Flames of Desire Blog Hop #ValentinesDay #giveaway

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Welcome to the Flames of Desire
Valentine’s Day Blog Hop, from Feb. 5th – 11th!

The Grand Prize Is A Kindle Fire HD 7”!

Winners Need To Be In The US or Canada to Win Items That Need to Be Shipped, But Anyone Can Win an E-Book.

All the prizes on the hop page except the books for the winner’s Kindle will given away daily!

The Power and Appeal of Romance

Romance is the most popular of all fiction genres. Women today are stressed out by modern life. Romance novels are about female empowerment. By the end of the book, the heroine has overcome all obstacles and she even gets the guy. Some men say they don’t like romance because “the woman wins”. I prefer to think that both people win when they form a loving, committed relationship.

Novels help people escape from their problems, even helping them deal with the emotional, even the physical, pain of their lives. When my mother died some year’s ago, I was devastated. For several weeks afterward, it seemed like the only time I wasn’t crying was when I was reading. (Unless I was crying over something that happened in the book.) Reading can be a form of inexpensive stress relief.

Happy sensual weddingRomance also affirms values like love, commitment, bonding and family. The books often end with a proposal, a wedding, or the birth of a child. When you come right down to it, romance is about the survival of the species!

Yet romance gets no respect in the literary world. The books are criticized for being unrealistic. Is it unrealistic to think that young men and women are going to fall in love and marry? If so, we’d better add Homo Sapiens to the endangered species list.

Hoppers get extra entries towards the grand prize by doing the following things:

Follow each blog
Like and follow on Facebook
Follow on Twitter
Leave a comment with your email address

Comment Example:
Name: Jane Doe
Email: janedoe@yahoo.com
Comment: Great post!
Twitter: Followed
Facebook: Followed
Blog: Followed
Country you live in: US

Callie

My new love, Miss Callie.

My prizes are:

$10 Amazon gift card

2 e-book copies of Lily and the Gambler

To win one of my prizes, leave a comment below with your name and email address.

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Available at Amazon Kindle, BN/Nook, Kobo and Smashwords.

Add to your TBR list at Goodreads.

To keep hopping follow the link below.
http://safariheatbooktoursandauthorservices.blogspot.com

Enjoy the hop!

Linda

Social Media Hangouts & Graphics: Week 15 #MFRWAuthors 52-Week Blog Challenge

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It’s week 15 of the MFRWAuthors 52-Week Blog Challenge, and this week’s prompt is My Social Media Hangouts.

My hangouts are pretty basic: Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and Pinterest. Please feel free to friend or follow me on any of the above links. I’d love to connect with you online.

The fact that I have any social media hangouts at all is due to my friend Elena Dillon, who taught an online social media class a while back for my local OCCRWA chapter. I now consider her my social media guru.

This year, I took a class on Visual Content Marketing for the Confused and Terrified Writer, also taught by Elena. In it, I learned how to make kick-ass graphics for my books and social media sites. The big breakthrough came from learning about Canva, a terrific website that helps you create graphics using templates designed for each social media site, postcards, blog and web graphics, etc. They even have a template for an e-book cover! Haven’t tried that one yet.

Here are a few examples of what I did in class:

seek help graphic

My first attempt at using Canva.com to create a graphic.

LM facebook cover

Facebook cover image for my Linda McLaughlin author page

LL facebook cover

Facebook cover image for my Lyndi Lamont Author page

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RB twitter graphic

Twitter graphic for How to Woo… A Reluctant Bride

I have to admit, though, that I wasn’t entirely successful at the class. The branding still challenges me, and I tried and failed to create an account at Instagram, and gave up after a while. I’ll just have to live without Instagram, I suppose.

If you’re like me and still a bit leery about social media, Elena has a another website where she discusses social media for the Confused and Terrified Writer.

Where do you hang out on social media?

Linda / Lyndi

Use the linky list below to find more great blog posts in the #MFRWauthor 52-Week #Blog Challenge.