Recently, a couple of folks have asked us how to subscribe to this blog.
Question: Why would you want to?
Answer: In order to make sure you don't miss any of the posts. (Or the comments from our readers, some of which are quite as good as the posts.)
Here's how you do it:
On the upper right hand corner of the page you'll find the words "subscribe to:"
To get the posts, you hit "posts".
When the pulldown menu appears, you cllick one of the options.
Most people will prefer Atom, the one at the bottom.
That will open a window which allows you to opt where you want to direct the feed.
If you use out Outlook, do that, because that will send the posts directly to your email program.
That's it. Done.
In the case of Outlook a little box will appear on the email page. It will say "RSS feeds" and under that the name of this blog "Murder is Everywhere".
And by clicking on it, you'll find all of our posts.
And, if you want the comments as well, opt for them by repeating the process.
Except you start by clicking on "comments" instead of "posts".
And a second box will open on Outlook.
Easy.
Leighton
Posts
How Long Should a Chapter Be?
3 hours ago
Leighton, people should subscribe and tell their non-mystery reading friends as well. This blog is information shared by people who love the countries the live in and about which they write. I doubt there is another blog where one can learn about elephants, books hanging from trees, Jinger Ben, the cost of wrapping paper in Iceland, witches, serial killers, and the lair of the police in Paris
ReplyDeletePosting a comment can be a bit confusing to the non-technically savvy among us. I may be the only one who has run into this. In the "Select profile" category, the easiest method for me was to set up a Google account. I have been stymied by the URL thing since I first started using the computer.
When I hit the "post commment" button, the site tells me I can't. I found the way around that is to choose "preview" which not only allows me to make sure that the post makes sense to the average reader of the English language but it allows me to post the comment.
The "words" that one has to type in order to prove that the poster is "one" and not a robot, are always interesting. Some creative person could have fun turning them into a secret code.
This site is one of the most enjoyable of all those available on the "interweb" as my mother-in-law called it. You all have many fans so I suspect that there are a lot of people reading the blog everyday but haven't taken the jump to be a "follower". Perhaps you could explain that, too.
One can also click the "follow" button atop the thumbnails of followers in the righthand column. This is probably the easiest way for people to become attached to your blog and for you to keep track of them. They also get immediate recognition for their effort.
ReplyDeleteMichele
SouthernCityMysteries
Beth: Thank you, not only for your enthusiastic support, but also for your great comments, which I always enjoy reading. As to the explanation of "following", Michele kindly chimed in on that. Read on.
ReplyDeleteMichele: Thanks for pointing out the features of the "Follow" button. Your post prompted me to further exploration.
As I now understand it clicking on the follow button, won't get anything sent to your email in-box, but it will cause postings to appear on the reading list of your blogger dashboard. Is that right, or am I missing something?
Anybody else have something to contribute on this subject? I'm a babe in the woods here.
Leighton - "blogger dashboard"? This is the first time I have read or participated in anyone's blog. You know the term "blogger dashboard" so you are far ahead of me.
ReplyDeleteI have been posting reviews of books on the two Insomniac threads and the Mystery Reader Cafe for about two years. Until today I never posted a review on Amazon; I was always intimidated by the need to give the review a title.
Today I took the plunge and copied and pasted (my son showed me how) reviews of your BURIED STRANGERS and Yrsa's LAST RITUALS and MY SOUL TO TAKE that I had posted on those discussions. I even made up titles.
I have to wait for Santa to bring A DYING GASP and I will be much more timely in getting a review onto Amazon.
Beth:
ReplyDeleteThank God for kids.
How would any of us old fogies deal with computers otherwise?
About your reviews: they don't appear to be posted yet, but I'm looking forward to reading them.
I don't know if you're aware of this, but I think it has to be said: people like you, and Susie, who are willing to share opinions about books, are doing a terrific service. Here's why:
The publishers on the MWA's "approved publishers" list will put more than 2,500 titles on the market in 2009.
The vast majority of those titles attract readership not by advertising, or by word of mouth, but by getting reviewed.
But every day that passes brings us fewer reviewers in the traditional media.
My favorite newspaper reviewer, Oline Cogdill, used to work for the Florida Sun Sentinel. She doesn't any more.
Oline's story is a tale oft-told in these difficult times. The internet is killing newspapers and the newspapers, in their struggle for survival, are killing reviewers.
Their justification for so doing, is that book review sections don't attract much advertising space, and are not "an essential part of the news".
Lots of people think newspapers are in financial trouble because people are getting their news from the internet, radio or television, thereby undercutting circulation.
But they're wrong.
Newspapers don't make money by selling newspapers. Newspapers make money by selling space in newspapers.
Advertising space.
And the most lucrative advertising space per column inch used to be the classifieds.
But now all that has changed.
Instead of paying newspapers to print classifieds, people turn to internet sites (like Craig's list) and get the space they used to pay for for free.
And THAT is why there are fewer and fewer reviewers working for newspapers.
And why people like you, my dear Beth, are becoming pivotal in getting the word out about books.
And why I'd like to thank you, on behalf of Yrsa and myself for having gone to the trouble of posting those reviews.
Please keep up the good work - and encourage others to do the same.
Jefferson said that democracy can only function if there is a free press, thereby making freedom of speech the part of the Bill of Rights that average people saw as guaranteeing their role in government. The labor movement grew and took hold because the leaders believed that an arrest and a punch were worth the risk if it got the message out to the rank and file. On occasion today it seems that freedom of speech has been usurped by freedom to carry an Uzi into the playground but it is the one that has allowed Fox to be the pre-eminent news source in the United States.
ReplyDeleteEschewing politics (although I will say that liberation theology has its heart in the right place), and getting back to newspapers, they did become in some ways, their own worst enemies. The Boston Globe was always a part of my life. It was edited for a couple of generations by one family until about 10 years ago when it was sold to the New York Times.
The Globe did fantastic investigative reporting. Their role in bringing the clergy sex scandal to the public can't be overstated and it was a daring thing for them to do in Catholic Boston. But gradually the reporters began to disappear and so did the valuable content of the paper. For my husband and I, the straw that broke the camel's back came when the Globe brought people from India to their press room to be instructed by Globe employees as to how to produce an awarding winning newspaper.
The television news stations showed the Indians proudly wearing their Globe press credentials, sitting at desks along side their American counterparts, a testament to the importance of journalism.
The students returned to India and their American teachers got their pink slips. They had unwittingly spent a few months teaching the people they had befriended how to take over their jobs. Outsourcing had come to what was a local newspaper. We canceled our subscription and I told them why. There was no response. The Globe terminated those loyal workers with calculated cruelty and disdain.
I read the Globe, NYT, and the Washington Post online everyday. Mostly, I look at the Globe to check the obituaries (in Boston the death notices were referred to as the Irish sport's page and it was read before anything else). The reasons to read the Globe are gone. Most of their reporting is picked up from the news services and can be found in any newspaper.
The loss of the classifieds impacted newspapers financially; the loss of good journalism is why they died.
I bet you can tell the selling out of the Globe gets my Irish up. We knew all about tilting at wind-mills before Don Quixote got into it.
I had no idea that the reviews are so important. This exchange educated me and,perhaps, others who will read it.
Leighton- You are right, but it also appears on Google Reader if you have a Google account. That is a convenient way to corral it all.
ReplyDeleteMichele
SouthernCityMysteries
I took Michele's advice and transferred the posts and comments to Google Reader. Next step will be trying to find it.
ReplyDeleteThis blog is an education in so many things.
Hi Leighton.
ReplyDeleteI will ´have to´ venture into your part of the world for some crime fiction as I got the brilliant idea of hosting a global reading challenge the other day. Would you recommend reading your series in order?
Hi Dorte,
ReplyDeleteYes, I would definitely recommend reading the series in order. The continuing characters grow in the imagination as readers get to know them better. That's my intention anyway.
Also, there is a particularly ugly person who appears in book #2 (Buried Strangers) and gets carried over to book #3. Readers of the new one (Dying Gasp) will (hopefully) enjoy hating that person even more when they know the backstory.