Book Bloggin 101: Digital Footers and Blog Tours

How do you sign up for blog tours?? Is there a particular site or something?? I am a fairly new blogger and wanted to interview authors and participate in blog tours.
Thanks for all the help PJ. I love your blog and have found some great advice in your BB101 posts. - Mia

Yes. There are tons of sites that host blog tours. Most of the time all you have to do is get on their mailing list and then they will send you notifications of when a tour is coming up.

Here are a few and if my readers can chime in with any they no about it would be greatly appreciated.

http://bewitchingbooktours.blogspot.com/
http://blogbooktours.blogspot.com/
http://tlcbooktours.com/
http://virtualbooktours.wordpress.com/
http://mysticalbookblogtours.blogspot.com/
http://litfusegroup.com/blog-tours
http://www.novelpublicity.com/tour/
http://www.goddessfish.com/tours.htm

I've seen a couple of blogs I follow that have specifically mobile versions of their blog so that it's easy to read on a cell phone/PDA/whatever.  How do they do that?! - Thinking Cat

Easy to do. Go to your dashboard. Click on Settings. Click on Email & Mobile

Where it says, SHOW MOBILE TEMPLATE click yes. You can view what it will look like by clicking MOBILE PREVIEW. That little black box next to it is called a QR code. It is a scanner for your mobile phone. People "scan" it with their phone and it goes directly to their website. They  have to have a QR reader on their phone though - but it is a free app.

I've only done a few vlog posts, but never for IMM or reviews. How is this a good tool to use?  Also, what is a good length for vlog post?  Finally, I don't know how to edit video footage...will my vlogs look goofy? - ArtsyBookishGal

Show us your face! It puts a face to your name. And it brings a personal feel to your blog which people have just read, now they can see. Not to mention when you yammer people see a side of you that they might not get from your writing. Also, it's sometimes easier to make a quick vlog than to write everything down. I would suggest 2 to 3 minutes. When I see ten minute vlogs I think in my head, "Girl I like you, but I don't want to hear you go on for that long..."

My best vlogs are done in one take. If you can't edit, practice it a few times and just do the ones that go right though...

I would LOVE directions on how to create a digital fingerprint and copyright footer. So my question is, how do you create a digital fingerprint and copyright footer? - Juju at Tales of Whimsy...

Digital Fingerprinting is one of those odd little extras that people add to blogs but don't really explain how they do it. So, first let's do the easy one. Let's add a copyright footer.

In your DESIGN view in the DASHBOARD there should be a widget at the bottom called ATTRIBUTION...

By clicking on that you can add a quick copyright setting to your footer.

Now let's add a Post Feed Footer...so this will be added to you feed in case someone hijacks it.

Go to your DASHBOARD > SETTINGS > SITE FEED > Post Feed Footer
and add some original content there, like "This post is protected under copyright"

I've heard there's a way to make Blogger tweet your posts when there published, but I can't find it.  Does it exist?  Where? - Thinking Cat

Feedburner. This is a free Google service. There are tons of extras you can get by using feedburner and one of them is that it will tweet out your post.

Since copyright has been brought up, how does that work if we want to use quotes from a book in our review? Are we allowed to do that? What do we need to look for? Thank you!- Natasha A.

Use them. Quoting is a-ok. If you are reviewing a title you are allowed to show the cover and quote the work because this is considered "Fair Use" by copyright law - as long as you are critiquing. When you start getting into excerpts you need to ask permission first.

There were also a few other questions regarding cover images and posting a synopsis. These are also fine and under the Fair Use law. As long as it is a critique of that work.

How do you add an extra bar under the header/pages for miscellaneous stuff ..like text (eg. extra description statement), movie strip-like slideshow, etc.? ~Thank you. :)    


&

How do you execute a "Post-it"-like message/link to go on top (say you want to flag a giveaway or something important) that you want to remain at the head of the blog section?  --Thank you so much.  You are awesome!!

Text gadget. Implement those HTML/Text gadget. You would insert a new one into your design and drag it over your POST widget.

Want to get fancy with it. Create a post with an image and that text and align it how you like and change the color etc...then go to EDIT HTML and copy the HTML in that post. Then go to ADD A GADGET and you would scroll down to HTML/JavaScript Gadget and copy that code into the gadget. Easy peasy. You would drag it on top of your BLOG POST gadget not under the header gadget.

I've been blogging since September of last year, and I put a chapter from one of my fan fiction stories up on my blog from time to time.  Do you think this is a good idea?  Are people not interested in reading this type of thing on a blog?  I have noticed that I either get no comments on these stories, or maybe one, at the most.  That should be my answer, I guess, but I'd still like to know your opinion.  The fan fiction stories are related to The Twilight Saga and The Phantom of the Opera.  And, by the way, I always include a disclaimes at the very top of each post that contains a chapter, so there's no doubt that this is fan fiction, and not original work. - Maria @ A Night's Dream of Books

Do they comment? You said it yourself that is your answer right there. I think I might be a bad one to ask this, because I don't usually enjoy fan fiction. I think it is a good exercise in writing because of the established routine and plot lines. But, I don't like to read it, especially if I'm a fan of the series because I feel fans sometimes tend to take things a little too far. Yeah you know who you are, LOL, hooking up Jacob and Edward - scared for life! So, personally I wouldn't read your fan fic, but, if you want to put it out there, start a writing blog and put it there. Or keep on posting it. It's your blog. Do what you want, if your readers don't like it, they don't have to read it, right??

<div style="background-color: white; border: medium solid rgb(0, 0, 0); color: #660066; padding: 5px;">

**How do we change the color of the box? I tried replacing "White" with html color reference but it doesn't work and when I use the word brown its an ugly red color?

Did you add the #? Don't forget that one. It's quite important - see I changed it to #000 or black and I changed the text to white with the #FFF tag. See? This is my code:

<div style="background-color: black; border: medium solid rgb(0, 0, 0); color: #FFF; padding: 5px;">
Wuz up div? </div>

That's it folks. Talk Less. Read More. Don't steal. Happy Thusday.

Ask your BB101 Questions here...