Last Friday, I spent the day at Simon Fraser University’s Downtown Vancouver campus attending BookCamp Vancouver. The “unconference” catered not only to authors, but also publishers and other people in the book writing, publishing, and marketing industries.

One of the sessions was related to how authors and publishers can better market and promote their books. It’s understandable that most of these projects don’t have the kind of budget to take out primetime television commercials, but they can approach bookstores — both chain and independent — to set up book signings. These can be great promotional tools.

The trouble is that so many book signings are not exactly interesting endeavors. Bookstore owners aren’t interested in authors sitting behind tables signing books unless said authors are already very famous and will create lineups around the block. That’s why the promotional tool has the best results when it is tied in to a bigger experience.

One author described a very successful partnership she forged with an independent bookstore owner. Her book is on embroidery, so she set up a book signing that was combined with a small workshop where enthusiasts could get some hands-on instruction on embroidery with the author. This offered a much richer experience for author, store owner, and book reader alike. If you are going to try such a tactic yourself, think about what you can add to the experience to make it more interesting and captivating for everyone involved.

One of the most popular features on Facebook is the ability to upload photographs. Just about everyone does it. You may have also noticed that just about everyone “tags” their Facebook photos with the other people that are in the pictures. These tags can send notifications to the people who are tagged, so they know if they’re being shown in a picture on Facebook.

Would you like to have a similar kind of idea attached to your WordPress blog? WP Pic Tagger is a WordPress plugin that provides exactly that kind of functionality. From the user/reader standpoint, the experience is very similar to Facebook; they hover the mouse pointer over the picture and they can see the little squares where people are tagged.

This can be extended even further, beyond tagging people and into in-image annotations for editorial purposes. Take a picture of a new product and you can highlight its different parts, features, and functions. This is similar, for instance, to what you may encounter with Flickr uploads, among other photo sharing services.

Go to Alleba.com to see a live demo of the plugin, as well as installation instructions and the free download link.

You may have heard about the controversy surrounding the Netflix launch event in Toronto. As part of the event to announce the availability of the video streaming service in Canada, Netflix apparently hired a number of actors to mingle among the crowd of those gathered. These hired actors were told to act as if they were regular people, but they were to show an extra level of excitement over the announcement.

This would give the crowd a artificially-inflated level of energy and it would make the launch event seem more exciting than it really was. These actors then spoke with reporters, still under false pretenses, saying how excited they were about the launch of Netflix Canada. This was very disconcerting for several individuals on moral grounds.

While I imagine that such practices aren’t exactly uncommon, they can still reflect very poorly on the companies that do partake in such strategies. There is nothing wrong with hosting a major event to launch a new product, but to hire actors to speak positively of the product may be seen as unethical. If Netflix wanted an increased level of buzz, they could have gone about it a different way.

Say, for instance, if they hosted a contest on Twitter or some other social media platform. This can increase word of mouth interest in the product, because people would be talking about Netflix with the hopes of winning some sort of prize. They could have had similar giveaways at the live event. This would help to make people feel excited and engaged in a more natural way. What are your thoughts? Is the hiring of actors unacceptable for such events?

The Apple iPad has certainly garnered its fair share of attention, especially since it currently has a virtual monopoly on the tablet market. That is very much about to change, since there are several other tablet devices being released by other manufacturers. For instance, BlackBerry-maker Research in Motion is set to launch its Playbook device early next year.

Even before that, though, we will be seeing the Samsung Galaxy Tab. This is a slightly smaller tablet device compared to the iPad, since the Samsung has a more portable seven-inch display. It also runs on the increasingly popular Google Android platform, opening up all sorts of accessibility to Google products, as well as new apps from Android Market. Just as iPhone apps were converted to the larger screen of the iPad, the same will presumably happen with many apps for the Galaxy Tab.

Some other standout features on the Samsung device include integrated 3G connectivity, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 3.0, a Cortex A8 1.0GHz application processor, and a large 4,000 mAh battery good for more than seven hours of movie viewing time. The Galaxy Tab includes SWYPE input for ease of text entry, front and rear-facing cameras, lots of multimedia support, and the Media Hub.

The expectation is that the Samsung Galaxy Tab will be released in November with availability coming through many of the major wireless carriers in Canada and the United States. You will be able to enjoy a subsidized price on the device should you choose to sign a service contract with one of these providers.

Many professionals from a range of different industries host their websites with BlueFur and one such person is Rhonda Sherwood. She is a wealth advisor with ScotiaMcLeod and she prides in taking a “holistic approach to financial management, looking at your total assets and objectives and then giving strategic advice on how to meet your financial goals.”

She is definitely mindful that there is no such thing as a “one size fits all” solution for everyone’s financial needs, which is why she aims to work collaboratively with her clients to reach their specific goals. Among the financial services that she offers are estate planning, retirement planning, tax planning, asset protection, and education planning.

In addition to her main website, Rhonda also has a blog that discusses a range of different financial issues that you may face. Recent posts approach such subject areas as dealing with adult children who ask for money, money principles to teach your children, the best use of your tax return, and whether investing in a mortgage or RRSP makes the most sense.

Do you use BlueFur to host your websites? Let us know and we can feature you in a future blog post. Send an email message to blogfeature@bluefur.com with your name, website URL, and a brief description of what you’d like to see highlighted.

The great thing about WordPress is that while it is a fantastic platform for all sorts of different blogs, it is also suitable for a range of other kinds of websites too. By using some design tweaks and specialized WordPress plug-ins, your website can be just about anything you want, from an e-commerce store to an official company website. It can also be a photo portfolio.

To do that, you might want to consider the free BirdSITE WordPress theme, designed by sysbird. This theme caters to photographers, digital artists, and other professionals focused on the visual arts. Instead of running a largely text-based site, you want to show off your various images. This is good for both photoblogging and as an online portfolio.

The layout consists of the main header image with simple navigation, below which you’ll find the main content area. This is laid out as a grid for your images, providing space for small captions and short descriptions as needed. The footer area then contains the information that you may normally find in the sidebar of other blogs, including categories, archives, and so on. Each image is essentially its own post, so you can allow for comments too.

Check out the live preview and the free download link at the WordPress Free Themes Directory.