Paper.li ~ useful-ish and fun!

As you may or may not know I "publish" or "host" or whatever it is a couple of Paper.li newsletters;

Click here

Click here

Now that you have clicked on the above two links I trust you will click "share" or "subscribe" or, ideally, both! 

The reason I started these two papers was, of course, in an attempt to promote my writing and my blogs but they do seem rather random and even reading my own issues I have learned a lot!  In fact in one of my earliest editions of Lush Ice Cream News was this headline ...

Cat Snores Into Glass Of Orange Juice For No Apparent Reason 

... and it doesn't get much better than that, does it?

If you are unfamiliar with Paper.li then, briefly, what happens is you set up a newspaper thingy concerning your area of interest and then you designate various websites, twits and facebook pages plus some appropriate keywords and every day or week, your decision, Paper.li collect together relevant items into a new edition of your paper, email it to subscribers and mention it on Twitter.

This method means that unless you are very stringent with sources and keywords some interesting stuff crops up.  I subscribe to a number of Paper.li papers:

~   The @FoodMeditations Daily 

~   The Food Stuff Extra Daily   This recently linked to a version of Van Morrison's "Into the Mystic".  Well what a treat! I love Mr. Morrison and, I kid you not, I once had dinner with him, just him and me, at his invitation!  Anyhoo my point is - what has this to do with food? 

~   The British Cheese Daily  Often very interesting but frequently not about cheese.

~   The FoodiesSW Daily - don't tell Olive Magazine, "foodie" is one of their banned words!  They recently linked to a story about this rather attractive older gentleman who at 50 still gets asked if he's old enough to buy booze.  Weak link but pleasant!

~   On #writing 

~   The Click Cornwall Daily  - because I live here.

~   The Caribbean Travel Daily - because I used to live there

You get the picture, I'm often tempted to sign up for more but reading them takes up so much time every day; they can be fascinating.

And why am I telling you this?  Well 3 reasons ...

1.   Another attempt to promote myself, I have no shame.

2.   In case you have not heard of this way of getting your work out there.

3.   So that you too can waste hours reading all sorts useful info, plus irrelevant but interesting stuff.

If you fancy having a go click here. 

I have a favour to ask of you!  

FOOD - the South Wests favourite food magazine have just launched their third Food Reader awards. Please go to my foodie blog Sudden Lunch and click this logo in the sidebar to nominate your favourite chefs, restaurant, retailers and more in the South West. May I suggest Sudden Lunch as the Best Food Blogger?  

After that browse their site, you won't be disappointed.

Thank you,

Suzy 

I never realised how important Twitter etc. are!

I first started using Facebook when a friend of mine got married in Perth, Australia and posted her wedding pics on FB (hello Telly Tubby x) and since then it has been a very useful way to keep in touch with far away friends that we miss in the Caribbean .

When Twitter first started at first it sounded a bit silly to me and you know it, or some of the Tweople who use it, are Very Silly Indeed or worse.  Nevertheless I joined up, started tweeting and have a little over 1,000 followers.  Sometimes it is quite fun and sometimes useful and informative. 

I find Pinterest a great way to store photos, both mine and other people's, in the cloud - a kind of online scrapbook and also a way to publicise my work. My book "The Leftovers Handbook", the publishers felt, is so full of information there is no room for photos so I put them on Pinterest just in case anyone is interested.

Stumble upon can be a great timewaster and I used to get stuck on it for hours, in fact one day a very spooky thing happened to me on Stumble Upon see here LINK

Blogging has become a regular and enjoyable habit for me and I am trying to keep it going during this troublesome time

I did not realise, however, until my recent (and continuing)BT Fiasco quite how useful a marketing tool networking is.

Since publication sales of my book The Leftovers Handbook have generally hovered in Amazon's rank at about 30,000 (the lower the number the better the sales) give or take a few thousand until BT disconnected our phone line.  See how sales immediately dropped soon after I stopped networking and then how they shot up again after I spent a day online at my friend's house.

I thought this might just be a fluke but it happened again the following week rather more spectacularly ...

... and I fully expect the same thing to happen in the next few days (fingers etc. crossed).

Of course when I am fully operational I don't just promote my own books and blogs I comment on other people's thoughts and ideas, make suggestions, joke, retweet things I find interesting, have conversations and generally post things I think funny haha or funny peculiar.  This is all very well but sometimes I've been doing it for hours and have to remind myself to get on with "important" things and stop playing!

Hopefully I shall be back online on or around or just after the weekend, perhaps, and can get back to my tweeting and in the meantime here is a bit of heartfelt networking I saw from the bus recently ...

Summer Special Offer ~ "Lush Ice Cream without a Machine"

I didn't make a big thing of this in my last post so I'd just like to mention it again.  As the weather was so good for a couple of days last week (and rumour has it the sun will be out next Friday - yippee!) I have reduced the price of my ebook "Lush Ice Cream without a Machine" to £1.98 which is about the same price as a carton of ice cream and much, much cheaper than an ice cream machine. You'd better see here and get a copy so you'll be ready next Friday!

This method makes rich creamy dairy ice cream quickly and easily, I promise you, and the reason I wrote the book is that it's so simple and foolproof that I felt it would be a shame not to pass it on. 

Here is easy peasy Clotted Cream Ice Cream, one of the first recipes in the book, as part of a twist on traditional Cornish Cream Tea. 

Incidentally and regardless of the above photo I hope everyone now realises that the Cornish have always been right - it is jam on first, topped with cream.  See here for the maths!  

Showing off a bit - sorry!

Look what I saw in Wadebridge.

I know for most people this is not very exciting but this is the first time I have seen my book in a real, live book shop and, not only that, in the window and, not only that, above Rick Stein!!!

Tomorrow I am giving a talk to a local craft group on getting published.  This is the first time I'll have done this too but presume that if I just chat along giving useful info I've picked up together with some jokes and anecdotes I should be OK and they have promised coffee and biscuits.

One of the things I am going to stress is how much work the publicity is, I feel I could sit here on my computer till the end of time pitching magazines, blogging, tweeting, commenting on Linkedin, posting on Facebook, emailing and so on and so forth. I don't mind at all, in fact I enjoy it but at the same time it is a) frustrating (magazines take ages to reply if at all) and b) there is so much to do I keep forgetting what I am doing.  Serves me right for being so old, I suppose.

And for visitors to Cornwall ... 

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.

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