When no choice becomes your only choice.

For as long as I can remember I have had a choice.

Weetabix or toast for breakfast?

Toast?

Would you like promite or honey on it?

This school bag or that one or even that one?

Music or sport?

Art or music or legal studies or history or geography?

This boyfriend or that one?

Stay in my home town or move away to study?

Will you marry me?

Kids now or later?

I can't say I ever really thought about having a choice. It was just always there.

My inalienable right. 

I need to tell you something blush worthy - more than blush worthy really - tomato red stained shame.

I didn't have much of an outward focus for a long time. 

I was that person who would watch the news and see people living in poverty and think to myself, poor things, then forget all about them. I'd see a photo of a teenage girl begging on the street holding a tiny infant in a dirty ripped singlet and no pants and admire the impact of the image rather than wonder about the girl. 
Well, it's not like I could save them all right?!
But then something happened. I traveled overseas. First to India. Then to the Philippines.
SLAP.
Fair across my left cheek then back across my right. 
I have seen a family living under a single sheet of rusted corrugated iron on the side of the road. I met their son. He was healthy when I met him. Chubby, happy and going to live with his forever family in Sweden. When he originally left his corrugated iron shelter he was malnourished. Skin, bones and sores. 
Come on people - get a job, feed your son something decent.
No.
Why?
Because there is no work where they live. Not a lack of choice between jobs. No job at all.
and
no job means no food.
No food means feed your baby son the water drained from the family's tiny portion of rice. Rice water in place of milk means no nourishment.
Well, why didn't you breastfeed your baby son?? Breast is best!
No job means no food which means no nourishment which means no breast milk which leaves no choice but to give him rice water.
Skinnier and skinnier he grows until there becomes only one choice.
Lack of choice became that families only choice for their son.
Sign a voluntary deed of commitment so that he can be raised by a family with plenty.
I could never give my child away.
What if you had no choice and that became your only choice?
I was taken into a small concrete hut  less than two months ago.
We didn't know why we were going in there - just that someone thought we may be able to help.
SLAP SLAP.
A ten year old girl lying on a bed. Emaciated. Eyes rolling rhythmically in her head. The photo on the wall showed her five months earlier - healthy and smiling - part of the family photo. 
She knew we were there as she would look for us when her eyes were forward. She squeezed Pauline's hand as we talked with her mother.
She had been tested for meningitis but that came back negative. The mothers choice? Well, have her hospitalised, keep testing and trying to get an answer and bring her back to health - no expense spared - except - the family is poor
and their only choice became no choice and so she lays at home dying.
I urge you 
don't leave it to the do -gooders
or say 'that's not my thing'
because you have got a choice.

Nicki Edwards

Facebook

Communication tips that you may or may not know about

I thought that I would share a few communication tips to help everyone build up their business platform.  Now to me that means, places where visitors can view your product.  For authors, our product is our books and we want people to know where to find them.  On the Internet, each location has an URL <Insert link> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniform_Resource_Locator .  

I guess the most basic ability that I recommend for everyone is to know how to copy and paste links. It seems simple enough, yet each browser is set up slightly different as to where you see the web addresses.  If you locate that web address on your browser then place the mouse over it then highlight from right to left or right to left.  Then right click scroll down to copy, then place the web address or link into whatever place you want it. Then right click and scroll down to paste. That should put your web address or link onto the document for you. If all else fails there is the Ctrl button + C for Copy then Ctrl button + V for Paste.  When doing a blog post you can highlight a word such as URL then find the link button.  When the button pops up you can place the link you want in the appropriate place. The result is that you have a word with a link without the distraction of seeing the link. 

I highly recommend that you keep a document program such as Microsoft Word replete with a list of the different links that you might need.  For example, Call Sign Wrecking Crew, LLC has a website, blog, and Facebook fan page, each with a unique URL.  Of course on the website there are the links where our book can be found.  I also use this list of links when I’m tweeting out information for our book. 

On twitter, I saw an interesting tweet from Karen Baney regarding twitter profiles.  The article <Insert link> http://www.karenbaney.com/archives/917  talked about profile black holes.  After reading this article, I tweaked my twitter profile so that anyone who visits it will know what our book is about and where to find it. 

While marketing, no I don’t mean for food although these days you can do that on-line as well, you may need to know the direct link to your twitter or Facebook page.  The lesson that I recently learned on LinkedIn is that when copying the URL from twitter it comes out looking like this: https://twitter.com/#!/LynnHallbrooks

The symbols #!/  seem to be thrown in to make it difficult for you to be found.  If you see them when you post your twitter address then kindly remove the symbols.  You should have a clean twitter address that anyone can click on and find you right away:  https://twitter.com/LynnHallbrooks 

I’ve also noticed that those symbols sometimes come up on some Facebook page addresses as well and simply remove the offending #!/ and you should provide a direct link to your Facebook fan page.  I’ve also seen people ask, “Why do I need a separate page for my book?”  If you have an author page and no co-author then you don’t.  I highly recommend not using your personal page for business if you can avoid it.  I’m sure potential readers don’t wish to read all the latest gossip from your BFF or even your siblings.  Now if authors are “friends” with one another, well then that is another story altogether.

Our Facebook fan page has a RSS feed <insert link> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSS  that comes from our blog. Once I finish posting a blog it goes to not only our Facebook fan page <insert link> http://www.facebook.com/CallSignWreckingCrewStormWarning  but also to Amazon.com <insert link> http://www.amazon.com/Lynn-Hallbrooks/e/B0050ZOGAA/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_3, Goodreads.com, <insert link> http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4950577.Lynn_Hallbrooks/blog  and Triberr <insert link> http://www.triberr.com so that my tribe mates can help spread the word.  To be honest, I had some one find my RSS feed so I can’t explain that one to you.  I did however, copy and paste the link on my growing list of links. It has saved me many headaches having my list. I hope my tips help you out as well. 

Lynn Hallbrook is the Texas based co-author of Call Sign: Wrecking Crew (Storm Warning) and together with her co-writer David McCoy will be the first author to be interviewed on our new upcoming Blog Radio Show on 12 Dec. More about that exciting new venture next week!