Go check it out:  Don’t Panic! Understanding and backing up your blog

Excerpt:
So last week I get an urgent message from blogger friend Carissa (GoodNCrazy.com) – She’d had problems with her host, and her blog was down, and she needed help getting a new host and getting her blog back up. Since I’d done her blog theme design, I was familiar with her stuff, and had a backup of her theme.  I also recommended my host, Bluehost.com – since I’ve been very happy with them*.

She had a pretty good scare that she’d lost her entire site, so I figured it would be a good idea to share how to avoid going through that kind of panic!

The advice that follows is specifically for self hosted Wordpress blogs, but no matter where you host, you need to be doing regular backups!

Read the whole thing

For a new website that is currently under construction…

Very excited today to announce the launch of foodwhirl.com.  If you like to cook, be sure to stop by and check out the site.  The team is great, and I think it’s going to be a great resource.

So if you’ve ever been frustrated by image layout in Wordpress (like your text ends up squeezed in, or pictures that look great next to each other in your Dashboard look wonky on your blog, then go check it out this quick fix…

Well, I just fixed it on the website I’m currently building, so I figured I’d document the fixes for you guys, and for myself the next time!

A caveat- this is what works for Bluehost hosted sites, using Contact Form 7 Version 1.9.5.1, Wordpress 2.9

1. Set up a admin@yourdomain.com email address on your server. (I forward that to my email while I ‘m testing the site, then that can be forwarded to the administrators current email later)

2. Ensure admin@yourdomain.com is set up as the admin email in Wordpress (General settings: Email Address)

3. When you set up your form, Make sure the “To: ” email in the contact form settings is set to admin@yourdomain.com

(the key to all this being that I think the site domain needs to match the email address domain – it doesn’t have to be admin@, I just use that.)

Another thing that might help as well that I found in my research:

• Set up a wordpress@yourdomain.com email address on your server.

www.foodwhirl.com

The site launches in mid-February, but go there now to sign up for updates or follow on twitter & Facebook.

Got others?  Let me know!

Style:

• Research:  Take a look at other authors, particularly successful ones.  Note what you like, and what you don’t.  See how easy it is to bookmark a page within their site, or find their contact information.  Do they seem to connect with their readers?  Do they blog?  Get a good idea of what you would like to see on your site.
• Think about style.  If you are published, the cover art from your most recent book can be a great cue to use for the design style of your website.  The marketing department has all ready done half your work for you, and you can use that as a starting point for the look and feel of your site.  If you’re not published yet, you’ll want to try to figure out a way to distill the feeling from your most recent work into your website.  Think about your target market – a website targeted at teenage girls is going to look very different from one targeting spy thriller fans.   If in doubt, keep it simple and professional.
• Keep it simple.  Don’t overdo on the bells and whistles.  Just like your writing, everything you do on your website should be for a purpose. Use white space effectively.
• Avoid music.  You’re not a band.  Remember people may be reading your website at their desk at work, and having to struggle to find the mute button is not a good first impression

Content:

• Minimal Categories:  Books/writings (include synopses / reviews of published or future novels), Bio, Contact (email + social networking), a blog or ‘news’ page.  Others: Articles/Essays, Media, Purchase
• Keep it focused – your website should be about you and your writing.  If you write about a particular subject, then your website can focus on that as well.  And it should go without saying, but unless it’s relevant to your writing, avoid the big 3: sex, politics, and religion!
• Show your best stuff.   Any samples of your work on your website should be good, representative samples of your work.  If you wouldn’t want a prospective publisher to be looking at it, it shouldn’t be on your website.
• Although I’m not an expert in publishing, most of what I’ve read recommends you not include unpublished works that you are trying to sell, like a chapter from your new novel.

Resources:

Here are a couple of good articles:  what needs to be on your website… and what doesn’t!

And other resources:

• The Intern Spills on author websites
• Authors on Twitter and who is getting it right
• More on Twitter
• A writers website
• Putting your Characters on the web
• Another point of view for non published authors

Related:

• Linda-Sands.com, Atlanta writer, is live!

Coming up…

• What the heck do I do with Twitter?

WP Greet Box – This is a great idea, though I’ve just installed it on my Arts/Crafts site, Dabbled.org, to try it out. I’ll keep you posted on how I find it to work. Thus far, I’m liking it. It determines where your visitor is visiting from, and displays a greeting message to either point them in the direction of more related posts (in the case of a Google search) or (in the case of Twitter) suggests they re-tweet and offers up how to follow you on twitter. In general it will remind them to follow your RSS feed. Which is pretty nifty.

Tweetsuite – I installed this on on Dabbled.org today, because I use Twitter a great deal with that site, and I was interested in displaying ‘tweetbacks’ (ie where other users had tweeted my posts). It appears to still have a few bugs (I got an error message when I tried to install some of it’s widget capability) but the core functionality seems fine. It’s a great idea, so I’m hoping it works well!

Update:  Neither of these I’m keeping… both didn’t quite work as I’d hoped.