Monday, 27 February 2012

Are you using those old photos to boost your blog visits?

Lone tree
My artistic abilities started with painting and drawing. Over the years this has migrated, and now I apply these talents to the written word, although whether or not my writing is as good as my other art is yet to be judged!

One constant in my life has been photography. I have always enjoyed capturing something special on camera, especially since I bought my first - huge - digital camera. In fact, I have built up an enormous mountain of photos over the years, some of which I sadly lost when the old disk-drive they were stored on crashed and burned.

So I've been looking at ways of using these pictures to help me promote myself as a writer. Some of them are quite eye-catching, as you may agree. I thought that maybe if I can get them out there for others to see, with a link back to my blog - here - then I might drive traffic and links to this site.
Vineyards and sky

Traffic drives interaction, brand awareness and eventually sales of my books. Links boost the site's position within the search engines.

One method I have been contemplating is Google Maps. I often scour the map for places I am about to explore, clicking on the photos posted there to try and identify places worth a visit.

So I've just uploaded some pictures to Google Maps which allows me to add a website link within my photo account. Anybody who likes my pictures might look at my profile, see the link to my blog and come here to discover more about me. Certainly the ability to geo-tag these photos means that I can put them in high-profile places and just about anybody can find my lovely pics!
Oviedo cathedral

The photos remain under my copyright and should anyone wish to use them they can do so, provided of course they quote my name (brand-awareness) and provide a link back to here (links in = higher search results and more visitors).

So, my experiment has begun. As I upload more photos I will monitor to see if it does indeed drive traffic this way. I'll keep you posted.

What do you think? Is this experiment likely to do as I hope, or am I wasting my time?

Visit my profile and photos> http://www.panoramio.com/user/6727400

Wednesday, 15 February 2012

Feed me, dear solitude. I need you...

Writing needs solitude. I need writing. I need solitude to write.

Unfortunately, my life gives me precious little time alone to pursue my passion: writing my books!

However, I am glad to say that I will be in the UK alone for two weeks over the summer, then my wife is away for two weeks doing a course, followed by a whole month in Brazil!

Solitude. She will be my companion for two whole months.

Feed me, dear solitude. I need you...

Sunday, 5 February 2012

Final cover for End of the Road?

Number 1
End of the Road is a short (true) story and will be my first ever epublish attempt. It is being done on a budget, so this little cover (number 1) was created by myself in about 45 minutes. Good enough? What do you think?

(Updates from the comments made - thanks!)
No 2. I've added the 'copter to help with the perspective. It is a military tale set in the centre of the UK's principal military training area. My name has also been darkened, reflecting the colour of the sky...

With No 3 I've coloured and wonkied the text. The red is more dominant and picks out the red horizon, and the yellow in my name reflects that of the sunset.

No 4 has a silver heading, which looks really nice, and No 5 has the heli' moved across slightly...

(I can't seem to organise these images in the way I want to - thanks Blogger!)
Number 2
Number 3
Number 4
Number 5

Number 6




Original image, from
http://yaymicro.com/search.action?search.photographer=yorkman