Posts Tagged With: blog

Wah! Where is the Tag Surfer?

WordPress! Why did you move my Tag Surfer without telling me? It’s confusing now and hard to find. I didn’t give up, though! Everyone I followed today, I found you with lots of confusion and clicking.

Now, to find your tags, I tried to go to Readomattic. That has an option to click “Tags” and I was hopeful. Then I had to click the link and  go to the WordPress.com home page (which I could have done by typing it in or clicking the W on the tippy-top left side of the page.

SO! To find your tags, no surfing available anymore, go to the WordPress home page and click the “Topics” tab. You only get one little tag, now and not the plethora we used to enjoy. You can pick from their “tag cloud” or type it in the “Search Topics” box.

Is this how it is going to be now? Who knows? WordPress seems to me to be in a constant flux since I started in April, so this might not be it. The OCD in me will find out your little tricks! You can’t fool me!

***Update! I also discovered the tab in the WordPress Home Page called “Read Blogs” where you can find your old tags, the blogs you have followed, find people you know, and browse through WordPress’ recommendations for your viewing enjoyment. It isn’t as cut and dried as before, but it works.

Categories: Tag Surfing | Tags: , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Whirlwind Tour Book 4: Scorpio Rising

Announcing the Scorpio Rising Social Media Whirlwind Tour!

As part of this special promotional extravaganza sponsored by Novel Publicity, the price of the Scorpio Rising eBook edition has dropped to just 99 cents this week.

What’s more, by purchasing this fantastic book at an incredibly low price, you can enter to win many awesome prizes, including 2 Kindle Fires, Amazon gift cards up to $100 in amount, 5 autographed copies of the book, and 5 autographed copies of its recently released sequel, The Sting of The Scorpio. Be sure to enter before the end of the day on Friday, December 23rd, so you don’t miss out.

To Win the Prizes:

  1. Purchase your copy of Scorpio Rising for just 99 cents on Amazon or Barnes & Noble
  2. Fill-out the form on Novel Publicity to enter for the prizes
  3. Visit today’s featured event; you may win an autographed copy of the book or a $50 gift card!
  4. BONUS: If you leave a comment on this blog post, you have another chance at $100!

…And I can win too!

Over 100 bloggers are participating in this gigantic event, and there are plenty of prizes for us too. The blogger who receives the most votes in the traffic-breaker poll will win a $100 gift card as well. So when you visit Novel Publicity’s site to fill-out the contest entry form, don’t forget to say that I referred you, so I can get a point in the poll.

The Featured Events include:

Monday, Blogaganza on Novel Publicity! We’re kicking-off on the Novel Publicity Free Advice blog. We’ll ask the writer 5 fun and random questions to get everyone talking. Leave a comment or question in response to the post, and you may win an autographed copy of Scorpio Rising or its sequel, The Sting of The Scorpio. Don’t forget to enter for the other contest prizes while you’re over there!

Tuesday, Twitter sharing contest! A tweet is tiny, only 140 characters. But on Tuesday, it could win you $50. Send the following tweet across the twittersphere, and you just may win a $50 Amazon gift card. Autographed copies of Scorpio Rising and its sequel, The Sting of The Scorpio, are also up for grabs. The winner will be announced Wednesday morning. Here’s the tweet: Looking for a read that’s full of love, drama, and betrayal? Scorpio Rising has been reduced to 99 cents! http://ow.ly/7zA2s #whirlwind

Wednesday, Google+ sharing contest! Yup, there’s yet another awesome opportunity to win a $50 Amazon gift card, and this time it just takes a single click! Visit Google+ and share Emlyn Chand’s most recent post (you’ll see the Scorpio Rising book cover included with it). On Thursday morning, one lucky sharer will be $50 richer. Autographed copies of Scorpio Rising and its sequel, The Sting of The Scorpio, are also up for grabs. Three chances to win! How about that?

Thursday, Facebook sharing contest! Stop by Novel Publicity’s Facebook page and share their latest post (you’ll see the Scorpio Rising book cover included with it). It’s ridiculously easy to win! On Friday morning, one lucky sharer will be $50 richer. Autographed copies of Scorpio Rising and its sequel, The Sting of The Scorpio, are also up for grabs.

Friday, special contest on the author’s site! Win a Kindle Fire! Two are up for grabs! Visit Monique’s website to leave a comment on any of her posts and sign-up for her author newsletter. One person will win for each method, so be sure to do both.

 

Remember, it’s all about the books!

About Scorpio Rising: Set in New York and Paris amid the glamorous and competitive worlds of art and real estate, Scorpio Rising takes the reader from the late 1940s to the 1960s through the tumultuous lives of its heroes. Alex Ivanov is the son of a Russian immigrant and part-time prostitute. He yearns to escape his sordid life and achieve fame and fortune. His dreams of becoming a world-class builder are met with countless obstacles, yet he perseveres in the hope of someday receiving the recognition he craves. Half a world away, Brigitte Dartois is an abused teenager who runs into the arms of a benefactor with an agenda all his own. When she finds out that her boss has an ulterior motive, she flees again, determined to earn her living through her art. This career brings her fame, but also the unwanted attention of her early abuser. Monique Domovitch’s debut novel, Scorpio Rising, is a compelling tale filled with finely etched characters and a superb understanding of the power of ambition. Scorpio Rising promises to resonate with all who once had a dream. Get it on Amazon or Barnes & Noble.

About The Sting of The Scorpio: In Scorpio Rising, Monique Domovitch presented a compelling tale filled with colorful characters and the manipulation of power, ambition, and greed. Now she gives us its spellbinding sequel, The Sting of the Scorpio, where Alexander Ivanov returns to New York with his new bride, Brigitte. The real estate industry is ripe with opportunity. Blessed with irresistible charm, ambition, and the single-minded obsession to succeed, Alex plots and manipulates his way to almost mystical success. Everything he touches turns to gold, but it’s never enough. When a hostile takeover bid leaves him struggling to save his beloved company, he suspects those closest to him of plotting his downfall. Brigitte, the beautiful redhead who abandoned her country and her career to become his wife, feels alone. In return, Alex has betrayed her time and again, each indiscretion cutting deeper into her soul. Brigitte’s son, David yearns to be an artist, but Alex’s plans leave no room for such frivolous goals. He grooms a reluctant David to become the heir apparent until a devastating tragedy attracts the attention of another young man. The Sting of the Scorpio is a rich tale of a man at the mercy of his own greed and a woman bound by her need for love. Get it on Amazon or Barnes & Noble.

About the Author: Monique Domovitch began writing at the age of fifty-five. Two years later, she has two self-published novels—her Scorpio Series—and a three-book deal with Penguin, for books she has written under the name of Carol Ann Martin. Never seen without her laptop, Monique and her husband travel the world and divide the rest of their time between their homes in British Columbia and California. Monique loves to hear from readers! Visit her on her website, Twitter, Facebook, or GoodReads.

Categories: Blog Tours | Tags: , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Links Through the Grapevine

I found a few interesting posts, but I had to wait a few days because of other things to post that needed the day to themselves.

http://janefriedman.com/2011/12/06/what-good-salespeople-know/ Is a great rundown of the writer/salesperson connection

http://janefriedman.com/2011/12/09/big-mistake-author-blog/ Don’t make these mistakes!

these two I found through http://genelempp.wordpress.com/2011/12/10/blog-treasures-12-10/

http://selfpubauthors.wordpress.com/ is a cool site I need to explore more.

Categories: Tag Surfing | Tags: , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Examining Blogs Found By Their Tags

I will say again that the “Tag Surfer” page, found under the “Dashboard” category of the admin page, is designed to be and is one of the best ways to connect with others online through WordPress. WordPress is set up to link your blog to other WordPress blogs through this page and I really enjoy using it. It isn’t very intuitive the way it is set up, like so many other WordPress pages, starting out completely blank and offering no hints on the page.

The way to use it, if you’re stumped, is to type words into the little window and click the “add” button. Your words should be things you want to read about in others’ blogs.

When I put in the tag “Fiction” or “Writing”, I get lots of long, long posts containing people’s writings. “Novel” is a mix of people posting their chapters and people discussing novels–theirs and others’. As someone who is doing the work of making my writing into a book and even charging for my work, I’m kind of baffled by the “post everything online” concept of writing. I don’t really know whether to think of these as brave souls or people squandering their opportunities. Maybe it is a little bit of both.

Unfortunately, there isn’t a lot for me to link in those kinds of posts on a blog about self-publishing, so I have to “X” them. My best Tags are “Self-publishing”, “Author”, and “Novel”. The list of posts with those tags are usually full of win.

When I search, I am looking for people’s takes on self-publishing, authors who are promoting their books, reviewers who might review my book one day, reviewers in general so I can find books, and any other cool posts that might give me some new insights. These are the blogs I follow. The blogs I don’t follow are ones that don’t fit with the focus of mine. If you are writing a nonfiction book about boat refurbishing, I’m probably not going to follow you unless you are also self-publishing and writing a lot about that. I don’t follow a lot of the “chapter post” blogs because, while I appreciate free fiction, the posts are often really long and have nothing I can share. If the author is posting an excerpt, that is different. You’ll see, though, that the reeeeeaaaaalllllyy long posts are often “chapter posts”.

Normally when I “Tag Surf” I go through the whole list and open the interesting posts in a new tab. Then I go through each tab, follow, and sometimes link in my own post. This is really important because other pages linking to your page makes your page more attractive to search engines!

So, on to the actual links!

http://pigletinapoke.com/2011/12/06/the-first-four-words/ A post that has an interesting point about the first four words of a novel. Also, the first four words of her novel, and then some.

http://selfpublishingadvisor.com/2011/12/06/self-publishing-for-the-eco-conscious/ Here is something I never thought of when getting ready for publishing! Ah! So many details! There were a lot of interesting links on the left side of this page. This one is going to take longer and I might make a post about it all by itself!

http://utterance.com.au/2011/12/06/dymocks-enters-self-publishing-domain-with-launch-tomorrow/ Here is an article for a new self-publisher out of Australia. Normally I wouldn’t link this, but I am meeting so many authors from Down Under on WordPress that I really should. I feel so international!

http://geekycorner.wordpress.com/2011/12/06/its-ok/ Here is your official permission to, as an adult, read YA fiction. I didn’t know that we needed permission, so I’m so glad I have it now. I love to read YA fiction because I know I’m probably not going to have to skip over any uncomfortable sex scenes or read embarrassing descriptions of genitalia.

 

Categories: Tag Surfing | Tags: , , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

Look!

I have to link to Quillwielder’s post on synopses! This is a vital part of a book and the hook that catches your readers.

http://quillwielder.com/2011/11/26/book-proposal-synopsis/

Categories: Writing | Tags: , , , | Leave a comment

What I Have and What I Need

I finally achieved more than 50 views today, and it’s only morning! Whose radar did I suddenly get on? Thanks, whoever you are!!

***Update! http://www.novelpublicity.com/ featured my article, Things I Thought Would Be Different About Self-Publishing on their Self-Published Author Daily! http://paper.li/novelpublicity/1296864766?#!stories Thanks for posting me!***

Book sales are not awesome and not improving. How do I fix it? The thing that I think will help launch my flightless book sales is to get a review on a review blog. I’m not sure how to accomplish that, though, because just emailing them my stuff hasn’t done it. I am careful to read all the blog submission requirements and everything, but no nibbles.

If any of my fellow bloggers would like to review my book, I’ll give you a free ebook copy! I’ll also review your book in return if you like. (Puppy Eyes)

Categories: Self-Publishing | Tags: , , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

Shootin’ the Tag Pipe

Reading the blogs listed in the Tag Surfer and commenting on and following the ones that fit has been the single best way to get views on my blog. More importantly, I’ve learned more about Self-Publishing and the great variety in the self-publishing world through these blogs. All these authors are doing the same thing I am and have various levels of success, but we aren’t working against each other. Either we’re alone, or we’re building on each other’s networks to get our books out there. Nobody is going to say to themselves, “I’m going to buy this book instead of this book because I saw this book first.” They are going to buy the books they like and pass over the uninteresting ones.

On that note, I’ll build that network!

http://jeanewatier.wordpress.com/2011/11/14/self-publishing-tips/ has a comprehensive how-to list about self-publishng with lots of good tips. She’s saying just about the same things that I’ve been saying.

http://joeymanley.com/2011/11/14/how-small-big-publishing-really-is/ An interesting look into the small-ness of “big publishing”.

http://amandamholt.wordpress.com/2011/11/14/official-grand-re-kindling-of-my-writing-career-today/ mentioned in her blog that she was going to participate in or start a writers group at her library. That let me to look at my library site–no dice. Then I googled “seattle writers group” and found http://www.meetup.com/ with a big list of Seattle writers groups! New project!! Thanks for the inspiration, Amanda!

http://briaspage.wordpress.com/2011/11/14/writers-get-over-yourself/ because you really should get over yourself. Oh…me too.

http://dawngsparrow.wordpress.com/2011/11/14/pillars-of-writing/ a good outline of writing a thriller and what the story is really about. This can work for other genres.

Categories: Tag Surfing | Tags: , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Hangin Tag Ten!

Still haven’t repeated the stupid comparison!

http://www.spbroundup.com/ is a delightful collection of only indie books I found through http://kriswampler.wordpress.com/2011/11/10/web-site-profile-spbroundup/#comment-5

http://averysbooknook.blogspot.com/2011/11/guest-post-giveaway-real-reason-why.html?showComment=1320883898857#c289457371100879654 Why authors go indie–yes! And another from the same bloger!!! (guest post)

http://tahlianewland.com/2011/11/10/why-authors-need-you-to-do-more-than-read-their-books/ Oh yes, that’s you! Read it!

And my favorite blogger for the day http://ivebecomemyparents.com/2011/11/10/what-is-comment-spam-and-why-its-going-to-help-me-publish/ Awesome! I’m not that brave though.

Categories: Tag Surfing | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Things I Thought Would Be Different About Self-Publishing

This self-publishing thing hasn’t gone exactly the way I thought it would, posting my books on CreateSpace and Smashwords. I tend to think more positively than reality affords, and I’m aware of it, so I’m not surprised very often when I am wrong. Things I was mistaken about:

1. Visibility for my book is low. For some reason I thought people would see my books. My sales numbers have been waywayway lower than I thought they’d be. I’ve been writing so much about self-promotion because I’ve been trying to fix this. You can’t just put them up and see them sold, though. You have to work to draw people toward your books even if they only cost 99 cents as an ebook.

2. Most of my Facebook friends are not interested in my book. They don’t want to read it, or comment about it, or tag it. I have a few wonderful friends who are the ultimate fans, but overall (unless I am also completely invisible on Facebook) people aren’t interested. I had thought that I could get at least 50 sales from facebook. Oh well.

3. Promotion is endless and can take up all your time. I couldn’t just put up my website and go. To promote, I have to constantly post (see these words in front of your eyes), converse in various places about my book and others, read others’ posts, and squeeze each contact out of the internet like the last of the toothpaste. I have recently said ENOUGH and I’m not looking for more promotion ideas, or joining any other communities to promote. There are too many and I do want to write and pay attention to my family occasionally.

4. I may not “pay off” my book with profits before the end of the year. I made deals with my editor and artists, as a concession to my first book status, to accept payment when I made money on the book. I can’t exactly send them checks for percentages of an $8 month’s profits. If things don’t pick up, I’ll have to dip into my household budget to pay them off at the end of the year. I also was (heh) hoping to make enough to pay up front for editing and art for the next book. Yeah, I know. Now I am wondering but not brave enough to ask my husband if we can just suck it up and pay it to get another book out. I really want to keep going, you know?

5. There is more money to be made in promoting someone’s book than in writing and selling a book. If you really want to just write and have somebody else worry about it, you can. I would love to do that, but it will cost money I can’t spare. If I could get paid to do for others what I have done for myself, that would be awesome. But again there is my whopping $8 monthly payout, which wouldn’t cut it with another author paying me to promote them. Grrrr…

6. There was another one that I thought of between 4 and 5 and if I can remember it again I’ll put it here. Yes, this is how I roll. I know. If you have kids or anything else to do in life besides read blogs, you’ll know that it gets worse, not better.

***And I remembered #6 a day later. Dur. I thought when I emailed/filled out forms to get reviews from book review blogs that I would get responses in a week or so. Nope. It’s at least 4 weeks I guess for the bigger blogs if that.***

Anyway…I’m tired of writing and I know most of you won’t read this far. I’ll pull a joke off some random website to end: I Googled “joke write” and got a bunch of tutorials for writing a joke. You know that your joke writing is going entirely the wrong direction if you need a tutorial. I’m just sayin’. So I Googled “joke writers” and found http://sites.google.com/site/writersjokes/jokesaboutwriters and picked the first joke, which was good enough to be first.

“There was once a young man who, in his youth, professed his desire to become a great writer. When asked to define great, he said, “I want to write stuff that the whole world will read, stuff that people will react to on a truly emotional level, stuff that will make them scream, cry, howl in pain and anger!” He now works for Microsoft writing error messages.”

(Note for the author of jokesaboutwriters: Why did you use such a tiny font and put so many spaces in your post?)

Also, I can’t see that there is any way to change font size in WordPress. If you know this vital information, please comment. I just clicked “remove formatting” to un-tiny the joke. I will write a review for your book in exchange (unless it is erotica. Women with wild imaginations like me shouldn’t mess with erotica. Bad things happen.)

If you have read all the way down

Categories: Self-Publishing | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , | 26 Comments

Making a Trailer!

Yes, I finally gave into the pressure to produce a trailer, worked out how I would do a trailer for my book, researched it, and am mostly done (translated “waiting for someone else to email me something”).

Here is my recipe for creating a trailer:

  • First, I downloaded Microsoft live Movie Maker for FREE. It’s part of Windows Live Essentials: http://explore.live.com/windows-live-essentials?lc=1033 It was disgustingly easy to use and dummy-friendly. It was fun, and you just plunk everything in there with the “Insert photo” button. You can add effects and text and everything right there and export it in multiple formats.
  • Then I spent hours and hours finding photos for my trailer. Literally. Hours and hours. These are the kind of hours and hours where you say, “Hey! How can it be 7:30 already?!!?” It is VERY important that you find royalty-free photos, unless you want to get sued or pay royalties.
  • I came up with three sites where I got my photos: http://www.sxc.hu/ Has a selection of free and paid photos. For the free photos you must check and see below the pic whether the photographer wants credit or permission to use their photos. I just picked ones that wanted neither. The paid photos on SXC redirect you to istockphoto (below).
  • http://www.dreamstime.com/ These are also paid and free photos, but the free ones are really free and don’t require that you check the photographer’s permissions. The paid photos are about the same price as istockphoto’s paid photos. Both sites require you to purchase points or a subscription to buy their photos. DON’T BE FOOLED. Each photo does NOT cost only one point.
  • and http://www.istockphoto.com/ This is only paid photos. Their subscription is (at the time I wrote this) $18.99 for 12 points, which bought me 2 medium-sized photos and one large. The pics do NOT cost one point each, and two that I did not buy cost 30 points!!! If you can find them free, use those. Totally.
  • I encountered a problem finding a picture of people fighting. All the stock photo of people fighting is cheesy ham shots of men in business suits punching at each other or boxers. I needed a brawl. http://ectopicleiron.blogspot.com/2011/01/fist-fight.html was where I found one, and after extensive searching with no clue as to where the pic came from, I decided to go for it. There were no other choices, really. If this is your blog and I’ve stolen your photo, please contact me for an apology and to let me know if I can use your photo for my trailer. When I tried to comment on the post and ask you that way, it said I wasn’t allowed.
  • For music, I just emailed my dad, the composer with a Masters in music. (You should do that too. It’s really easy and cheap.) But if your dad isn’t a composer, you can contact mine: cdbarker@comcast.net . It won’t necessarily be so cheap for you, I’m afraid. Sorry!
  • If you need free music immediately, you impatient thing, go to this beautiful site: http://www.seabreezecomputers.com/tips/freemusic.htm. I particularly liked their link, http://www.soundclick.com/business/license_list.cfm and found a song there in case Dad didn’t have anything. (But he did. Neener.) WARNING: there is a lot of kooky stuff on musopen. Don’t worry, though, your music isn’t one of the kooky ones, user of musopen who is reading this post. It’s all those other people’s music that is kooky.

And, really all the rest was tweaking the text and pictures and music and stuff (incredibly easy but time-consuming) with Movie Maker. As soon as it is ready, I’ll put it up here and you’ll see if you want to follow my recipe for a trailer or not…

Categories: Resources, Self-Publishing | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

BookBlogs

I’ve been accepted in to http://bookblogs.ning.com/ and I’m just starting to learn what it’s about. There is a great format for requesting book reviews. You can post your book info and reviewers can comb through it themselves and contact you. We’ll see if this produces any results. Otherwise, bookblogs seems like a Facebook for readers and writers to share about books. It isn’t as upscale as Goodreads but it seems to be less complicated. You also have to request membership and be accepted, rather than just sign up and go. My acceptance took 2 days to go through.

Categories: Self-Publishing | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

More Advice That Is Priceless and Free

Mark Coker, founder of Smashwords and owner of Dovetail Public Relations has a free ebook on marketing for self-published authors. Surprisingly, it is called Smashwords Book Marketing Guide. Go figure!

Definitely, this is an excellent read  full of meaty, juice information for po’ little authors like me.  http://www.smashwords.com/books/download/305/1/latest/0/0/smashwords-book-marketing-guide.pdf

He pointed out an important fact: Your webpage shows up in searches based on its links to other sites and other sites’ links to it, as well as how many people travel there. One big goal is to increase traffic and therefore increase visibility in an exponential way.

Here is my new list of things to do after reading his guide:

  1. Update my email signature to include my web addresses (His reasoning is that we all send lots of emails and replies and should use that to our advantage. He suggests your blog site, any sites where your book is sold, and a webpage if you have one.)
  2. Add the community pages I use to include my web addresses
  3. Updste myTtwitter profile to include my web addresses
  4. Update my Smashwords profile to include my Twitter address (There is a special list on Smashwords of Twitter users with increased visibility)
  5. Write a press release (Scary!)
  6. Participate in HARO (Help a Reporter Online) with my particular expertise (Aliens in the future…yeah…)
  7. Hold a limited coupon promotion on one or more sites: on Smashwords (garnered 200 buys in his example), on the blog, on http://kindleboards.com, or other promotion sites.
  8. Include the promotion on these sites (good links!) www.freeonlinenovels.com , http://online-novels.blogspot.com , www.getfreebooks.com , http://blog.booksontheknob.org , http://ereader.freebies.blogspot.com , www.bookbarista.com

Thank you, Mark for your fabulous advice, since I can’t use your promotion services! I’m passing it on because marketing tips to authors (poor) should be free!

Oh. Now I have to DO all these. Gah!

Categories: Resources, Self-Publishing | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

The Divergence of the Sites

Upon the advice of a wise man, I am varying my information on the web. That means that this site will still be the meat of my blogging, and my other site http://katepolicani.blogspot.com will be my mushy sensitive site full of my feelings and writing experiences. If you don’t want that, don’t go there. Nyah.

I think it is going to be cool, so if you’re cool, you will check it out. Soon, anyway. There isn’t much there right now that isn’t already on this site. Don’t worry. I’ll fix that.

Categories: Writing | Tags: , , , , , | Leave a comment

A Couple of Quick Tips

In my search for free ways to get blog traffic, I found Networked Blogs (http://w.networkedblogs.com/user/1460583479 my profile) and Technocrati (http://technorati.com/). At Networked Blogs, you set up a profile and prove that you are the owner of your blog. That didn’t work great for me, but it’s free. I found that one through a friend. At Technocrati, you just fill out the “join” information and input your blog and you are part of the network. You can even sign up to write for them.

Categories: Resources | Tags: , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

A Wealth of Information on SPR

My continuing search for resources for marketing brought me to SPR today! http://selfpublishingresources.com/ It is chock-full of self-publishing, writing, and marketing advice for self-publishing authors! I haven’t yet combed it thoroughly, but I can tell that it is going to be a huge help! Check it out!

Also–if you are a blogger with your own self-publishing story or site filled with advice, I’d love to link to your site. I will actually read your site and decide for myself whether it is link material or not, but I can’t link you if I don’t know you exist! You know you wanna comment…

Categories: Resources, Self-Publishing | Tags: , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

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