Monday 27 May 2013

Google, Diets and Rude Words

When I was writing "The Leftovers Handbook" my Father in Law expressed the opinion that I was more like to be a success if I wrote some porn and it turns out he was on the right track; I believe "50 Shades of Grey" may have sold even more books than mine.  Now that I am published I occasionally, only every half hour or so, check how my book ranks on Amazon and sometimes it is doing quite well but I'll tell what sort of books are doing really well, possibly right up there with porn - dieting!  Especially the 5:2 type diet.

Perhaps I could write a book combining all three, hmm - something to think on. I must be careful though.  When I was writing "Lush Ice Cream without a Machine" I did some research on the competition and found that a book called "Tits and Ice Cream: Because Everybody Loves 'em!" was published by Windupbird Publishing at the end of 2011. Looking for it now it seems it didn't do well and the publication was later abandoned!  I have tried to find a picture of the book's cover for your delectation but to no avail so here is a photo of an ice cream from my own ice cream book - which requires no machine, not much time or effort, no having to mash the stuff as it freezes and you can keep your clothes on.  Mighty fine recipe, even though I say so myself!

Easy Peasy homemade Blueberry Ice Cream
I have noticed (observant or what!) that the cunning or even inadvertent use of certain words can really increase visitors to my blogs.  A fairly obvious one was the mention of naked men in my last post; I had a feeling that might help.  More surprisingly was the vast number of visitors to my blog about a delicious traditional apple dessert, Devonshire Apple Dappy, a while ago on Sudden Lunch.  I soon realised what had happened as explained here


So, my point is, keywords, tags, metadata and tits can all be useful tools to promote one's blog!  I use Google Adwords where one can research keywords to see which are likely to have the best effect.  This is the result of today's search ...


... from which you will see that, surprisingly given the choices, "diet" is the most frequently searched for term this month, both globally (the first column of figures) and locally (the second column). "Dappy" isn't that high on the list but it worked for me, mind you that was 18 months ago and maybe the world has moved on since then.

Once you have chosen your keywords make sure they appear a few times in your post, use them as labels or tags and it is also a good idea to title your photos with a keyword before uploading. I had actually called the above chart "keywords" but having had another search changed it to "google" which was searched for online a magnificent 923,000,000 times in the last month and so should be a good keyword to use!  As another example; the ice cream picture above was originally named "blueberry ice cream" (8,100 searches on Google this month) which I have just shortened to "blueberry" (2,240,000 searches this month).

Another good idea ...

It is possible to change the title of a post after publication. This being the case I publish with a highly searchable keyword rich title and then, immediately, change it to something more friendly and appealing.  The first title is the one that appears forever in the URL to that post - this one was originally just "Google Diets" but I thought it might be more intriguing if I added "rude words", is that cheating do you think?  Of course, people looking for porn or Dappy probably move straight on but they may just find something of interest. They have to eat too you know, keep their strength up! 

Tuesday 21 May 2013

To Kindle your Interest!

I am pleased to announce that "The Leftovers Handbook" is now available on Kindle which I think is a bloody good idea and not just for the obvious reason; hopefully more sales.  My reasoning is that "The Leftovers Handbook" is eminently suitable to the search inside function available on ebooks.  

In more detail ...

The book is primarily an A to Z of ingredients giving lots of ideas and recipes to use up leftovers of such ingredients.  There are, for instance, 18 ideas for leftover bread under "Bread" such as ...

Skordalia - a delicious Greek garlicky dip
Curried Cashew Fritter
Creamy Maple Pecan Bread Pudding
... but there are also several other ideas throughout the book where bread is the secondary leftover in a dish.  My point is that with an ebook it is easy to search every reference to an ingredient before choosing what to make.

Anyhoo, see what you think of it, have a Look Inside if you feel like it!

Thank you,

Suzy Bowler

Saturday 18 May 2013

Book Reviews and Naked Men!

Yesterday I excitedly bought The Sun because The Leftovers Handbook was recommended in it; here is the write up - rather good, I feel. 


Having photographed it and grinned and shown it to people I flicked through the rest of the newspaper and lo and behold another nice surprise! 


Anyway, back to the book ...

I have received other good reviews too from The Independent, Saga and more - to see them click on The Leftovers Handbook tab at the top of the page. I'm adding more reviews as they occur.

Thursday 9 May 2013

Ice Creamy.li

Today saw the first issue of my new paper.li newspaper appropriately called ... Today saw the first issue of my new Paper.li newspaper appropriately titled and subtitled ... 


I didn't mention it before as I wasn't sure if I had done it right! 

The way it works is I provide a list of sources (eg. The Huffington Post and Telegraph Food) together with some keywords and paper.li assemble an edition gathering together any articles by these sources which mention my keywords.
The great thing about it is that it is as interesting for me to read as it is for anyone else; for instance I am particularly pleased with the headline
"Cat Snores Into Glass Of Orange Juice For No Apparent Reason"!
My keywords are, of course, ice cream, gelato and sorbet but they seems to have been interpreted broadly and quite interestingly.
If you would like to have a look at this edition see here and if you would like to receive future editions just click on SUBSCRIBE at the top of the paper.li page and/or follow me on Twitter.
Speaking of ice cream here is a picture of Saffron Ice Cream - recipe in my book - with a handful of pistachios just to get you in the mood.





Wednesday 8 May 2013

Twitter Impersonation!

Does anyone find this strange because I do?  Oddly enough I am (I am pretty sure!) being impersonated on Twitter.  I know I am really interesting all that but really!!!

This is my Twitter whatever its called ...


... and this is hers, if it is a her - it look to be so by her picture.


I agree they don't look alike and nor do we but what are the chances of her having exactly the same name, her twitter username being the same as mine but with an 'e' cunningly added on the end and, this is the clincher for me, she claims her location as Cornwall, UK and BVI.  Well I've never seen her in either place! 
                                                              

This surely, surely can't be a coincidence, obviously, even though Twitter say ...

"It appears that you have not provided sufficient evidence that the account you are reporting is impersonating you."

The fake me, isn't doing anything unpleasant on Twitter so ... should I be irritated or flattered?

Talking of Suzy Bowler type things you too can be Suzy Bowler if you join WDCAWBA which is The Washing DC Area Women's' Bowling Association.  Every year the lady who wins the annual tournament is Suzy Bowler for the year.  If you want a go see here - I've been Suzy Bowler for ages and ages and I recommend it!

Goodnight

The Real Suzy Bowler