Blogging From A to Z April Challenge Sign Ups Are Open!

PLEASE READ THE INSTRUCTIONS BEFORE SIGNING UP!!!

The A to Z Challenge is blogging the letters of the alphabet six days a week in the month of April. It’s a great way to meet new bloggers.

Start with A on April 1st
Then B on April 2nd

We post Monday thru Saturday. Sundays are a no-blog/letter day.

You can go freestyle or pick a theme, but the topic of your post must reflect the letter of the day.

Visit 5 blogs a day (or more) starting with the blog after yours on the list.

Short posts are essential!

Be sure to grab the badge above and link to the A to Z Blog or any of the hosts:
Arlee Bird at Tossing It Out
Damyanti Biswas at Amlokiblogs
Ninja Captain Alex J. Cavanaugh
Tina Downey at Life is Good
DL Hammons at Cruising Altitude 2.0
Jeremy Hawkins at Retro-Zombie
Shannon Lawrence at The Warrior Muse
Matthew MacNish at The QQQE
Konstanz Silverbow at No Thought 2 Small
Stephen Tremp at Breakthrough Blogs
Livia Peterson at Leave it to Livia
L. Diane Wolfe at Spunk on a Stick
Nicole at The Madlab Post

This year, we are introducing categories. Please choose ONE that best describes your blog and understand this cannot be changed. This is entirely Optional, other than for blogs with Adult Content, which will be taken off the list unless marked (AC)

1. WRITING : (WR)
2. BOOKS: (BO)
3. FILM : (FM)
4. PHOTOGRAPHY: (PH)
5. GARDENING: (GR)
6. CRAFT: (CR)
7. ART: (AR)
8. MUSIC: (MU)
9. CULINARY: (CU)
10. LIFESTYLE: (LI )
11. FASHION: (FA)
12. PERSONAL: (PR)
13. SOCIAL MEDIA: (SO)
14. GAMING: (GA)
15. EDUCATION : (ED)
16. POLITICS: (PO)
17. HISTORY: (HI)
18. SCIENCE: (SC)
19. HUMOR: (HU)
20. TRAVEL: (TR)
21. MISCELLANEOUS: (MI)
22. ADULT CONTENT: (AC)

Ready to blog the letters of the alphabet in April? Then sign up now!

Re-Introduce Myself Blogfest

Today is the Re-Introduce Myself Blogfest, hosted by Stephen Tremp, C.M. Brown, Mark Koopmans, and Elise Fallson.

I’m going to give you my “official” bio first -

L. Diane Wolfe

Professional Speaker & Author

Known as “Spunk On A Stick,” Wolfe is a member of the National Speakers Association and the author of numerous books. Her upcoming title, “How to Publish and Promote Your Book Now,” covers her publishing seminars in depth and provides an overview of the entire process from idea to market. “Overcoming Obstacles With SPUNK! The Keys to Leadership & Goal-Setting” ties her goal-setting and leadership seminars together into one complete, enthusiastic package. Her YA series, "The Circle of Friends," features morally grounded, positive stories. Wolfe travels extensively for media interviews and speaking engagements, maintains a dozen websites & blogs, and assists writers through her author services.

Now the fun stuff -

I’m a roller coaster junkie and want to travel the world, visiting all of the theme parks. I’ve loved photography my whole life and been a professional photographer for 23 years. Love animals and I’m a vegan - no animal products in my diet. (And no, I am not a tree-hugger.) Grew up in Oregon but now I live in NC with my husband and two cats, Rocko & Spunky. (And I was “Spunky” long before we named our cat.)

In short, I am a ball of endless nervous energy! 

Who are you?

Publishing News, Book Announcement, & Inspirational Photo

Publishing Industry News

Amazon just purchased speech-recognition company, Ivona:

“Amazon has been using Ivona's technology for its Kindle e-readers since 2009. Ivona also supplies "Explore By Touch" and "Voice Guide" navigation for Kindle Fire models.”

Could this become Amazon’s version of Siri? Read more at Mashable.

Brian Howard discussed a recent incident on Amazon involving reviews and the worrisome precedent it might be setting:

“Witness the campaign against Randall Sullivan ’s Michael Jackson bio Untouchable: The Strange Life and Tragic Death of Michael Jackson. As reported in The New York Times , Sullivan’s book focuses on the superstar’s last years and, despite being characterized as a generally sympathetic look at Jackson, has come under siege by a group of fans who take issue with some of the book’s statements. And so they launched a flotilla of mostly anonymous one-star reviews seemingly aimed at not just discrediting the book, but killing it.

“As the barriers to publication and mass media continue to dissolve, and the line between who is and is not a journalist is further blurred, the wisdom of the crowd can quickly turn into vigilante justice.”

Read the rest of the article at Book Business Magazine.

And according to the latest Publishers Weekly, the percentage of children reading e-books has grown from 25% in 2010 to 46% in 2012. A breakdown of how they are reading e-books:
22% - Laptop or netbook
21% - IPad or other tablet
19% - Dedicated reading device such as the Nook, Kindle, etc.
19% - Desktop
16% - Handheld devices such as cell phones, IPod, PSP, etc.

Thank you to everyone who has signed up to announce my upcoming book, How To Publish and Promote Your Book Now! I’m giving away three e-book copies to those who post about my book any time between February 5th and 8th. (Information will be sent the Friday or Saturday before February 5th.).

If you haven’t signed up but would like to, fill out the form below.

Thank you!

And your Friday inspirational photo:

Attack of the Butterfly!

Website Hits, Visitors, and the Inaccuracies of Hit Counters

What’s the difference between hits and visits? And are hit counters accurate?

Hits refer to the number of files that can be downloaded from a page. If a page has nine images, it counts as ten hits including the actual page view.

Visits refer to the actual number of pages viewed.

Both numbers can be inaccurate. Visits can be inaccurate as they count your own visits (even when editing your site) or page reloads. Hits can be inaccurate as they reflect a web browser’s requests for a file from your web server.

In short, most hit counters are misleading.

Linda Adams had this to say in her article Hits and Visits 101:

Many people focus on the hits or what a counter shows--because the numbers are high. It makes them feel successful, when, in fact, it is very misleading.

A counter simply counts the number of times anyone visits the page the counter is on. That means if you went back to the main page five times during your one visit to the site, the counter would show five ticks. Counters are notoriously inaccurate for this reason; some web masters have been known to keep reloading their page to make their website more seem more popular than it really is. Worse still, if you have one on your site, and it only shows ten ticks on the counter, this advertises that no one is coming to your site.

But what about hits? Be wary of anyone who says they are receiving a large volume of hits. It doesn't mean there are many people actually coming to the site! Huh? Then what do those high numbers represent? A hit is one file being downloaded. Let's suppose you visit a page with 100 thumbnails on it. Each one of those thumbnails is a file in addition to the web page itself. So, by coming to that one page with the 100 images, you have just generated 101 hits. But only one person visited. So a site that gets 87,000 hits may have only 3,000 visitors, depending on how the site is designed.

But many people often use the hits as a sign of success because the number, for obvious reasons, is so much higher. However, it doesn’t tell you any information you can use to build on your visitors. All it tells you is that you have a lot of graphics and other files on your site.

In addition, there are spam issues associated with some hit counters. Linchpin SEO has THIS article on why you shouldn’t use a hit counter.

If you want to track unique visitors (and more) accurately, try using Google Analytics instead.

So the next time you see a blog or site’s hit counter, don’t be impressed or misled by a large number. A tiny number might be a problem though…


And thank you to all who commented on my hair in last Friday’s post. It does take a long time to dry, which is why I usually don’t. No, I don’t tie it back because I don’t like the way it makes me look. Yes, I can just sit on it. And no, I don’t have any plans to cut it!