I have interesting timing — Blogger just announced today, shortly after I first started experimenting with scheduled posting in Blogger in Draft, that the scheduled posting feature is now available to everyone in regular Blogger.

In other words, you don't have to log in to Blogger in Draft at all — just start future dating your posts from regular Blogger, and they'll publish at the date and time you schedule them!

Labels: blogging

I can be a little skeptical and resistant to change, so I'm just now trying out Blogger in Draft, a beta version of Blogger that was announced last summer. The feature that clinched it for me was scheduled posting, something I always wished Blogger offered: The ability to schedule posts to publish automatically at certain a date and time.

This post is scheduled to publish in about ten minutes, so we'll find out the scheduled post feature works with my FTP setup. If it does, I may be using Blogger in Draft from now on. It's a great feature, one that I could use to avoid long periods of not blogging — like the one this blog saw recently!

Labels: blogging

I've come up with several new blogs lately, and I'm working hard at getting them ready to go. If it seems like I'm neglecting this blog a bit, that's why.

I'll post about it as my other blogs go live!

Labels: blogging

Several of my readers expressed interest when I blogged about the multiple categories/labels penalty, so I wanted to share some additional information with you.

According to my client, they've found that there are two ways choosing multiple categories can hurt you. The worst is when the search engines decide not to index your blog post at all. You can test that by searching for your post title, or a unique phrase in your post, in quotes. If the post doesn't show up in the results, the search engines aren't indexing it at all.

The other way that it can hurt you is more subtle: Essentially, choosing too many categories or labels can hurt your blog's PageRank, even if all of the pages are still indexed. When I learned that, I remembered a time when my blog's PageRank dropped suddenly and inexplicably. While I can't remember if the drop coincided with when I started using labels, I'm going to play it safe from here on out!

Labels: blogging

I'm making some changes to my blog that I hope will improve its ranking.

I found out from a client of mine — an online marketing company for whom I write press releases, articles, and blog posts — that choosing multiple post categories (or labels, as Blogger calls them) can get you dinged for duplicate content.

I'm really bad about choosing multiple categories — sometimes I'll choose four or five for a single post! For each category I choose, my post shows up on a page with all the other posts with that label. So if I choose four labels, my post shows up on four label pages, as well as the main page, the archive page, and the individual post page.

I don't know if that really results in getting dinged for duplicate content, but I might as well try limiting my posts to one label each. And anyway, it'll make things simpler, and perhaps even help me focus my blog posts a little more.

Labels: blogging

The Denver Post ran an article yesterday about the money to be made in the blogging business. As usual, the article cites the unusual cases: the folks who make $1,000 or more every month by selling ad space on their own blogs.

However, to its credit the article does note that this is the exception and not the rule:

That doesn't mean bloggers are suddenly flush with money. For every blogger earning a decent side income like Brooks, countless others will never earn a cent.

What I thought was interesting and useful about this article is its discussion of different companies you can use to make money selling ad space on your blog. Here are the services mentioned in the article:

* Google AdSense
* PayPerPost
* BlogAds

Honestly, the only one of these I am familiar with is Google AdSense, which I use on my own blog. And though I am one of those bloggers that earns only peanuts, those peanuts do build up after a while, making a nice bonus for something I'd be doing anyway.

Does anyone have any information or personal experiences with either PayPerPost or BlogAds? I am interested in how they compare to Google AdSense, and I'm sure it's probably a subject of interest for many other bloggers as well.

Labels: affiliate programs, blogging, news

Today is my blog's birthday: I started this blog two years ago, on December 3, 2005.

It seems like so long ago; I feel like I've been blogging forever. I actually said in my first post that part of my blog's purpose was to bring additional traffic to my website. I can't believe I even knew that was a benefit of blogging back then.

Since I started this blog, my entire website has seen many changes and improvements, including:

* An updated website template and logo
* An integrated blog (i.e. the blog looking the same as the website)
* An expanded portfolio
* A services page
* A contact form (which has significantly reduced the spam I get)

These are just the cosmetic improvements. Much more important are the many readers I've gained — not to mention the satisfaction of being a part of the online writing community!

Labels: blogging, freelancing

You are reading the 500th post on my blog.

I will have had this blog for two years in December. It has (obviously) grown quite a bit since then, but it has also spawned several other blogs. I love to blog, but I never would have known that had I not started this one!

Labels: blogging

Just a few days ago, I tagged the main character of my 2007 NaNo novel for the Random 8 Meme. (I'm working on the post right now, for those of you who were wondering.) Anyway, I was wondering if anyone knew of any similar fiction blogs? I thought it would be fun for "Lorelei" to tag eight other fictional characters, and get this meme circulating around the fiction blog world. Good exposure for my blog, too. :o)

Let me know if you have any suggestions.

Labels: blogging, fiction writing, memes, NaNoWriMo 2007, novel writing

Now this is a fun meme! The point is to give "evil blogging advice" guaranteed to make other bloggers hate you and avoid your blog like the plague. Thanks to Alicia for passing this on to me!

How to be the Anti-Blogger: An e-Course in 5 Steps

1) Be really offensive. Offend everyone you possibly can, from the entire range of the spectrum. Rail against pretty much every type of person under the sun. Market yourself as a misanthrope.

2) Blog about politics. Nothing pisses people off faster than politics. Be sure to keep #1 in mind while blogging, though. Don't just write about politics — piss all over everyone else's opinions and beliefs.

3) Humiliate your fellow bloggers. Make fun of them every chance you get. The worse you embarrass them, the better!

4) Complain ALL the time. Write 2000-word posts about each of your complaints. Five thousand words for more significant complaints. Then complain some more about how no one reads your blog.

5) Spam everyone else's blogs and email. Post your link in comments at least a dozen times on each blog. Email your fellow bloggers daily whenever you can harvest their email addresses.

If you follow these five simple steps, you will be sure that not only does no one want to read your blog, but also that they hate you with a passion!

I'm tagging: Deborah Ng, Kathy Kehrli, and Kristen King. I would apologize for double-tagging any of you, but...well, that would go against the "evil" spirit of this meme!

Labels: blogging, memes

Yes, I purposely wrote the title of this post like an old Nancy Drew or Hardy Boys novel.

Anyway, this afternoon I ran across a story on NPR about Kate McCulley, the Grammar Vandal. Just the sort of thing a writer would love! I highly recommend listening to the broadcast -- it's hilarious and oh, so true.

The headline caught my attention because of how frequently grammar and spelling issues have been popping up in my life lately. For example, Kathy Kehrli of Screw You! recently wrote a post about comma usage: A Compelling Case for the Comma. Kathy talked about how the comma is starting to fall out of popular usage, and linked to a related article. Several other writers (including Yours Truly) commented to proclaim themselves loyal followers of the comma.

In addition, some of you probably remember my reference to the multiple grammatical errors in the invitation to my high school reunion. For example, the invitation began with the sentence, "It's been 10 year's." After that, there is an incomplete sentence, a word that shouldn't be there at all, an inappropriately capitalized word, a word missing the "ed" ending, a misspelled proper name, and several uses of the wrong form of "their." And that's just the announcement page! There were issues on the RSVP form, too, but I can't remember all of them.

With all this recent history, when I saw the NPR headline "Grammar Vandal Goes on Vigilante Comma Crusade," I just had to click on it. It turns out this Grammar Vandal is a 22-year-old English major living in Boston. Unlike those of us who simply gripe about spelling and grammar errors we encounter in our daily life, Kate McCulley does something about it: She fixes the problems, and to he!l with the consequences!

I think I've found a new hero. McCulley keeps a blog, The Grammar Vandal, of which I am hereafter a regular reader. She has been featured in The Boston Globe as well as on NPR. I guess defacing public signs for the greater good of humanity is an effective marketing technique!

Labels: blogging, funnies, marketing, miscellaneous, other writers

Yesterday, Deb posted a discussion on her freelance job blog about what writers will write about. With 36 comments currently, the discussion seems to be a pretty hot one.

I've noticed a few patterns in other writers' responses. A common response is that a writer won't lie or write anything immoral, which you'd think would be common sense, but perhaps not. However, the most glaring response that I keep seeing is that a lot of writers won't touch religion.

I am firmly grounded in agnosticism, so I have to agree with the first commenter (and a few that followed suit later on): I won't write anything pro-Christianity. I simply wouldn't feel comfortable promoting a belief that I think is... No, I'll follow Allison's lead, and simply say "that I don't agree with."

However, I don't have a problem writing objective essays or studies on Christianity and other religions. I've often thought that it would be interesting to research religion and write papers about it. I took a class in college called "The English Bible as Literature" and it was fantastic -- I learned things that I never knew, both about the Bible and about its background. For that class, I wrote a paper -- one of my best, in my opinion -- on Biblical symbolism in the Matrix movies. I have no problem at all treating religion as objective research, just like any other topic.

Of course, there were also several commenters after that who commented that they would never write anything anti-religious. Fair enough.

Perhaps it's because the first commenter brought it up, but religion remained a pretty constant theme throughout the thread. I suppose that goes back to the saying that the topics off-limits in small talk are religion and politics: writers just don't want to get into it.

What is your take on writing about religion?

Labels: blogging, freelancing, other writers

I know that although this will be my third post this morning, I haven't been blogging much for about a week. In particular, Lorelei's Lovers has been rather neglected lately. The reason is that I am incredibly busy, working on finishing up a major project that just doesn't seem to want to end. I'll try to get back to blogging regularly next week. Stay tuned for updates on all my blogs!

Labels: blogging

If you notice that some of my previous posts suddenly appear in giant text, bear with me -- I am making some changes to my template.

Back when I first started blogging, Blogger offered an option where you could choose a large font. I liked this because I feel the font on most templates is way too small for the normal person to read on a computer screen without creating eyestrain.

Unfortunately, Blogger has since removed that option. After about 150 posts of manually entering the code, I have decided to change the font size in my template instead. Of course, that means that my previous posts appear giant-sized.

I am going to have to go through all 300 or so of my individualposts and manually remove all of the code changing the font size. Needless to say, this is going to take some time, so bear with me!

Labels: blogging, website updates

I have a question for all of you: What does my website look like on your screen?

When I designed my website, I assumed everyone now would have higher resolution screens than the old 800 x 600. It was primarily a selfish assumption, of course, because I happen to have a high resolution screen. Imagine my surprise when I stumbled across something that says only 54 percent of web surfers have screens with a resolution of 1024 x 768 -- and that nearly a quarter of them still have the old 800 x 600 deal.

Unfortunately, my website is designed with a width of 880 pixels. Oops. So I'd like to know how many of my readers see what I see:



Unfortunately, my website stats does not report the screen resolution of my visitors, so I have to do this the old fashioned way. Above is what I see on my widescreen laptop. If you have a fullscreen monitor with a resolution of 1024 x 768 or similar, you probably see something pretty similar, just with less blue bordering it. However, if you have a 800 x 600 monitor (or, God forbid, even smaller) you'll most likely have to scroll to see the entire width of the container (the white part).

If a high number of my readers are on low-resolution screens, obviously I need to reconsider my website design. Please comment and let me know what my website (or blog) looks like on your screen!

Labels: blogging, freelancing admin, website updates

I wasn't going to start my new blog just yet, but last night I had some good ideas for initial posts (while I was trying to go to sleep, of course). I jotted them down and wrote them up this morning (even though they aren't all dated today).

So, I'd like to announce my new blog, Lorelei's Lovers, and explain the purpose.

Lorelei's Lovers is a novel idea that I've had for some time. I've outlined, wrote a little bit here and there, immediately scratched everything I wrote, and decided to write it when 1) I have more fiction experience and 2) I have more time.

Well, over the last few months I've come to two realizations: 1) I am stalling and 2) I'll never have time unless I make it.

Specifically, I read a couple of books that all said the same thing: you have to publish your ideas when they are hot. Since Lorelei's Lovers is kind of a twist on a chick lit-style novel, I figured I'd better hurry up and write it. Also, after participating in NaNoWriMo last November and writing a novel in a month, I think I've refreshed my fiction muscles. After all, that's all I wrote in high school, and writing is like riding a bike -- you always come back to it.

So, although I've been planning on starting on Lorelei's Lovers for some time now, I'm hoping that starting (and announcing) the blog will force me to start on the novel. The purpose of the companion blog is to generate interest and, hopefully, to have a solid following by the time I finish the novel. (I got the idea for a book marketing blog from Richard Hoy of BookLocker.com.) I have a big project I'm working on for a client right now, but I'm anticipating to start working on the novel in 3-4 weeks.

The companion blog is entirely fiction, and entirely Lorelei's. In other words, "I," Katharine, am not going to talk at all -- I'm going to let Lorelei do all that. Don't think of it as a preview of the novel, though, but a companion to it. You'll see what I mean when I finish the novel.

I hope you'll check out the Lorelei's Lovers blog and let me know what you think!

Labels: blogging, fiction writing, website updates

My regular readers probably know from my previous posts that I do not believe in censorship. However, I so frequently see bloggers decry comment moderation as a violation of their First Amendment rights that I wanted to post on what constitutes freedom of speech...and what doesn't.

Yes, the Constitution gives you the freedom of speech. But what does this mean? For starters, it means that the U.S. government (theoretically) can't do what China does and punish bloggers who say things that "the man" doesn't like. However, the First Amendment does not mean that you have the right to talk on someone else's dime. It also does not guarantee that anyone is going to listen to you.

For instance, if you send your book of brilliant political commentary to a publisher and he turns it down flat, you can't coerce him into publishing it by calling upon your First Amendment rights. You can, however, decide to self-publish the book. Your right to free speech allows you to say or write or publish anything you want, but it doesn't absolve you from having to foot the bill.

How does this relate to blogging? Simple. I am paying to publish my own blog. (Just because I use a free blogging service doesn't mean I am not paying -- I pay for my own website hosting, and host my blog on my own URL.) That means that your right to free speech doesn't mean that I have to pay for you to have it. Since this blog is my space, I can decide whether or not I want an insulting comment to appear on it. While it is a mild form of censorship to delete someone's nasty comment, it's not real censorship, because you are quite able to self-publish your comment -- that is, to get your own blog and use that space however you see fit. That's the right the First Amendment reserves for you.

Hopefully this will clarify what is or is not a violation of someone's First Amendment rights. With this in mind, I am going to change my blog's settings to allow anonymous comments again, in the hopes that my "anonymous" commenter from several months ago has given up harassing me. Although I will, of course, refuse to publish any unreasonably nasty comments, I also reserve the right to turn off anonymous commenting again should the need arrive.

I look forward to again hearing from some of my readers who don't have Google accounts!

Labels: advice for writers, blogging, censorship, diatribes, miscellaneous

My Blogger account has had some problems for the last couple of days, so several of my posts didn't appear until today (finally!). Be sure to read everything and catch up!

I have a number of updates:

The Lieurance-King Article Challenge:

Yeah, that SO didn't happen. I've been too busy catching up on PAID work to write marketing articles. However, I hate not finishing things I set out to do, so I'm setting a challenge for myself: To finish my 30 articles by the end of April.

The Inkthinker Query Challenge:

I didn't send off any queries in February, but I did get a couple of in March. I'm up to a whopping 9 queries for the year. Obviously, I have a lot of catching up to do there, too.

My sleep schedule:

You'd be impressed -- when we were visiting Michael's family, I got up as early as 8:00 one day (that's 7:00 in Denver). It was solely to watch/help as Panama got his hooves trimmed, though. Without that kind of incentive here, I'm back to sleeping until 10:30-ish each day. That's not bad, though, considering that a month ago I was going to bed around 5am and sleeping until 1 or 2pm each day.

My work hours:

I never realized how few billable hours I worked every day until I started keeping track. Now that I am tracking it, though, I've been able to make a definite improvement. I'm still only getting about 6 billable hours a day, though; the rest is spent searching for jobs, corresponding with clients, blogging, networking, and doing a hundred other little time-consuming tasks.

My workload:

Going on vacation always screws me up; I always think I can work in the car, and it almost never happens. In other words, when I got back I had lots to do.

There's good news, though. After several crazy days of working almost non-stop since we got back, I have not just caught up on several assignments -- I have also prepared my estimated tax worksheet and figured out how much I need to make in the way of payments this year.

(That's my least favorite part of freelancing, by the way. I can handle filing my taxes, but I hate estimated tax payments. Probably has something to do with all of the dire warnings of the penalties you'll face if you mess up.)

I still have more work to catch up on, but the point is that the list is much shorter. I think that's partly because of my efforts to track my billable hours -- I'm working harder at this than I used to.

All in all, I think that's a positive list of updates. With the exception of those challenges I tried to take on (and failed miserably), I'm doing pretty well.

Labels: blogging, freelancing, goals, Inkthinker Query Challenge, Lieurance-King Article Challenge, marketing

Hey, everyone! One of my favorite freelance writing job search sites has gotten dissed by Google. If you use Deb's site in your job search, post a link on your own blog or site to help her earn back her search engine ranking!

If you've never visited the site, it's never too late to start - Deb's doing a fantastic thing by compiling a free DAILY list of freelance jobs!

Labels: blogging, job search, other writers

Today Debbie Ridpath Ohi blogged posted a survey on her blog asking about people's weird book habits. Unfortunately, she left comments off (by accident, I'm assuming), so I decided to take advantage of the opportunity to add to my blog.

To answer Debbie's questions:

1) No, I almost never put a book face down on a flat surface. Maybe if it's a library book, and it's a hardback with a spine that's already well broken in. But that's it.

2) If you are on my list of people I'll lend my books to, you are either as OCD as I am, or I live with you.

3) Yes, I remove dust jackets while I'm reading the book. I'm a book collector, so it's been drilled into me: a book without a dust jacket with a damaged dust jacket isn't worth as much (not to mention incredibly ugly).

4) I used to write my name in my books, but I don't even do that anymore. The only exception was my school books while I was in school, but even that was difficult. I stopped doing it so much when I realized I rarely looked at my own notes afterward.

5) I am, as Debbie calls herself, neurotic about books. I'm not just a bookworm - I'm also an amateur book collector, and even if my books aren't worth a fortune, I'm still proud of the beautiful old volumes (some of them first editions!).

I was neurotic about books before I started collecting, though, so my hobby isn't the cause of my neurosis. In high school I developed a pet peeve against fingerprints on the covers of glossy paperbacks - I would actually make one of my best friends hold my books so that her fingers were on the corners of the spine, thus leaving minimal fingerprints.

While I'm not that bad anymore, I still am anxious enough about the condition of my books that I don't lend them to very many people - and not at all if they are first editions or antique or some other special edition. I only open my paperbacks about 90 degrees when I read them, and God help anyone who returns one with the smallest spine crease!!!

Labels: blogging, other writers, reading

After writing my earlier post about deadlines, I started thinking about the term "blowing a deadline." I don't think it accurately describes my meaning, and probably not Kristen's, either, really.

"Blowing deadlines," in my opinion, is when you miss a deadline without the courtesy of informing your client that you're having a problem finishing the work on time. It is, essentially, not just blowing the deadline, but also blowing off the client.

I definitely don't do that - I'm always in touch with the client when I'm going to be late on something. Even if all I do is shoot off a quick email to let the client know - ahead of time - that I'm running behind, it makes a big difference.

So my revised list of lessons states:

1) Don't miss deadlines when you can avoid it.
2) Let your client know when you can't.
3) Appreciate the clients who are understanding when you do #2.

Labels: advice for writers, articles, blogging, clients, freelancing, goals, other writers

The end of the month is looming, and it seems deadlines are on everyone's mind. Harmony posted on Sunday about what she needed to do before the month ended, and Kristen King posted Monday about a blown deadline (and how upset she was about it). I have comments about both posts, and they (my comments) seemed kind of related, so I decided to talk about both tonight.

Not too long ago, I blogged about getting burned out. Then, more recently, I mentioned that I was starting to feel more like my old self. Unfortunately, that feeling comes and goes; I'm still struggling somewhat, so I have a backlog of work that I feel like I'll never be free of.

I have a confession to make, one that I suspect will make a whole bunch of guilty freelancers feel a little better: I miss deadlines. Not always - like I mentioned in a previous post, I tend to miss a deadline or two when I get burned out, which usually follows a period of insane amounts of work. Not all deadlines, thankfully - my brain seems to know the difference between deadlines for print publications (that have to go to the printer by a certain date), and deadlines for online venues (which are more flexible).

I mention this in response to Kristen's post, because she was clearly very freaked out about missing a deadline. The truth is, I haven't found missing a deadline here and there to be a major problem in my career (although, like I said, I have yet to miss any truly crucial deadlines). Most of my clients are wonderfully understanding and forgiving. They understand when I explain that I'm not feeling well, or that I'm running behind for some other reason.

There are three lessons to learn from this:

1) Don't miss deadlines when you can avoid it.
2) Don't worry about it too much when you can't.
3) Appreciate the clients that understand when you can't.

In response to Harmony's post... I have roughly 14 articles that I'd like to finish by the end of the week (not by the end of the month, thankfully!), as well as several (paid) blog posts. With a little luck, my productivity will hold and I'll accomplish all I set out to do...

Labels: advice for writers, articles, blogging, clients, freelancing, goals, other writers

It always starts so innocuously: I stay up late in a well-meaning effort to finish a project, and sleep late the next day as a result. Days pass, and bedtime inches back later and later... until, like right now, I'm going to bed at 5 or 5:30am on a nightly basis.

Yup, that's where my schedule is right now. Bedtime fluctuates between 4am and 5:30am, and my days start at anywhere from noon to (on really bad days) 2pm.

Some people would kill to be able to keep these hours, but I'm embarrassed and kind of sick of it. It is a lot easier to slip into this schedule than it is to reverse the process, though. Part of my problem is that staying up late has a genuine advantage: I work faster, harder, and better late at night, without any interruptions. The other part of my problem is that virtually nothing wakes me up. Multiple alarms, loud alarm, phone calls from my honey - none of it works anymore. I even bought one of those vintage double-bell alarm clocks, and within a week I had gotten used to the brrrrring of the alarm and was sleeping through it, too.

Just tonight, though, I made a decision - which is why I'm blogging about this in the first place. I am going to readjust my schedule. My goal is to shift it a few hours back, so that I'm getting up around 10am and going to bed around 2am (my favorite schedule). The problem is that, although working late into the night works really well for me, breaking my day up like that doesn't. By the time I'm done searching for jobs, sifting through email, and getting into "the zone," Michael's day is almost over - and of course, when he's home I want to spend time with him. Unfortunately, that means that when he goes to bed, I have to get warmed up all over again.

Sitting down at 11pm or midnight with a full "day's" work ahead of me sucks. I would much rather be settling in with a book to read for a few hours.

So, that's my goal. It'll be a tough one, and slow going, so I may not blog with my progress every day. Honestly, I'm not yet sure how I'm going to overcome my sleep-through-WWIII problem, particularly if sheer determination doesn't do the trick. But I'll keep you updated.

Labels: blogging, freelancing, goals, miscellaneous

There's apparently a new writer's meme going around, and Harmony (Writer in the Making) tagged me for it. The point is to list five reasons why you blog. So, here goes - five reasons why I blog!

1) I love blogging! Personally, I think that's the best reason for blogging, and it's definitely my biggest reason.

2) It's like journaling. There's some debate over whether it helps you write or helps you procrastinate, but journaling is often prescribed to help get the creative juices flowing. Blogging is like that for me, except that it serves more purposes than simply journaling would.

3) It's a great tool for attracting traffic. The vast majority of my website traffic comes in through my blogs. I'm not sure whether the traffic is helping my business, but it's definitely making me better known in the writing community...which brings me to my fourth reason.

4) I like being involved in the online writing community. There's no substitute for the feeling you get when another blogger talks about you as though you're some kind of celebrity. I also think our thriving writing community gives us an advantage in our business lives, as it keeps us connected to one another, gives us the strength to say "Screw You!" to clients who would take advantage of us, and helps to remind us that if even if we work alone, we are not alone in what we do.

5) I like the idea of helping out other writers. Two years ago, I had just started freelancing on the side of a full-time technical writing job, and I was clueless. When I decided to take a chance and freelance full time, I had a better idea of what I was doing, but my only connection to the writing community was Angela Hoy's Writers Weekly. Over time, I started reading blogs written by other writers. The writer I am today can be attributed to a combination of trial and error, and advice from other writers. My blog is my way of "giving back" to the writing community.

So there you have it: five reasons why I blog. I am tagging the following writers to participate in this meme:

Kathy Kehrli, of the infamous Screw You! blog
Debbie Ridpath Ohi, of Will Write For Chocolate and Inkygirl
scriptgirl, of the Writer's Confidant Blog

Have fun!

Labels: blogging, memes

I was sick of my Blogger cookie-cutter blog template, so I spent a good deal of time last night and today looking for a free Blogger template. I didn't like most of what I found, but I fell in love with this one!

It took a while to put all my changes into the blog, but I finally finished it. The only thing I can't figure out is how to get the number of comments to show up at the end of each post - I managed to modify the template to show the comments when you click on individual posts, but the code I copied and pasted from the old template didn't fix the main-page problem.

(Yes, I cheat when I code. I know just enough to look through the template code, locate the code that controls a certain feature, and copy and paste it into my new template. I designed my myspace pages like that, too.)

Anyway, when I don't have deadlines to neglect I'll try to come back and fix the comment problem. I also intend to replace the header - the part that says the blog title - with a custom jpeg. The hearts are just too girly for me...

In other news, I'm also having my logo redone. Stay tuned to see the new looks as they roll out! I'm in makeover mood!!!

Labels: blogging, Internet tools, logo, website maintenance, website updates

For several of months now, I've kept a blog on myspace reviewing my "Book of the Day" - whatever I'm currently reading. As myspace is quickly losing its appeal to me, I decided to transfer my blog to Blogger. Livre du Jour will tell you what I'm currently reading, what I think of it so far, and provide you with a link in case you're interested in checking it out for yourself. If you like what you see, be sure to check back frequently - I tend to finish a book every 2-3 days, sometimes less.

I've also made a few changes to my existing blogs. I've put a picture and link in the sidebar of each so that you can see what I'm reading now without visiting Livre du Jour, if you'd prefer not to. (Of course, to see what I have to say about it you'll have to visit anyway.) Also, I'm going to try out the Blogger search banners - I don't usually care for them, but as large as some of my blogs have gotten, I think it might be convenient for my visitors to be able to search for a specific post.

I'd love to hear from you - please comment and let me know what you think about my new changes!

Labels: blogging, reading, website maintenance, website updates