So, last week (or was it the week before? It's all blurring together) I was all set to blog about this horrifying post I read about where this blogger has been receiving death threats. However, before I could get going, my father-in-law had to have a quadruple bypass and then another surgery to install a pacemaker, and I found myself and my family away from home dealing with that. (He is recovering nicely now, but it was a hairy couple of days.)
Once I got back, I proceeded to work on various projects that I had fallen behind on, like rebuilding madelinesmoot.com. I must say, it was looking pretty marvelous.
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| I suspect this guy is more effective than me today. |
Then this morning, I managed to delete the entire site. Yes, I did, and because I was using Wordpress, most of it was web-based and not on my local computer.
I reloaded Wordpress, uploaded my custom theme I had made and started over.
Two hours later I somehow managed to overwrite a key file requiring me to uninstall and reinstall Wordpress again. (I still don't know what I did or how I made the entire site unviewable.) I uploaded my custom theme again, reinstalled all of the plugins again, and wrote the copy for the site AGAIN.
So, if you're curious to see the site, and some of the different projects I've been working on for the past few months, head on over to
madelinesmoot.com.
Now I just have to get the other 75% of the new Buried in the Slush Pile site up. Hopefully, I'll only half to do it once!
Now, you may have noticed but I haven't blogged in, well, forever.
Actually, that isn't quite true. I'm the main blogger for the BookKids blog these days, and I have been getting 3 posts a week up like clock work. I manage to get those up because I have a dedicated 2 hours every Sunday at the store to work on the kids blog. It's amazing what a set time, an editorial calendar and a small financial incentive(I do mean small) does for a person's blogging. So, head over there to see the books I've been reading.
But over here in editorial/publishing land. I have been working non-stop on getting all my online marketing stuff ready in time for this year's BEA. That means new websites for Blooming Tree and CBAY Books (you can see how far I've gotten on CBAY here. All of my books are going to get new kid-friendly, activity oriented sites. The authors are getting newsrooms (here's PJ's work in progress). CBAY Books has it's own Twitter feed and Facebook page. Actually, it would be great if 13 more people would fan that page. Then I can change it's url to facebook.com/cbaybooks instead of the unwieldy thing it currently is.
As you can see, this is a lot of posting and uploading. Not surprising this is falling by the way side.
However as I learned with the BookKids Blog, I just need some discipline, so I'm going to start setting aside 2 hours a week for this blog too. That should enable me to get 3 posts up a week, minimum.
And this week, I thought I'd start by discussing the NBN sales conference I'm attending. I'm here to tell the NBN sales force all about the CBAY and BTP line of books. In two hours I'll present, and then hopefully, they'll go out and sell.
I'll have an update once I've presented.
One of my goals for this year is to relaunch my personal website Madeline Smoot.com. As you probably saw if you just clicked over, it's horrendously out of date and awfully childish. I want a more mature, adult look for the site I present to the world.
So, I'm thinking of going with something more like this.
Now that page is just a test. The links go nowhere at the moment (except for my blog), and I still haven't gotten my posted excerpts from my blog to show up. Oh, and you might have noticed that there isn't any actual information in the text block for the middle. However, it is something of visual interest to look at.
I would love to get feedback on the new look, especially if it does something wonky in your browser. Of course I've tested it in my browser at different screen resolutions, but I don't have every browser ever made. If you do comment, please let me know your browser type and screen resolution (if you know it). My stat tracker can tell me the number of people who use what, but they won't link it to an individual comment.
I appreciate any and all comments. And since I'm doing this myself, I can directly incorporate the stuff you give me to think about without having to involve a designer. -- One of the few benefits of doing everything yourself.
