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What goes into a blog post? Helpful, industry-specific content that: 1) gives readers a useful takeaway, and 2) shows you’re an industry expert.

Use your company’s blog posts to opine on current industry topics, humanize your company, and show how your products and services can help people.

Testing Testing. Is this thing on? Looks like it is!

Now, I loved my old site with its sticky notes (done in my own handwriting, I might add). However, it was nigh impossible to add book information pages. For the last several months, The Engineer and I have been looking for a blog template that was easy enough for me to use, but could still be customized to work with my book information pages. I think we achieved it with this new look.

There are a few surprises and bonuses throughout the site, including special coupons and a sneak peak at chapter 1 of my upcoming military science fiction novel, ROAD TO HELL! I'll be adding two more chapters leading up to the launch of the book.

If you come across any bugs or issues, please drop me an email at kristadball (at) gmail (dot) com.

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It is a truth universally acknowledged that an author in possession of unpublished fiction must be in want of a job.

I'll be off-blog while I work on the new website. I'm hoping to have it ready for December 1.

Feel free to drop me a line if you need anything! [email protected]

Many of you follow me on Facebook and Twitter and have seen my comments in the last 24 hours about a case ofÌýcyber-bullyingÌýtowards my stepson. We are very fortunate that he attends a school that he likes, where he gets along with his teachers. Plus, the administrativeÌýstaff has a strict zero tolerance policy towards bullying, which allows us as parents to have advocates for our kids and their protection.

Bullying still happens, unfortunately.

A very brave young person told their parents about a cyberbullying episode on Facebook. Those parents told us and we went into the school together. In the process of dealing with this, we also discovered that one kid said on Facebook that this was mean, in the midst of the others justifying the bullying.

We've been working with the school and the police to address the cyberbullying. However, none of this would have been possible without a very brave individual who told their parents. I wouldn't have known about this until thousands of people had seen and been involved. Also, a kid stood up to people who were bullies and said, publicly, that this is wrong and has risked being targeted.

So, let's celebrate those two very brave individuals.ÌýBravery isn't always loud and bold. Bravery is a shy, isolated youth telling his or her parents that they witnessed bullying or a kid wanting to belong but saying "guys, this is mean."

Come on! I know you're out there. This is the post-geek closet world. It's ok to like Star Trek and Star Wars. It's even ok now to like board games based on those two worlds!

I never had anyone to play board games with as a kid, so it's been like a second childhood now that I'm in a house with three people who like games! The kids are old enough to play and my partner is even worse than I am. There is a store in Calgary called "" where I nearly had a panic attack once I realized I could not take home one of everything.

I have too many to remember, but we have Magic: The Gathering cards, Descent (plus 3 expansions), Merchants andÌýMarauders, scrabble, Settlers of Catan (with the Knights and Cities expansion), Munchkin, D&D…god, I can't even remember what else. We have a shelf in the linen closet for them and it isn't enough room.

One of my favourite card games is . The purpose of the game? Be a complete jerk. (Perhaps that's why my teenage step-sons excel at it; they are the perfect age).

So, fess up. What are your favourite games?

In a post-cyberpunk future, Mia and Zakariah Davis risk their lives to secure an activated sample of the life-prolonging "eternal virus" for their son Rix. Afterwards, Mia is murdered in retribution and the family is overcome by grief. Zakariah goes on a quest to contact her spirit in the afterlife while Rix wants revenge, no matter the cost. Niko, the teenage clone of Zakariah's dead sister, has received the eternal virus and has been captured by vampires who drain her blood nightly for its rejuvenating effects. After Rix helps Niko escape, they team up in a quest to track down Mia's murderer. An engaging and compelling story, this work of science fiction delves into questions of religion, God, family, and the source of life in our universe.

SF novel, 263 pages

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Cyberpunk is alive and well, thanks to Steve Stanton's new series, THE BLOODLIGHT CHRONICLES.

The second book, Retribution, is aÌýtestamentÌýto the fact that cyberpunk as a genre is not dead, nor is it unattainable for the average reader. The characters acted like people, and acted their age. Adults were adults, teenagers were teenagers. Too often, adults act like spoiled brats and there is none of that in Stanton's novel. It's brisk, mature, and masterfully put together.

I loved the character Niko, from her motorbike in the first chapter, to her encounter with the "vampires," to her relationship with Rix. Poor Rix. God, he made me cringe at the thought of how my sixteen-year-old self treated those computer geeks who flirted with me.

Even though this is second in a series, I had no trouble following the story line. By chapter 4, I went out and purchased the first book, Reconciliation. It isn't often that I back-pedal in a series, but IÌýneeded, not wanted, to know what brought all of these characters to where they were.

If you can understand your sixteen your old talking about the internet and follow a Star Trek episode, I think most people can follow the science of this book. Even if you can't do either, I recommend reading the first chapter all the same and seeing…the story is so good, you might just opt to accept you won't understand it all and just keep on going. For me, that's the beauty of this novel.

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> In a post-cyberpunk future, Mia and Zakariah Davis risk their lives to secure an activated sample of the life-prolonging "eternal virus" for their son Rix. Afterwards, Mia is murdered in retribution and the family is overcome by grief. Zakariah goes on a quest to contact her spirit in the afterlife while Rix wants revenge, no matter the cost. Niko, the teenage clone of Zakariah's dead sister, has received the eternal virus and has been captured by vampires who drain her blood nightly for its rejuvenating effects. After Rix helps Niko escape, they team up in a quest to track down Mia's murderer. An engaging and compelling story, this work of science fiction delves into questions of religion, God, family, and the source of life in our universe.

SF novel, 263 pages

Ìý

Cyberpunk is alive and well, thanks to Steve Stanton's new series, THE BLOODLIGHT CHRONICLES.

The second book, Retribution, is aÌýtestamentÌýto the fact that cyberpunk as a genre is not dead, nor is it unattainable for the average reader. The characters acted like people, and acted their age. Adults were adults, teenagers were teenagers. Too often, adults act like spoiled brats and there is none of that in Stanton's novel. It's brisk, mature, and masterfully put together.

I loved the character Niko, from her motorbike in the first chapter, to her encounter with the "vampires," to her relationship with Rix. Poor Rix. God, he made me cringe at the thought of how my sixteen-year-old self treated those computer geeks who flirted with me.

Even though this is second in a series, I had no trouble following the story line. By chapter 4, I went out and purchased the first book, Reconciliation. It isn't often that I back-pedal in a series, but IÌýneeded, not wanted, to know what brought all of these characters to where they were.

If you can understand your sixteen your old talking about the internet and follow a Star Trek episode, I think most people can follow the science of this book. Even if you can't do either, I recommend reading the first chapter all the same and seeing…the story is so good, you might just opt to accept you won't understand it all and just keep on going. For me, that's the beauty of this novel.

Ìý

Field-Tested Marketing is a new series focusing on my own experiences replicating common marketing advice seen on writing forums and in marketing books.

The Advice: Provide a daily link to your book on Twitter and Facebook. Try doing it several times a day, to ensure that you cover all of your followers who visit Twitter at different times.

In action:ÌýI've discovered two issues with this approach. First, I stop following people only send out links to their books, especially if it is several times a day. It gets even more annoying when it's just the same tag line over and over. It doesn't make me want to read the book, when it's being repeated so many times.

I used to follow a person who only talked about how many sales they'd made that day and link saying "let's make it a round dozen" or whatever. I don't mind the occasional tweet like this. But daily? No thanks. And worse, many other Tweeters started talking about the person in code, making fun of them. I don't want to be that person!

The exception to this is when there is a special promotion or contest happening. In those cases, such as Read an Ebook Week, I expect to see a lot more links going on around social networking sites. Oftentimes, these tweets and facebook messages contain sale information, free codes, and specials. These are time-sensitive events, so it makes complete sense to have them tweeted often.

The interesting thing that I've found is that people tend to retweet or share these special events far more frequently than the general "buy my stuff" messages.

I tweet a link to one of my books whenever I think about it: once or twice a week, on average. I have an Amazon Affiliates account, as I use it frequently on ebook review site. The side benefit to this is having very easy "Share" links available to me for Amazon pages. I generally use this buttons to share my book link, plus include a special message.

I personally see Twitter as a chance to chat with people, like a chat channel. A Facebook fan page has a great potential as a modified forum. I love asking research questions, opinions, and generally silliness on my Facebook page.

Bottom line:ÌýMany of the people who follow me on social media have either purchased my work. Others Ìýhave stated that it isn't either in their genre of interest, or don't like to read ebooks (and are waiting for the print copy); they stay because I entertain them.

Yet, whenever I do my occasional new release or sale link, all of these folks retweet or share my links to their followers. I've gained several new follows this way, which helps spread name recognition and word-of-mouth potential.

My Recommendation:ÌýÌýDo link your work a couple times a week, or whenever you remember. New releases, sales, and contests are short-term enough to allow for much more frequent linkage.ÌýTry changing up the book titles and the tag lines you use.

And remember: social media is about being social, not about bombarding people with commercials.

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What are your thoughts? Agree or disagree?

I've been trying to redo the books page for a month now, but things are getting to the point where my blog can't handle all of the upcoming titles, pages needed, etc. ÌýSo, I'm going to revamp the entire website over the next month or two.

Sorry for the mess while renovations happen.