sitting in a corner drawing, writing, or playing Guild Wars.  Without electricity, we could not do any of those things and we found a box of Scrabble (one of the few games we still have from childhood) and played until 1 am.  It was wonderful.

I just found it online.

(The only thing that’s different here is that they can see the board.  We had candles.)

Quite honesty, I do not believe that Irene was all that mean.  She brought the family back together to do familial things.  And quite frankly, I am glad of this.

Thanks for reading.

For those of you who got hit by Irene, stay safe.

Best,

Ariel Ceylan

It has been far too long since I posted last!  Unfortunately, I’ve been working on transferring schools and the like, so my updating has not been as consistent as I would have liked.  Don’t worry, as soon as school starts (2 weeks) and I have a schedule, I’ll be able to post again!

Thanks for reading!

Ariel Ceylan

Click on image to download...

As the title of this book implies, the author delivers a concise description on setting up a professional blog – using WordPress – without wasting time convincing the user of the reasoning for creating a blog. The approach is “quick and dirty.”

In his foreword the author does not conceal the fact that all information in this book in freely available through the Internet, or through many, more detailed books, but reading this book and following the instructions will save the user a great deal of time and, after all, aggravation.

This book will provide a crash-course in setting up a web site that goes beyond a basic blog. In this sense, the author added many exciting features such as slide shows, cool navigation tools, social network connections, integrating videos and cartoons, and even an e-commerce system. He also puts an emphasis on search engine optimization (SEO), creating web traffic, and protecting the blog from being spammed. In addition, the author shares his experience with creating income through blogs without promising a “new path to riches.”

Note: The information in this book (PDF Download) refers to an old version of WordPress, and the author has decided not to update. The information herein is, nevertheless, helpful for everybody starting his or her new blog.

The download is, in fact, FREE, and it will NOT require the submission of additional information. No questions asked; just click on the image and download!

More information on Professional Blogging

For additional information not covered in the book, please see our section Insights Into Professional Blogging With WordPress on this website.

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Crimson Dawn

Book One of the Darklife Saga by Ronnie Massey

Two Women Hunting A Rogue Vampire

Vampire Valeria Trumaine must confront old demons and face new possibilities as she struggles to bring a rogue vampire to justice. Her best friend and powerful Sidhe princess, Irulan, joins the hunt. Valeria will find that Irulan’s motives for keeping her safe are not what she thinks. And soon she is faced with an undeniable attraction that makes her question everything she knew about herself.

CRIMSON DAWN by Ronnie Massey is not just another vampire novel. Yes, the story line includes the favorites of all young adults – plus those who stayed young-at-heart – such as vampires, werewolves, witches, and fairies, but they represent a framework that is seamlessly incorporated in a captivating story that is well worth to be characterized as extraordinary. [Read More...]

Available at Amazon.Com, Amazon.co.uk, Barnes & Noble, and any other good bookstore.

This makes me wonder if there is a real patriotism in America at all.  If there is real patriotism, then we, the people should be content with wearing red, white, and blue, and other national paraphernalia… Patriotism would extend beyond some silly events that a nation does. (We have to remember that all nations are run by people, people who have issues, insecurities, and puerile behaviors.)  I don’ t believe a deal of Americans care much for their country, if this is indeed the case.  This makes me wonder what is the platform for the concept of a nation stands?  Is it the nation’s incapability of doing wrong or starting wars?  Well, we’ve done that and we’re still here.  So I guess that there has to be something more than just a little 200+ year legacy of “nonviolence” (certainly pushing the Natives out of their homelands and taking the people of Africa was nonviolent) that holds a nation together.

Whatever that may be is up to the people to decide, and let’s  hope that we choose wisely.

WordPress is constantly being improved, but does, nevertheless, have some little idiosyncrasies like The White Screen of Death or the Error Establishing Database Connection message. In this post I would like to address a smaller, but nevertheless annoying little bug.

Whenever you write a post in Visual Mode you might enter a number of blank lines by hitting the Enter key. Or sometimes you copy a text from another document or website, and then you paste, delete unwanted empty lines and save the draft. In some cases, after you saved the draft, you might get annoyed to see that the additional, unwanted empty lines re-appeared.

The problem lies with the translation from the post you see in Visual Mode into HTML code. The creation of HTML code still comes with some minor flaws.

So, what to do when you see the additional empty lines and how can you remove them?

In order to remove additional empty lines you need to switch to the HTML mode. Look for the appearance of “ ” (code for inserting a blank line) in the text, remove it, and save the draft. That should do.

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Crimson Dawn

Book One of the Darklife Saga by Ronnie Massey

Two Women Hunting A Rouge Vampire

Vampire Valeria Trumaine must confront old demons and face new possibilities as she struggles to bring a rouge vampire to justice. Her best friend and powerful Sidhe princess, Irulan, joins the hunt. Valeria will find that Irulan’s motives for keeping her safe are not what she thinks. And soon she is faced with an undeniable attraction that makes her question everything she knew about herself.

CRIMSON DAWN by Ronnie Massey is not just another vampire novel. Yes, the story line includes the favorites of all young adults – plus those who stayed young-at-heart – such as vampires, werewolves, witches, and fairies, but they represent a framework that is seamlessly incorporated in a captivating story that is well worth to be characterized as extraordinary. [Read More...]

Available at Amazon.Com, Amazon.co.uk, Barnes & Noble, and any other good bookstore.

You might ask why and I can give you a simple answer or a long answer.  (Since this is a blog, I’ll give you both.)  The simple answer is:

Being intelligent does not necessarily equate to being a head of the world.

What on earth does this mean?  For me to explain, allow me to go into the general descriptions (also known as stereotypes) of people based on their academic scores.

• You have your A students.  They are most commonly known as your geeks.  They sit and do their homework, get great grades, don’t really have friends, don’t really do anything much with their time (other than robotics, chess, and other mentally-stimulating clubs).

• 

  The Geek

• Then comes your B students.  They are the geeks who don’t try to hard.  They often partake in extracurricular activities like drama, band, the yearbook creation, and/or the journal.  These half-geeks are usually friends with other half-geeks and are the bridge between normal and smart people.

• Next are your C students.  These people are the ones who don’t do their homework, usually.  They are the ones who hang out, call friends nightly, take part in artistic/dramatic endeavors, etc.  These are the beginning of the normal people, the everybody else people.

Cool Kid

• After that come your D students.  These people are supposedly those who are like your B and A students, except for whatever reason, they don’t want to be like the typical geek.  So they don’t do their homework, they don’t try.
• And finally is your F student, also known as the bully, the junkie, the one who will never do anything with his life.

These conceptions are not only relevant (Since I am young, I know what I’m talking about when it comes to grades 6-12.) but also do not dictate the level of success these people will accrue.

Take geeks for example, there is a subculture of these people who are hard-core anime/manga/video game fans. They make costumes, buy wigs, and go to cons  (like a lady gaga concert for little monsters, except these events are full of musicians for the animes, the writers of these series, and the voice actors).  These geeks are more like everybody else in the sense that they have hobbies, have friends, and are not as solitary as initially  imagined.

Cosplay

What this all boils down to is success.

No, one’s intelligence does not equate to one’s success.  Success takes more than brains, it takes will-power, it takes courage, it takes focus, it takes dedication.  These are internal qualities of character, not of intelligence.  Any one of these groups of people can succeed in whatever she or he chooses.  The only thing that I find most likely will happen is that those B and C students will have a better chance of finding something they would like to do with their energy, time, and talents because they are the half-way house between those who care about their schooling and those who care about their pleasure.

Aside from the Authors To Know page, I have also added another blog that I have named 21 Questions with Authors To Know.  I will post guest author interviews every Tuesday and Friday, provided I have enough authors that want to be featured.

If you are an author and would like to be featured on my website, which is getting more and more traffic every day (YIPPEE!), then please comment and let me know.

If you are a book blogger and are looking for a material to review, then by all means let me know.  I can always use a review of Crimson Dawn.  To find out more about Crimson Dawn and Authors To Know, please head over to my website: http://www.ronniemassey.com/

Of course, you can’t really fulfill what you wish to do in this case, because that person always ends up being in the right place at the right time to hear what goes down.  Of course, you, in need of dispelling your raw emotions do so to that person (you have temporary amnesia of what that person will be like).  Of course, your friend does the one thing you can’t stand in these situations: act like you’re a fool for freaking out and you should just do X,Y,Z, because that’s what your friend will do.

Of course, there are so many problems with your friend’s approach that it is rather frustrating to be around that person:

1)      That person never actually hears the whole story.  That person tends to listen up to a point, of course, this point is right before the crux of the whole issue.  When your friend makes a suggestion, you have to clarify that you haven’t finished explaining the problem yet or that you have done what your friend suggested already.

2)      That person believes that his/her answer will be the perfect solution for you.  Unfortunately, you are not your friend’s clone, so your friend’s solution will most likely not be appropriate for you.

3)      That person always leaves uncomfortable silences in his/her wake.  After you tell your friend that he/she does not understand your issue for whatever the reason, that person always gets quiet.  It’s like your friend can’t handle being wrong and admitting it. (This wrongness comes from not listening to the problem, the whole problem…Naturally, that person’s solution wouldn’t fly)

I wonder, are any of your characters like some people I end up interacting?

Ariel Ceylan

http://ceylanthewriter.wordpress.com

http://www.youtube.com/users/ArielCeylan

http://twitter.com/arielceylan

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Ariel-Ceylan/170866596257289?sk=info

http://patricias-vampire-notes.blogspot.com/2011/04/veronica-massie-guest-blog-and-contest.html

Not for reason number two. It is with a sad yet enthused heart that I must regretfully inform everyone that there will be no third Darklife Short, at least not D vs. D.

When I sat down and began outlining, I had a clear idea of how long I wanted it to be and where I wanted it to go.  But the longer I worked on it, it became clearer that the story I wanted to tell would not be confined to thirty to fifty pages of a short.  Especially after the creation of the character Lawless.

While the story is nowhere near long enough for a full length novel, I’m pretty sure that I’ve got at least forty thousand words worth of story to tell.  That would make D vs. D the perfect size for a novella that I can release in between Crimson Dawn and it’s sequel, Black Moon Rising.  Which is now my plan.

I’m sorry for everyone that has been waiting for the third short, but as a consolation, you can read an early draft of the two chapters on my website.  Keep in mind that I have made some changes, especially after I went back and re-read a few chapters of C.D. (continuity issues).  But if you do read it, I hope that you enjoy.

Head to my website to read the first two chapters of D vs D and to also find out more about Crimson Dawn and my other works.  And remember to sign up for the Frogenyozurt newsletter so you will get updates on Crimson Dawn’s exact release date.

http://www.ronniemassey.com/

After spending time to write a book, one undergoes a long period of rewriting and editing. This is usually best when one does not start the editing process right after writing the piece. This is because one usually knows what one means when reading one’s own work. Of course, it is great to know what one means, however, it is another matter entirely for someone else to know what one means.

Naturally, one must edit one’s own work. Not so as naturally, in my personal experience, it is imperative for me to start editing that book at least a month after I write. This is to ensure maximum departure from the emotions attached to the piece. Returning to my work, one month after it has been written, gives me the analytical perspective I require to begin editing my work. Of course, I cannot see all my flaws, so I take my piece to an editor who proceeds in ripping apart my baby (usually on account of personally preferring another writing style). Then, as author of my piece, I pick and choose which stylized suggestions my editor has made to enact.

This all seems very well and good, but there is something crucial missing. What does one do in between writing and editing? Does one sit and twiddle one’s thumbs while waiting for the story to dissipate from one’s mind?  Surely, this will not do, for the story and it’s unseen plot-holes will be forever etched into one’s mind.  So the answer would most likely be to do something to get one’s mind off the piece finished.  There are many ways to do this, here are seven:

1. Use a daily prompt and just see how far you can go with it.
2. Read a book, or five…
3. Listen to music and get inspired
4. Go out and see a show (local players, naturally)
5. Try an activity you don’t normally do
6. Work out (I find that exerting myself physically gives way to a creative outburst)
7. Watch foreign films (take a look at plot-lines and characters that are different from what you’re used to)

I find doing any and all of these activities keep my mind busy in creating other plot lines and inspire me to create more.  Do you have any suggestions that I have yet to think of?

In conclusion, finding something to do in between the writing and editing stages of one’s novel is crucial for the editing process to be precise and swift.

Keep positive and keep on writing.

Ariel Ceylan

Ariel Ceylan is the author of The Assignment and The Power of a Vision, two fantasy novelettes for middle school children.   She is currently studying Philosophy.

If you want to know more about her, click any of the below links:

http://ceylanthewriter.wordpress.com

http://www.youtube.com/users/ArielCeylan

http://twitter.com/arielceylan

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Ariel-Ceylan/170866596257289?sk=info

Reprinted from “The Book Marketing Expert newsletter,” a free ezine offering book promotion and publicity tips and techniques.

With all the Tweeting, Facebook Liking, and LinkedIn connecting going on, it’s easy to forget about blogging and finding the time to do so. Blogging, however, can be extremely useful for more reasons than just populating your website with content (although that’s important too). Let’s look at some reasons why you must blog and why it should matter to you!

Blogging gives “voice” to a website: In an age where there are millions of websites and millions more coming online each month, how can you stand apart from the crowd? One way is to get a great-looking site, but as we all know, sometimes budgets allow just the basics. A blog can then step in and (through your voice) give content and character to any website, regardless of how fancy or plain it might be. In fact, some of the best blogs have carried the success of many a less-than-spectacular website.

Content marketing: We all know that we need to create content and lots of it, but who has the time? Well, now you can use your blog as a content-creating machine. You can develop original content there and push it out to different areas. For example, I will sometimes use my blog posts for Twitter updates, Facebook updates, and article syndication.

Search engine candy: Blogs are great optimization tools. Search engines (especially Google) love sites that are updated frequently. One easy and quick way to do that is via a blog. Each time you update your blog it pings the search engines and tells them the content on your site has been updated.

Social media must: If you’re going to tweet, or want to be liked on Facebook, there’s no two ways about it, you must have a blog. That’s the site you send them to for your complete content, where they can comment, become a follower and help you grow your tribe.

Blogger friendly: If you’re going to pitch bloggers, you must first have a blog. Love bloggers? Be a blogger first. Similar to the step above, you can become active on other blogs, commenting and sharing ideas, and attract them back to yours where they can return the favor. By the time you pitch them, you’re not just another email in an inbox, you’re someone they know and like.

Be an industry leader: It’s hard to be a leader in the industry if you don’t have a voice. A blog can give you a voice. Also, by blogging on your market, you can stay in touch with your market and hot topics much easier. Stay dialed in, stay current: a blog can help you do that.

Media, speaking: I’ve gotten media interviews and speaking gigs from my blog. If you blog enough and on interesting, relevant issues, you can gain some serious momentum for not only your website, but your career as well.

The competitive edge: No matter what category you publish under, there is always a lot of competition. Yes, you can compete with a better cover, a better book, but on your website a blog will help define you as the author in a unique way that a book category can’t. When you’re in a cluttered market, like dating, dieting, or finance, a blog can really help to define and refine your message.

Credibility: Blogs are great credibility builders. Getting on topic and giving your opinion (and yes, being different) can really help to build your footing and credibility in the marketplace.

Site traffic/SEO: Aside from what a blog can do for your site as it relates to Google, an active blog can also help to increase site traffic and help further optimize the site. It’s a fantastic tool for getting your site better links, traffic, and a higher ranking in search engines.

So now that I’ve convinced you to blog, I want to refer you to another piece I’ve written on blogging called “How to Become a Powerhouse Blogger in 15 Minutes,”http://www.huffingtonpost.com/penny-c-sansevieri/how-to-become-a-powerhous_b_765327.html. I hope that this piece, along with the tips provided above, will help you launch or reinvigorate your blogging campaign.

Good luck and Happy Blogging!

E-Mail response from Bluehost.com

Welcome! I am glad you found this page, because these days, while my website is still hosted by Bluhost.com, getting into my website is like playing the lottery. And I apologize upfront for a negative attitude, but seeing your visitor numbers dropping by margins of over 50% is frustrating.

In short: During the last four weeks I twice noticed that my website’s responses became increasingly sluggish. Twice I contacted the Bluehost tech support. Twice I was blamed for poor website management. Twice I spent days to optimize my website. Twice the server was shut down due to “performance issues” not caused by my website.

BlueHost.Com, in their own words, is an “affordable, reliable web hosting solution.” And yes, I agree that their service is affordable. However, you get what you pay for.

BlueHost.Com provides “shared server hosting,” meaning you share a server with a number of other people and businesses. Nothing wrong with that… as long as you have a small website (which FrogenYozurt.Com isn’t anymore), and you don’t  share the server box with users utilizing an inordinate amount of system resources, and that’s exactly what happened to FrogenYozurt.Com.

As a background information: I have been working on this website for over two years. It started off, innocently, as a personal blog and grew into something much bigger than just that. At the time of this writing (while I’m still running the website through BlueHost.Com) I have roughly 30,000 unique visitors a month (Well, not this month). My blog contains roughly 50 static pages and 2,300+ posts.

There are a myriad of factors that play into a website’s popularity and, ultimately, its ranking. Some of most important factors are relevant content (Check!), frequent updating and extending (Check!), good SEO support (Check!), and speedy loading of the website (Uncheck!).

For several months by now I noticed a very sluggish loading of the website. At times I could not log into my own website (I use WordPress), or even the BlueHost.Com control panel. The worst side effect is that I can see my visitor numbers drop every day when the server is not up to the task. Let me say upfront that the problem was only partly with my website, and I have learned to optimize the loading speed – I will follow up with a detailed post on optimizing WordPress blogs under Bluehost. Nevertheless, the most annoying feature is Bluehost’s “CPU Throttling.” It makes sense for their operation as a hosting service, but limiting the response time of my website is something I cannot afford in the long run.

Okay, prior to the last learning curve, first item of action was to contact tech support. The best BlueHost.Com feature is their service chat connection. However, nobody at tech support is able to detect a problem. They load the website without problems. After insisting that there is, in fact, a problem they gave me a list of actions to adjust my WordPress blog for better speed. That took several days without noticeable difference in speed. In the meantime the website was down(!) during frequent periods in the day.

Then I received a message from the Bluehost Support Team, apparently somebody who actually has physical access to the servers.

We are waiting on one database check to finish which will bring us back up to full functionality. We’ve also disabled one user on your box that was utilizing an inordinate amount of system resources. It does have an admins full attention and they’ll continue to tweak the server to speed it up until it’s back to 100%.

I didn’t feel any satisfaction in a “I told you so,” so I didn’t. The speed was okay the next day after weeks of frustration, so I just send a grateful “Thank you.”

Nevertheless, as you already may suspect, the problem re-occurred quickly, and I was thinking about ways to bypass regular tech support. I understand their dilemma with separating the serious from the stupid service requests, but I was not into the harassing mood anymore. The question is, how can you elevate the problem to the proper channels?

I called the Bluehost sales, waited ten minutes on the phone listening to music interrupted by motivational talks about their excellent service and “Did you know, you can contact tech support through our website?” Yes, I did know, and I am just calling to annoy you.

It took another ten minutes to discuss the situation with the sales rep, who, of course, is just a regular guy doing his job. Finally, he understood what I wanted, and he gave me an e-mail address, you know, the one you can’t find on their website.

Here is what I wrote:

To Whom It May Concern;

I am running and maintaining my website, FrogenYozurt.Com, through your hosting service, and I have encountered continuing problems with your service during the last few months. There are times when my website loads slow, sometimes up to a minute per page. At times I can’t even access the Bluehost control panel or my WordPress log-in.

I have been in touch with your technical support, but all they can do is checking my website and telling me everything is okay. However, namely on February 21, 2011 Bluehost had a server failure that affected my website. According to Michael Stevens of your support team, “We are waiting on one database check to finish which will bring us back up to full functionality. We’ve also disabled one user on your box that was utilizing an inordinate amount of system resources.” In the meantime I had adjusted settings on my website as recommended by your support team, however, without noticeable differences.

The day after the failure everything seemed to back to order, which also indicates to me that my website was not the problem. However, the same problems as described before re-occurred.

I am sorry, but at this time I am sick and tired of going through your tech support and harassing them before they take actions of looking into the problem. Also, you cannot ask them to move my website to a different server box.

The sluggish loading of the website has a solid impact on my visitor numbers. As a matter of fact, you can point to sluggish loading days in the website statistics. I am ware that website traffic depends on a number of factors, but loading speed is one of them. Fluctuations of more than 30% between one day to another are highly unusual.

The reason I am writing is to make you aware that I will switch my service to another provider offering dedicated server hosting. I will send my cancelation at the proper time.

Regards,

Wilfried F. Vos
FrogenYozurt.Com

What I got back was a response per e-mail – black background, light-green fonts… Naturally, the problem was with my website. The basic answer was, “You should monitor your CPU throttling, and pay attention to the database error reports,” continuing with a tone of blaming me personally for non-relevant WordPress adjustments. The rest was filled with some techno-babble that is only useful for a server specialist, not for a regular blogger who just wants to write.

Again, I have learned a lot more since yesterday, and my website loaded much speedier. The actual problem is, you are fine when your website stays small, but if your WordPress grows and grows, you need to engage into some serious adjustments, especially when you run it with a shared server. Again, I will follow up with another post.

Yet, I will still switch to a dedicated server service, which will cost me more, but in the end it comes with a piece of mind. My website rankings are worth it.

Oh, and by the way, yesterday morning the website was gone for the second time in less than four weeks! This is when you check the Bluehost server status, and it showed:

Saturday – March 19, 2011 [7:03:46 AM] We apologize for the inconvenience, but one of our admins currently has your server down investigating a performance issue. He has noted the server should be back up in about 15-30 minutes. If he encounters additional complications he will re-note the server with a new time frame. We appreciate your patience as we resolve this issue. The following link may have additional status notes when there are such issues http://serverstatus.bluehost.com.

And yes, the sluggishness of website loading continues…

Supplement March 21, 2011

Ah, he comes excited. Sir, my need is sore.
Spirits that I’ve cited my commands ignore.
- The Sorcerer’s Apprentice (Der Zauberlehrling) by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

After a weekend with less than 50% of the usual traffic I decided, out of a hunch, to disable my WordPress Cache plug-in, and guess what… the numbers are back to normal! Caching your WordPress website is highly recommended when you experience a sluggishness in loading. It was recommended by the Bluehost support with the words “It will make a huuuuuuge difference!” After a weekend of trying it, no, it does not make a “huuuuuuge” difference. Yes, the website loads somewhat faster, but what does it matter when web traffic goes down significantly? Why do I have to go through hoops to compensate for inferior server performance?

I used the very effective and powerful WP Super Cache plug-in, but the “very effective and powerful” attribute comes with a serious side-effect, meaning if you don’t understand the settings you can damage the performance of your website significantly. And, think about it, I don’t have the time to do all the research to compensate for a problem I didn’t cause, and, after all, as long as the Bluehost server is actually working, things are fine.

Also, I am not sure how a cache software handles other features (= plug-ins) I use for my website, especially those for SEO support. The WP Super Cache documentation hints at possible problems with plug-ins. After all, you cannot expect the creators of WP Super Cache to test their plug-in with the hundred of thousands of other available plug-ins. For instance, I use a plug-in to inform Yahoo, Google, and other search engines of updates immediately. After reading how WP Super Cache handles search engine requests, I suspect these plug-ins didn’t work as they did before.

If you ever decide to use a cache plug-in I strongly recommend WP Super Cache, though. I had used other, similar plug-ins before, but they would not update the cache when you posted new posts or pages. WP Super Cache allows you immediate updating, which is important when it comes to prove to search engines that you update frequently. A very long cache update interval can hurt your rankings. And yet, frequent caching requires good system resources and can hurt your ranking because loading times can be effected. Which raises the question, what good is a cache when you update frequently? Every time you post, the cache will be built again, which takes time, especially with large websites.

As a result, no, I will not write an article about tuning your WordPress website under the Bluehost Shared Server Service. I have come to the conclusion that my website is fine and that all problems stemmed from poor hardware performance.

As long as your WordPress website/blog is small, you should not experience any problems with the Bluehost Shared Server package. And even if it reaches larger dimensions you might be in good hands with them. I was just unlucky to end up in a bad box (= server). Nevertheless, if you run a serious business and need the piece of mind, you should sign for a dedicated server package. I myself signed up with 1&1, and I am going through another learning curve. However, the first three months are free. The 1&1 technical support is, at times, as snotty as Bluehost, but not on a regular basis. I just like the idea of not having to deal with “CPU Throttling” and sharing my box with a myriad of other users.

Supplement March 27, 2011 – Migrating WordPress Sites to 1&1

The sluggishness of the website continues despite continued efforts to keep a clean and small database, optimizing plugins, etc. Needless to say, but web traffic took quite a hit.

Today I tried to transfer several domains away from Bluehost.com, but their Domain Manager crashes on an almost regular basis due to timeouts. I can re-enter the cPanel by logging to the website, but the Domain Manager is not accessible. I can’t even log out of the Bluehost cPanel.

As of today I have managed to transfer only one website from Bluehost to the 1&1 dedicated server. The dedicated server is lightning-fast compared to Bluehost! Pages load in a flash. No more trip to the kitchen to pour another coffee while the post is being published. As a matter of fact, managing a WordPress blog is almost disturbing. Under Bluehost you are used to take a break between updating posts and pages. Under the 1&1 dedicated server you turn your eyes away from the screen for only a short moment, and the updated page or post is already done.

Migrating a WordPress website/blog can be a pain, but then I found BackupBuddy, which promises to make migrating a breeze. For more information see: http://pluginbuddy.com/purchase/backupbuddy/. Well, it works when you migrate to another ISP like Hostgator and GoDaddy. It fails miserably(!) when migrating to the 1&1 dedicated server, which is not the plugins fault. Under the 1&1 dedicated server service things work a little differently when it comes to accessing WordPress databases. Here goes another $75 I wasted on licenses for 10 websites.

The actual problem is that FrogenYozurt.Com is the main domain with a number of sub-domains attached to it. I have to transfer 4 more sub-domains before I can tackle ForgenYozurt.Com. Add to this the time it takes before the DNS settings take effect, not mentioning the tiring process of transferring domains from one ISP to another.

Supplement March 29, 2011

As if I needed another confirmation to switch services… Bluehost server status: 03/29/2011 08:41am: Updating to Postgresql 8.4.5 and PHP 5.2.17. ETA 30 minutes. 8:41 am at the actual Bluehost location means 10:41 am EST representing the phase of highest traffic not only for my website. During those estimated 30 minutes my websites were down, meaning zero traffic! I might not have noticed had I not been trying to add posts; there was no notification per e-mail.

In the meantime I am learning more than I ever cared for… However, the result of my research is not as misleading as the recommendations by the Bluehost tech support when it comes to sluggish websites.

1. Maintaining a WordPress Database: Get the WP-DBManager plugin. It allows you to optimize/repair databases and, most importantly, backup/restore your WordPress database from within WordPress. No need to invoke phpMyAdmin. No username and password required, either, to get in. See the corresponding documentation for more information. The backup/restore feature might be helpful when it comes to migrating to a new server. I will follow up on that later.

2. Memory Usage: The biggest restriction of running a WordPress installations comes with the default memory limit, which is not suited for larger websites with high traffic. First, if your WordPress website/blog seems to slow down, check your memory limits by installing the TPC! Memory Usage plugin (There are others, but this one worked fine for me). It shows you, among other data, the peak memory usage compared to the WP Memory Limit. I found out that my WP Memory Limit was 32M, while the peak usage was almost 40M. So, here is one reason why the website doesn’t respond at times.

The next question is, now that we know what the problem is, how do we correct it? Easy enough: Using your FTP program download the wp-config.php from the WordPress root directory. Use a regular text editor to add the line define(‘WP_MEMORY_LIMIT’, ’64M’); and upload it back to the website. If necessary you can increase the limit to ’128M’. It may make sense to check the amount of RAM on your server by asking your ISP tech service. In my case I saw an immediate improvement by going with the 64M setting.

If you have more than one website/blog accessing the same WP database (like under Bluehost) it makes sense to increase the PHP Memory Limit. To do so look for the php.ini file, download and edit it. Find the line that starts with memory_limit = and change it to a higher value. For instance, from memory_limit = 64M to memory_limit = 128M. However, be careful with that setting. I crashed my websites and changed it back to 64M.

Note: On the 1&1 dedicated server I don’t have direct access to the php.ini file. When I called tech support the guy told me that this was outside of tech support, indicating he knew what to do, but wouldn’t tell me. However, the PHP Memory Limit is at 128M. The next problem is the Maximum Upload of 10M, which might restrict importing my 80M file. I have found tons of article on migrating WordPress from one server to another, but none of them describes the process comprehensibly for someone who is not a server specialist. Yes, as a ‘professional’ WordPress blogger it helps to have a technical background (which I have), but procedures like migrating a WordPress blog to another server should be much better documented than it currently is (or not).

Supplement April 4, 2011

I am migrating further websites away from Bluehost. This next one is critical, since the domain is attached to my e-mails. As a test I tried to access the Bluehost webmail, just to make sure I can access my e-mails in case something fails, and I get the following message:

Click to enlarge...

There were continued problems with retrieving e-mails the entire day.

Supplement April 12, 2011

Click to enlarge...

Oh joy! Website down. No E-Mail.

On the bright side, switching to the new, dedicated server is scheduled for Friday, April 15, 2011.

Supplement April 15, 2011

The saga continues… We are now on the 1&1 Dedicated Server! I had planned for a long Friday night to make that switch, but after the Bluehost server had already crashed three times (!) before lunchtime, I decided to take the hit – in terms of web traffic – and go ahead. Fortunately, the DNS settings came around pretty fast, and I started the migration. After roughly one hour all settings were done.

A few remarks in regards to the migration:

First a hooray to the snotty 1&1 tech support! These guys need some training on human interaction! I needed to modify some settings in the php.ini file, but for reasons unknown to me you can’t just download the file, edit and upload it. It took several phone calls, during which I pulled the information piece by piece out of these guys’ brains. You need to start an SSH connection (luckily, my Mac is prepared for that), log in, and work directly under UNIX. If you don’t know what that means, it’s like communicating with a dinosaur. I remember a training I had about thirty years(!) ago. That training now paid off. I was able to use the “vi” editor and accomplish the necessary changes. You open the php.ini file, you type “?” to find a string. You move the cursor above the character you need to change. Then you type “r” for replace. Then you type the new character. And you do this with EVERY character! All I needed was to increase the PHP upload file size.

My WordPress XML export was roughly 30 Mbytes in size, and the system was set up to only 8. I did not go the route of exporting the WP database and importing it through the phpAdmin. I had found tons of information on the process, but it is very cumbersome, and the documentation is not always clear. So I went the way of documenting all plugin settings and exporting posts and pages to XML. I copied the “upload” folder per FTP. I also used FTP to copy themes and plugins. The downside of this method is that Media files are not visible anymore, but that can be rectified by using the “add from server” plugin. Yes, some experienced webmeisters may shake their head, but guess what! The migration went smoothly without major problems.

Also, my method decreased the database size from 60+ Mbytes to roughly 20 Mbytes. Adding new plugins increases the database size, and some of them are worse than others. What I learned is that not all uninstalls actually clean up their database entries.

In summary:

As I mentioned before, you are fine when you use shared hosting and your WordPress blog stays small. I had reached 2,500+ pages and 4,000+ images, which put a burden on the server. There are certain measures to improve the WordPress performance by increasing the PHP and WordPress memory as described previously, but the next limit will be the shared hosting. I noticed that the so-called “CPU Throttling” set in during periods of highest traffic, which makes total sense. However, that throttling prevented my website from handling more than 1,000 visitors per day. I have read articles where a user claimed he had more than 4,000 visitors per day on a Bluehost shared server. I have come to believe, that his statement is misleading. First, he used WP-SuperCache, which, in my opinion, causes more problems that it solves. Secondly, that guy has no information on the actual server load, and maybe he was lucky to be on a server with only few other users. Maybe he was just bragging. My experience is different.

Nevertheless, I am thrilled to have my websites on a dedicated server. The speed is sometimes even irritating…;-) Yes, a dedicated is more expensive to operate, but, as always, you get what you pay for.

When I’m at my college, I have so many options ranging from empty classrooms to department libraries to the student union.  All I have to do is find a room that no one else is using so I can sit down and write.  I usually write my novels, films, and songs more than I do homework.

Now, I’m on break and I’m home for a week, everything’s changed.  I can’t seem to put pen to paper and I’ve finally figured out why.  There is no where I can lock myself up to write.  It’s not like I haven’t dreamt feature-length films or formed alternative rap lyrics in my mind.  I just can’t write them, just the idea.  For me, losing a place to write is catastrophic!  There is no ivory tower or dark dungeon for me to sit with my thoughts and transfer them to paper.

I can’t wait to go back to my campus and write, finally write!

Thought for the day:  Find your place to write.

Keep positive and keep on writing.

Ariel Ceylan

Ariel Ceylan is the author of The Assignment and The Power of a Vision, two fantasy novelettes for middle school children.   She is currently studying Philosophy.

If you want to know more about her, click any of the below links:

http://ceylanthewriter.wordpress.com

http://www.youtube.com/users/ArielCeylan

http://twitter.com/arielceylan

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Ariel-Ceylan/170866596257289?sk=info

Do you ever feel closer to the technology in your life, rather than the people in your life?

Well, we all have and love our Facebook account, and may even tweet. However, especially under Twitter, it seems to be a sport for many people to accumulate as many “friends/followers” as possible. And yes, businesses are the worst. On Twitter I blocked, among many others, followers like a hypnotist from London, a firewood delivery service in Wisconsin, a horse farm in Illinois, and last, but not least a drunk bimbo in Los Angeles who posted sexually implicit messages with less than 140 characters. By the way, I live in Western Massachusetts.

Of course, we had the recent incident with an employee of New Media Strategies, an agency handling the Twitter account for the Chrysler brand that is aimed at consumers, who posted a comment there that read, “I find it ironic that Detroit is known as the #motorcity and yet no one here knows how to drive.” Between “to” and “drive” was a vulgarity.

Or, even more prominently, when Gilbert Gottfried, the comedian who supplies the voice for the squawking duck character in most Aflac commercials, started to post at least 10 jokes to his personal Twitter feed about the earthquake and tsunami in Japan — a market that accounts for 75 percent of Aflac’s revenue. Mr. Gottfried had been dismissed, effective immediately.

See also the New York Times post: When the Marketing Reach of Social Media Backfires.

My private Facebook account is fairly small, and I’d like to keep it that way, but that also gives me an antisocial image. I am that kind of person who doesn’t want to deal with messages like “I don’t care that it’s six o’clock in the morning. I’m opening that bottle of Jimmy Beam,” and you start worrying about her three children sleeping in the room next door. (Hasn’t anybody told her that Jim Beam is not just for breakfast anymore?)

So and so “had a blast at our potluck party. The jello-shots were great. The kids had a great time.” (That message hurt especially, since we weren’t invited. Just kidding!)

A proud mother posts “Today Natalie counted to ten in French,” provoking a message (not a response, mind you) from another “friend” (That bitch!) “Just signed up Tommy for the Chinese boarding school.”

The worst Facebook scenario comes when you lose a “friend.” For many Facebookers, every loss of a “friend” is considered a slap in the face. Why does he/she not like me anymore? Was it something I said or did? Was posting 127 messages a day too much? I am down to 1,826 friends, but I need more!

Or major punishment, thanks to the newest communication technologies. ”Your daughter pushed my son, and he bumped his head with another boy. I’m cutting you off.”

What worries me is how people deal with the loss of a Facebook “friend.” I understand it hurts, but, after all, we’re not talking about a real friend. It was only a Facebook “friend.”

On the positive side, yes, you can reconnect with old friends you haven’t seen in years, and that is truly the best Facebook feature. The question remains, though, how seriously should we take our Facebook life?

I am sure many of you have similar experiences. I would like to hear from you.

Reprinted from “The Book Marketing Expert newsletter,” a free ezine offering book promotion and publicity tips and techniques.

These days it seems you can’t open your inbox without seeing a dozen (or more) email pitches for something. Some are newsletters and others are special offers. But how many do you really open? And, an even better question is, do they still work? The answer is yes, they do, but there’s a catch: they have to be good. Really, really good. Years ago when email newsletters and announcements came out, everyone was pushing pretty much everything they could, from announcing their next book signings to blasting Amazon to hitting bestseller status. I even got one from someone I don’t know with links to their Aunt Ethel’s 86th birthday party. Well, bless little Aunt Ethel, but honestly, why would I care? That’s the point: relevancy above all.

Why would you consider an email newsletter? Here’s one reason: it’s difficult to stay top of mind with your consumer. With so much coming at us it’s easy to forget. Last week I had this very thing happen to me. I was looking for an editor with a specific specialty. I had worked with her a year ago and had lost her card, she didn’t do any type of marketing such as a newsletter (she may have done a print mailing but I never saw it), so instead of sending her the business, I was forced to find someone else. See? The simple effort of staying in touch doesn’t just garner you the attention of your consumer/reader, but it can also get you business, book sales and speaking gigs.

What does it take to create an outstanding newsletter everyone will want to read? Here are a few simple steps to consider:

1) Know your audience: Know who you’re writing for and who will be reading this. Make sure the information is relevant to them.

2) Go low on promotion: When it comes to promotional copy in a newsletter, I recommend the 95/5% rule: 95% helpful information and 5% sales copy. Trust me on this. I can’t tell you how many newsletters I delete that are overly self-promotional. If the newsletter/email campaign is good, it will sell you. Trust me on this one.

3) Content, content, content: Make sure the content is good and you’ve addressed the WIIFM factor (What’s In It For Me?). If you don’t ask this, your reader most certainly will. Over-deliver on your content, you’ll be glad you did.

4) Collaborate: If you don’t think you have the bandwidth to write an entire newsletter yourself then collaborate with a few people who are in your industry but not direct competitors. Our newsletter does this, it’s a mix of voices and, consequently, it is varied and rich in content.

5) Frequency: The general rule of thumb is that the more often you send out your newsletter, the shorter it should be. If your newsletter goes out weekly, think of offering just a quick tip. If it goes out monthly, then it can be longer. The same holds true for general email campaigns.

6) Give your newsletter a “voice.” What I mean is give your newsletter a personality. You don’t want a stale, monotone, unfriendly marketing piece that doesn’t speak to your reader, do you? Show your personality, let it shine through. I like to think that our newsletter has a lot of our voice in it. In order to create “voice” you might want to follow some of the same rules that you do when blogging: don’t hesitate to share an opinion, viewpoint, stance, advice, etc. Speak to your reader, not at them.

7) Don’t just sit there and read, do something! Make sure that you have a strong call to action in your newsletter; if you have several calls to action even better. Get your reader to do something, engage them in what you’re writing, send them to helpful links, offer them bonuses, specials, exclusives. Remember, if they took the time to open and read your newsletter they should get something besides great content. Great links to helpful sites, maybe even a free download, all these things are enticing and will keep your reader coming back for more!

Don’t sell ‘em fluff. Ok, I know I said seven tips, but I couldn’t help adding a bonus (see what you get for reading all the way through this article? That’s what I mean by over-delivering). Readers want the information, and they want it fast. Don’t use a lot of extra (and sometimes useless) content just to puff up your newsletter to make it seem bigger than it is. Give readers the information they want in clear, concise language and then send them on their way.

When it comes to the timing of your newsletter that depends on you and your audience. Our newsletter goes out once every two weeks. We find that to be a good balance: not too much, not too little. But each audience is different, so experiment with yours and see what gets readers to open your email.

Finally, get your newsletter edited. This is a big one. Don’t put some disclaimer in it saying “it’s not edited” because all that says is: you’re not professional. I’ve seen this done, and to me, it deters from the message. Also, don’t hand email your list unless it’s small (less than 100 people) Why? Because your cable or DSL provider might decide that you’re spamming people and will cut you off. People who do this will tell you that if you keep it to less than 50 email addresses per message you’re fine, but I’ve found that even 20 names in an address line can set some service providers on alert. Trust me, it’s not worth the hassle.

Effective email campaigns can really help promote your book and your brand. When done right, they can become a critical and very effective piece of your marketing plan. We’ve had our newsletter for over seven years, and in that time we’ve never placed a single ad for the company or my books, not anywhere. Why? Because I have never believed in ads. Frankly (and with all due respect to advertisement budgets everywhere), ad placement doesn’t always bear the kind of return you want, especially in today’s market where consumers are blocking out advertisements. What we’re talking about here takes time and effort, but if done right, the pay-offs can be enormous.

When developing characters and getting “in the mood”  for your writing, I find that it’s a great idea to listen to music.  Music creates moods in two minutes (give or take a few seconds) that makes writing flow out of oneself easier.

Here are a list of suggestions for artists/bands to listen to for certain genres:

Fantasy and Thriller:  Two Steps from Hell (band that plays epic classical music)

Horror and Dark Genres: Evanescence (“heavy” metal with thought-provoking lyrics that are easy to understand)

Rite of Passage: P!nk (voice of the young people of this era.  She captures our spirit fairly well)

What artists and bands do you find are a great help for your writing?

Ariel Ceylan

Ariel Ceylan is the author of The Assignment and The Power of a Vision, two fantasy novelettes for middle school children.   She is currently studying Philosophy.

If you want to know more about her, click any of the below links:

http://ceylanthewriter.wordpress.com

http://www.youtube.com/users/ArielCeylan

http://twitter.com/arielceylan

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Ariel-Ceylan/170866596257289?sk=info

Why do it?  Why spend all that time just writing?  What message do you find necessary to spend all this time writing?

Is it because your characters won’t leave you alone if you don’t write about them?

Is it because you have life-altering information that you want to share to your readers?

Is it because you want to raise awareness to social issues?

Is it because you want people to think differently?

Or do you have no message to send and just want to write?

When you are writing, it is important to keep in mind, your purpose.  Nothing is worse for a reader for him or her to be confused about what you are writing about.  Depending on who your reader is, that person might finish, but be confused, or even worse, your reader might put down your book!

A word of advice:  Write down your message somewhere nearby your work, put it in a place where you know you will look, and look at it each time you are about to put pen to your story.

So, allow me to ask, if I may, why do you write?

Before throwing a new WordPress update on all of us every few weeks, would you please test more thoroughly?

And yes, I do update as soon as a new version is reported, but lately updates are coming more and more frequently. I’d rather see that updates, as much as I appreciate some of the new features, coming not as fast and better tested.

The current problems I am having are:

1. Formatting problems

I find that, as soon as I add an image into a post, WordPress places the HTML code for a blank character ( ) before the image and after the paragraph following the image. As a result, the final page includes two unwanted empty lines, and I have to switch to HTML view to remove the code.

2. Hyperlink copies

I copied text from an associated website, which included a hyperlink. I was unable to edit the hyperlink.

3. Hyperlink modification

A guest contribution to my website (submitted in a Word file) included a mistyped hyperlink. Instead of “http://” the link started with “html//:”. WordPress automatically added the login address of my website in front of the link, and, since I didn’t pick up on the typo immediately, I was unable to remove the login URL.

4. Control Issues

At times I was unable to toggle out of the fullscreen edit mode. It usually happens when I insert an image and click immediately thereafter on the toggle button. The only solution is to click on the text portion first, then the button.

I do understand the potential of bugs in a program the size of WordPress (I myself started off as a software programmer), but I would expect a bit more care especially since the bugs affect millions of users.

Now it’s time to report the bugs at WordPress.Org.