I’ll be the first to admit, I’m definitely a flake. No, I’m not proud of it. I’ve tried to overcome the flakiness and so far, 44 years later, nothing seems to work. Suggestions welcome.

Anyways, as you can tell, I’ve neglected this place. I mean, what kind of peep that calls herself a blogger avoids all contact with her blog for like 6 weeks?

So, here’s what I’ve been doing. You see, I’m writing a book. Actually, I’m writing two books. Two series. I’m co-authoring with two different people. Very busy.

Quick promo before I continue on with this here post:
Hallows Haven is a YA Paranormal that is currently being rewritten from 3rd person to 1st person because it’ll read better, I hope.

Then there’s Dark Dawn, book 1 in the Dark Redemption Series which is scheduled for release on June 10. We are doing two versions of the same book, YA and MA.

If you could go give those two books a quick like on FB, I’d be mighty grateful.

I got my author page over on Goodreads and if you think I didn’t squeal delightedly when that happened!

So, I”m rebranding. Again. See, I told you I’m flaky.  I had started a wordpress.com blog for the purpose of my rebranding and then I”m all like, but why bother? I have this perfectly good blog and I own the dot com, I’m paying money every year for the damn thing, I might as well use it.

Yeah.

I dunno. I’m out of personal stuff to say and quite frankly, my home life isn’t all that interesting. Not in a compelling blog post type of way. Not that I ever write compelling blog posts. I’m just a simple girl with a simple brain.

I kind of decided to just stay put here on Rock and Drool. I’ll just be promoting other writers and stuff. Maybe I’ll throw in an occasional blog post, assuming I can sneak around my kids who watch me like a hawk when it comes to these social media thingies. I got in a fight with one of my daughters because she was bitching about me on Twitter and I’m all like, Twitter is mine, yo. You aren’t allowed to talk bad about me there or I will have your account deleted.  And she’s all like…um, excuse me *eye roll*, you aren’t allowed to blog about us *mouths the word bitch* *takes a selfie*.

Needless to say, blogging and having teenagers isn’t the best possible combination. Which is totally fine because they are too boring to blog about anyways.

I totally, totally just lost my train of thought because my son just asked me about Minecraft and I’m like…huh?

In conclusion, I’m rebranding.

I’m a writer now. I have proof! I’m on Goodreads!

The End. Or is it….

OH CRAP…wait a minute. I have a giveaway going on over on my AUTHOR FB page! You could win a $15 GC for Amazon. And who knows, I might actually make it a bigger gift card, depending on how many new “likes” I get. So there.

i thought this was funny because hey, i think we've all done this!

When I was this “Mommy Blogger”, there wasn’t even a negative connotation connected to it. It was the cool thing to be.

Then, my nearly perfect kids became teenagers. Sigh. And blogging became somewhat difficult because these teenagers would snoop around on my blog and find out that I was writing about them. Seriously, what did they think I was doing anyways? I was a “Mommy Blogger” after all.

So, after much bitching and moaning from them, I was forced to solemnly swear that I would never again utter a peep about them here. I was forbidden from being a Mommy Blogger and just became a Mommy with a Blog.

It wasn’t enough for them that I stop writing about their business, they forced me to stop writing about um…other stuff. Like, I dunno, sex with the Mister person. Because, apparently they were still keeping tabs on my blog. Talk about Big Brother watching. Big Teenagers are FAR, FAR worse.

So, I stopped writing about relationship stuff. Sex included. Well, the hubby didn’t want me writing about it anymore either. And I have to respect these peoples wishes. Gosh darn it.

Then, I stopped writing about my youngest kid because, well…I just did. I have no reason except for the fact that his conversations weren’t as cute as they used to be. He started talking about bodily functions and video games like MineCraft and stopped talking about Max and Ruby and his theory on why he thinks people become dragonflies when they die.

Eventually, I was left with absolutely nothing to write about in the Mommy Blogger world and I just didn’t want to write crap for the sake of writing on my blog. OK, I still write crap, but whatever.

But then, this 9 year old emerged. I mean, not literally because yikes, that would hurt. Figuratively. Although, he is literally 9 but…oh whatever…you know what I mean.

If you’ve never had a 9 year old before…OMG…are you in for a treat. And not a sweet one either.

This adorable baby of mine became, almost overnight, moody, tantrumy and sullen. Of course he has his adorable moments too. Don’t they all? But, I was suddenly reminded of a stage that I hadn’t been in for a long time, the big kids had long passed the late elementary school years of tumultuous temper. Very much like giving birth, you forget the bad parts and only remember the good parts. Which I’m still trying to recall.

OK. I’m kidding. I remember many good parts from this age through, oh…16 or so. Yes, there are a few.

The other night, in the midst of a tantum (9 year old, not mine), I had the shocking realization that even my baby is growing up. And there is nothing I can do to stop it. No matter how many more years I fall asleep next to him. No matter how many more years I check to make sure he brushed his teeth or wiped his butt well. No matter how many times I call him my baby. He’s going to grow up and become a…TEENAGER.

My baby.

I look at my older kids and it’s shocking to me. But for some reason, it was more expected. I knew they’d get big and eventually leave me.

I just figured that this one would stay small and sweet forever.

I just assumed he’d never get overly moody or become a big, giant jerk (at times).

He’s the baby, after all.

I can tell hormones are starting to swing a little now. He’s concerned a little more with his appearance. He fights with me about what I lay out for him to wear. He doesn’t want to shower anymore…typical boy. He is worried what other people think about him. He doesn’t care what I think, he figures I’m just his mom so what do I really know.

He told me that he’s not a baby anymore.

I just didn’t believe him.

But now, I guess I have no choice because whether or not I choose to believe it, he’s NOT a baby anymore.

And I think I need my blog again to get me through this part. This age.

Because holy hell, from here on out, it’s going to be a rocky ride.

Let’s face it, planning a Blogger Outreach is NOT rocket science. It’s actually fairly easy to do and is one of the more enjoyable parts of being a social media professional, in my opinion. But OH, can it be EPIC in its disaster if not handled right.

We all know bloggers turn to their social media channels to announce their disappointments and excitements, it’s what we do. Brands are aware of this fact, which is why they reach out to bloggers to spread their word. Duh, right? The best (or worst) online word of mouth marketing, right there in a tidy timeline package.

Big, little and everywhere in between bloggers have all watched drama after drama unfold when bad PR happens to good brands. It happens all the time, it’s par for this social media landscapes course. Many of us enjoy watching the backfire of bad PR. It’s a learning experience as well as cheap online entertainment.

Personally, I love when good campaigns happen, when the entire thing is done right from start to finish. I breathe a sigh of relief. Because way too often, we ride the rocky waves of bad campaigns.

If you’ve been following me since last Thursday, you know that a really bad PR campaign happened to me, personally. I’m going to bash or mention names here on my blog, even though I really want to. What I am going to do is explain what NOT to do when creating a Blogger Outreach Event. Because I think there are a lot of companies…both brands and PR…that just don’t know what they are doing. And guess what? This is one thing that I pride myself in being pretty darn good at, the whole blogger outreach thing. Because bloggers are my peeps and I’m a blogger so I live by the whole “do unto others” motto.

Lesson #1 THE INVITES: If you only have room for 8 then don’t invite triple the amount initially. Because…WHAT IF they ALL ACCEPT? It’ll look REALLY BAD if you have to UNINVITE these people. Oh wait. So, here is a little tip for you, it’s called “Phases”. Repeat after me…PHASES. Do you see where I’m going with this? You roll out invites in…say this with me…PHASES. That’s right. Room for 8? Invite 10 at first. Worst possible case scenario, you have 2 more people than you really wanted. Best case scenario, they all decline. Then, you roll out the 2nd phase. And you keep going until all the spots are taken. Note: Make sure you give a respond by date. A realistic one.

Lesson #2 The UNINVITES: You don’t do it. You send out invites clearly stating that responses are need ASAP because space is limited and yet, everyone responds…too bad. You’re stuck. You invited these people as your guests to the event, you make sure they are happy. As stated earlier, we all know what happens when some bloggers aren’t happy. It becomes a viral Internet situation that just makes EVERYONE look bad. Not good.

Lesson #3 Responding to emails: The whole copy/paste thing is fine, within reason. Make sure you personalize the email a bit. I know it takes some time to personalize the greeting and to add a little note directed to each person. But do it. Otherwise, you’ll come across as a jerk. It’s OK to be professional, it’s what you do. But, it’s ever OK’er to add some personality to your outreach.

Lesson #4 Responding to NEGATIVE emails: You screwed up. It happens to the best of us. You’re facing the ramifications of your screw up by getting an influx of hate mail. The copy/paste thing…it’s just not working. By now, rumor has circulated amongst all the bloggers who were invited to this event and emails are being compared. If everyone is receiving the same canned response, it’s just adding more fuel to this fire which, by now, is burning far beyond your control. Save yourself, respond to emails, tweets, fb messages. Kindly. With empathy. No LOL allowed. Bloggers don’t care that you created this outreach right before you left for a two day vacation. They care that they were invited and then uninvited. You wouldn’t want it to happen to you, right? Put yourself in their shoes when trying to fix what you broke.

Lesson #5 Blogger Outreach professionals: If you don’t know how to do blogger outreach right, then don’t do it at all. Outsource. Find a company that knows best practices. Because if Blogger Outreach is something you suck at, it’s going to give your firm and the brand a really bad name. You don’t want that to happen, not with everyone watching on the social media channels. It’s just a bad place to be.

Like I said before, Blogger Outreach…big or small events…not that hard to do. But, it seems like way too many companies are creating these fabulous events and not doing the outreach part right.

So yes, I did get invited to a fabulous sounding event. I received an invite on Thursday at 12:05 pm (via the timestamp on the email). It CLEARLY STATED that space was limited and to respond by March 21st. I responded at 12:12pm (that’s 7 minutes later, I’d say that’s ASAP) that I would, indeed, like to go. It said I could bring a kid, age 5-12. My youngest is 9. I told him about it because hey…I didn’t think, ok. He was so freaking excited, he couldn’t fall asleep that night.

Friday evening, I was UNinvited via a copy/paste email. I responded to that email letting them know, in very professional language, what I thought. A short time later, I received a copy/paste email from the owner of the PR firm apologizing and reiterating that it was a first come/first serve event. I didn’t respond. I wasn’t going to fight about the fact that I responded pretty darn quick.

Now, because I promised my son Florida, I’m looking to take him to Disney around the time we were invited to go to this Family Event in Florida. I refuse to let being UNinvited to an event disappoint my son.

That is why, when I create events, I think about the do unto others thing. The UNinvite was done unto MY son. I’m a grown up, I can compartmentalize the fact that this PR company just really didn’t know what they were doing. But my son? All he knew was that he was bummed out.

So those, up there, are a few little lessons into the whole Blogger Outreach thing.

People please…do it right or just don’t do it. Thanks.

I would like to mention, I was NOT the only blogger UNINVITED to this event. There was WAY TOO many of us who all received the same copy/paste UNinvite response.

Please excuse my absence. It might actually be a long while before I post again. You see, I’m in the process of writing my first YA novel and I just can’t stop writing it. I’m very excited and can’t wait to see what happens with it.

I’ll be back.

Please don’t forget about me!

XO