Join me on May 12 at 3 PM for an online chat about my novel Murder in Ocean Hall. My mystery about the murder of the world’s most famous ocean explorer is the first book club selection of the Independent Author Index. This new site is a place where “readers meet authors” and is a good example of how communities are forming online to discuss books.

Looking forward to answering questions on May 12!

While the Supreme Court heard the Obamacare case, protests against the law were held outside. The media and demonstrators were careful not to get on the steps of the Court, which were under the protection of the Supreme Court Police.

A model stands at the end of the runway during Crystal Couture in Crystal City, VA. Her pose reminded me of the cover of The Winner Stands Alone.

OccupyDC still occupies McPherson Square. I was there on the day that they were supposed to be evicted. Nothing happened, except for this tent-raising, where OccupyDC covered the statue of General McPherson with a Tent of Dreams.

Did you get a Kindle for Xmas?

Get my book Murder in Ocean Hall for just 99 cents in this holiday offer exclusively for Kindle owners.

My novel is a murder-mystery set in Washington, DC. Inspired by my experience in the city, Murder in Ocean Hall follows a veteran detective as he investigates the death of the world’s most famous explorer.

My book takes you behind the scenes of our nation’s dysfunctional capital, revealing the real place beyond the monuments.

Amazon reviewers call it:

“a fun, quick read”

“a howdunit with some good research on the author’s part.”

Get Murder in Ocean Hall today!

Now, Discover Your Strengths is one of the very few personal improvement books worth the money. It’s been superseded by the awkwardly-titled StrengthsFinder 2.0 but the message is the same in the new book:

You should concentrate on what you’re best at. Don’t try to improve your weaknesses, instead sharpen the skills that you do better than anyone else. It’s a countervailing message in this age of self-improvement. It says to drop what you suck at (I’m never going to be a great basketball player) and work on what you do best (writing and photography).

The two books contain surveys to identify your unique strengths.  You’ll probably experience an “ah-hah” moment at the results, confirming what you already knew.

The same principle of concentrating on your strengths can be applied to social media efforts. In this new and ever-changing field, how do you determine what to spend time on? Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, YouTube, FourSquare, Digg, SlideShare, Scribd, Flickr… and on and on and on. You could spend twenty-four hours a day in front of an overheated laptop updating social media sites.

I worked with Janice Hall Booth, a very interesting woman who wrote an inspiring book, Only Pack What You Can Carry. She’s an “adventurista” and an excellent role model for young women who want more out of life than Sex and the City.

Janice had a problem. She wanted to use social media to promote her book but had a full-time job. I’ve seen some of the social media plans for authors – they’re comprehensive, exhausting affairs filled with exhortations such as “get 20 new Twitter followers a day for 30 days.” How do you compel people to follow you? These plans treat all social media channels equally and require herculean efforts to complete.

Also, social media experts are extroverts; writers are not.

I took a different approach. I advised Janice to concentrate on the social media channels that she was most comfortable with. She was more likely to stick with something she was really passionate about and enjoyed. For Janice, this was blogging. Not surprising, since she’s a writer.

For my own social media efforts (for me and Murder in Ocean Hall), I’ve concentrated on blogging and Twitter. I like the constant newsfeed of Twitter, as well as the back-and-forth wittiness with friends. And for writing longer than 144 characters, I have this blog.

There’s a thousand other ways of promoting a book online. GoodReads is a really interesting online community. Facebook marketing ties yourself to the whims of a single online service. A book trailer (like a movie preview) on YouTube is a good idea for graphic novels. An email newsletter is something I’d like to do at some point. I post a lot of photos on Flickr, though they’re about my life in general, not just my book. FourSquare – why do I want people to know where I’m at?

My other piece of social media advice: evaluate after 30 days. What’s working? What’s not? Most social media, like media in general, does not reach a mass audience. You will not have thousands of followers overnight.

Instead, I’d look at your social media efforts based upon your individual strengths. Do you have blog posts that you’re really proud of? Have you made new connections that you treasure? Have you learned something new?

Passion and authenticity are rewarded in social media. Don’t try to do everything. Concentrate on what you enjoy.

Bridge over the New River, near Fosters Falls, VA

This is from one of my favorite places – New River Trail State Park in southwest Virginia. It’s an old rail-trail that follows the river for miles. It’s scenic and sparcely-used, especially in late fall. I was lucky to get this picture (and bike ride) in before the weather turned. This is where the trail goes over a road which looks like it could be the cover of a country album.

It’s an iPhone pic modified in Instagram.

Bonus: here’s a video of biking down the trail.

Last night was another interesting monthly WordPressDC Meetup. This time, the topic was on, “Users: Understanding and making features for them.”

Evan Solomon gave a really interesting presentation on usability testing for wordpress.com. His slides don’t really do justice to his talk, which was filled with anecdotes on improving the usability of the WordPress home page. The objective was to increase sign-ups for this blogging service. They performed A/B testing using Optimizely. This type of testing is where you present half of users one version of your web page (the A version) and the other half another version (the B version). You then measure which page does better.

In the case of wordpress.com, the simpler version did better. Less text, fewer buttons and more white space meant more sign-ups. Evan said that there was a lot of interesting items on the original home page, things that the team really liked. But they got rid of them because they didn’t perform as well as the simple page.

There are a couple of lessons here:

1. Simple is always better. Think Google or Apple – it’s about taking things out. People who work on web sites should read Strunk & White: The Elements of Style. It’s a little book about grammar but its lessons on clear, concise writing are directly applicable to web content.
2. Listen to users. There’s a lot of resistance toward usability testing within organizations. They don’t want to give people what they want – they cling to the broadcast model of “we’ll tell you what we want you to know,” as if there’s not a billion other web sites out there.

There’s a saying among writers that you must “kill your darlings.” That means take out the florid passages that you love but don’t help the reader. Do the same with your web site.

It began as a low rumble. I thought someone was moving furniture in my building but then it grew stronger.  I was being shaken, and for a few scary seconds I thought my apartment was going to split in two.

Then it stopped. Outside was a gorgeous sunny day. What happened?

I filed downstairs with my neighbors, none of whom knew exactly what we had experienced. Was this just on our block? I checked Twitter and saw that people from the around the Washington region were tweeting, “Earthquake.” Within seconds, someone had retweeted confirmation from the US Geological Society.

After I posted this anecdote on GovLoop, it was used in Washington Post article on disaster preparedness in federal government. The article highlighted the fact that informal networks, like Twitter, conveyed information more quickly and efficiently than official government channels.

View from Federal Hill, Baltimore, MD

If DC is where high school valedictorians go, then what is Baltimore? The Wire and Homicide: Life on the Street have given this charming, scruffy city a bad rap. It’s home to some delightful neighborhoods, like Federal Hill (pictured above). It’s where Federal troops were stationed during the Civil War, to keep an eye on the occasionally riotous citizens of the city. Now it’s used for more peaceful purposes.