I really like talking about blogging, so I thought it might be interesting to try an occasional blogging advice/support/pimp/whine thread.
What’s happening with your romance blog? Want to share any news? Upcoming events? Contests?
Got a new blog? Give us the link and tell us what it’s all about.
Facing any vexing issues with your blog? Something technical? Annoying commenters? Funny spam? Fresh out of ideas? Blogging taking over your life?
If you’re a blog reader, let us know what blogs you have been enjoying lately. What you would like to see more of? Less of?
Contest: Enter to win a gift certificate of $15 to the online bookstore of your choice if you leave a comment by 7:00am EST Monday (that would be 12:00 GMT, I think).
I’ll cheat by starting with my own comment:
Images: my web host just informed me that I had used up all my disk space because I had so many hi res pictures. So I went and basically nuked all the images from all my 2008 posts, which made me very sad (I shed a few tears over the loss of the the orgasming lions from the Come for Me, Baby post). What was my alternative? Any advice?
Also, many of those images (I assume) were copyrighted, and I did not pay for permission. Here’s my rationalization: (1) no one who reads this blog could possibly think they are mine, and (2) I am not profiting from them in any way, (3) I would take them down if I got a takedown notice, (4) my readership is so small, what harm can it do. The problem with this argument is that it would likely justify stealing a lot of things.
How do you handle the question of images?
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#1 by Janice on November 28, 2009 - 8:51 am
I have a lot of graphics on my hosts (I have one host site that is basically my “storehouse” for online materials as it’s the site where I began blogging in 2001 and is stuffed with old family pictures and the like; my current blogging host doesn’t have a huge amount of space but I don’t blog as graphically as I used to do so).
I pretty much always resize images when I put up pictures of book covers on my blog or use a thumbnail size. Not so much fun for analyzing the picture, but if you want, you can always link to a cropped close-up of the area you want to discuss. Graphics aren’t as bad as videos, though — just a few minutes of video can eat up ALL you hosting space on some barebones plans.
And I sing the praises of FireFTP, the Firefox add-on with elegant FTP support, for allowing me to quickly log in to either of my domains and mess around in my virtual filing cabinets. As well as complete back-ups on my own machine.
No one’s ever served me with a DMCA notice for my blog but videos that I’ve put up on YouTube have been pulled down for audio content (you can get pulled for even as little as a few seconds of Warner Music content in the background if their automatic analyzer finds it). A couple of other friends have successfully challenged some of the DMCA notices as fair use — I know that reviewing would count as fair use at least for quotes but I’m not sure about the status of cover graphics.
#2 by Wendy on November 28, 2009 - 8:54 am
The layout of my blog is driving me bonkers. I’m not liking the background yet when I find a new one I like, I have it on for a few days and then I don’t like it anymore! UGH.
#3 by Laura Vivanco on November 28, 2009 - 8:57 am
Could this be read as stating that everyone who enters will win a gift certificate?
Thanks to this post from Daily Kos, “Compendium of Public-Domain Image Links,” (which, in turn was something Jenny Crusie had linked to) I decided that I would use images from Wikimedia Commons because they give details about their pictures (e.g. if they’re open source or if they’re in the public domain for other reasons). The Daily Kos post had links to other useful resources too.
#4 by Jessica on November 28, 2009 - 9:05 am
@Laura Vivanco: LOL. I just saw that and edited it. No, I am not bankrupting my family for my blog…at least not yet.
#5 by Magdalen on November 28, 2009 - 9:15 am
I do what my husband does on his crossword blog: I go to Flickr and find a photo that has limited access. One of the conditions is attribution, so I save the photo on my computer, upload it to the blog, but then cut & paste the identification in the Html code so that someone clicks on it, instead of giving my computer’s name for the picture, then get the link back to Flickr. I figure that is legally sufficient to comply with the request for attribution.
And my new romance-specific blog, Promantica, is up and running — although I would still like to tweak the code governing the right hand margin. Maybe next month!
#6 by meri on November 28, 2009 - 10:42 am
Regarding the pictures using up all the disk space, Janice is right – if you’re using high res pictures, just resize them. It’s easy to do and might not necessitate shrinking them to a useless size, either. So you can bring back the “come for me” lion!
BTW, wasn’t there going to be a member week, AKA Attack of the Peens? I’m really curious as to what you were planning to do for that event… Or did it run while I wasn’t paying attention?
#7 by KristieJ on November 28, 2009 - 10:54 am
I’ve been enjoying YouTube for quite some time now – it’s a fascinating place – and learned something I did not know about and just blogged about it.
As for the blog look, I want to change it up some, but keep the same banner since I just ordered a bunch of business cards and magnets and all kinds of other nifty stuff from Vista Print. So I almost feel like my banner is ‘branded’ now. But alas, I know nothing about that kind of thing.
As for blogging taking over my life *laughing* hell yes it has!! Every Saturday morning I give myself and hour to ‘play’ on blogs before getting down to the business of housework – and every Saturday morning heads to Saturday afternoon, I’m still ‘playing’ and the house cleaning isn’t getting done.
#8 by katiebabs on November 28, 2009 - 12:50 pm
I’ve becoming addicted to such blogs as Regretsy and Accidental Dong. They are very wacky blogs.
Also found the how to kill a marshmallow peep blog. LOL.
#9 by Amy on November 28, 2009 - 12:59 pm
I’m trying to get back into a regular rhythm at my blog, but with my reading slowing down to an almost complete halt, I run out of things to say. But I do enjoy travelling all over Blog World to see what everyone else has to say!
#10 by Keira on November 28, 2009 - 1:07 pm
If you go to Flickr Advance Search and fill out the form paying attention to click for creative commons license and anything else you think you need you can find great images to use. They’re also available in a wide range of sizes to help you save on disk space. Some WordPress bloggers use an Amazon image server, but I don’t know enough about it to give more information. Others use Photobucket to host their pictures and use the image html tags to put the picture in the post.
I wish I could get my YouTube Channel up and running for LRP. I think it would be a great feature but I haven’t yet figured out how to utilized it. So for now I have the account and it’s sitting.
I’ve done two things recently for my blog. I created a Media Room where I’m linking to all the blogs I’ve done guest posts for and places where I’ve been interviewed. This makes it convenient for readers, myself, and is a way to constantly promote the blogs who’ve been so kind as to host me.
The other thing I did was create a Google Document Form asking four basic questions of my readers. It can be found on the About Page on my site. In the day since I put it up I already have two responses and I think this will be a great tool to gauge how my readers think and feel about my blog.
Romance Reader Google Bundle 110 blogs and counting… http://www.google.com/reader/bundle/user%2F10124250609735937441%2Fbundle%2FRomance%20Novels
#11 by The Book Vixen on November 28, 2009 - 1:44 pm
I can’t settle on a background. I’m not tech-savvy but I can get by using HTML. I wish I had Photoshop (and the skills to go along with it) to be able to create my own background. I would also like to create buttons. I’d probably create a button for just about everything.
#12 by Janine on November 28, 2009 - 2:30 pm
I would like to find something to complain about for this post, but other than the fact that I occasionally miss the red, pink and white color scheme Dear Author used to have when I first joined it back in 2006, there’s really nothing much for me to complain about. I’m ridiculously happy with my blogging partners and with the vast majority of our commenters. So let me say instead, in the spirit of Thanksgiving, how fortunate I feel to be part of my blog. There’s almost nothing I would change about it and how many things in life are there that we feel that way about?
#13 by limecello on November 28, 2009 - 2:31 pm
Ugh – images are a major pain in the butt for me. Formatting them, first of all, because wordpress hates me so I have to rely on someone else to format them. Then, I usually find google images and save them to our thing or whatever, but it’s a pain tracking people down. I’ve had a few “oops” messages – or people got jealous because searching for X imagine then went to our site not theirs… Iuno.
As for content? Not sure. I got sick of all the bitchery :X so I stopped visiting literally 99% of the blogs I used to frequent.
Not that anyone’s noticed.
For blogs though? I’d like them to be relevant to the romance community since thats what I’m interested in… also sad I missed that interesting picture of the lions O_o I swear I read that post but… uh O_O.
#14 by AnimeJune on November 28, 2009 - 3:19 pm
My pet peeve, it’s minimal, but – when I post on Blogger, the date is the date I started the blog post, not the date I actually post the post. Which means, if I start a review on Thursday but dont’ publish it until Friday, Blogger says Thursday. ANNOYING!
As for events – I’m having my Big Christmas Review, where I read enough christmas-themed romances to make my head spin, followed by my 2nd Chance Challenge where I make a valiant effort to see What Is Up, Exactly, with Nalini Singh.
#15 by Laura Vivanco on November 28, 2009 - 4:27 pm
June, you can change the date and time manually. If you’re editing a post in Blogger, at the bottom of the box, in the gray frame, there’s a little arrow followed by some blue writing that says “Post options.” If you click on that, you’ll find that quite a lot more options are available to you. I don’t change the options about reader comments or back links, but over on the right you’ll see two boxes with the date and time in them, under the title “Post date and time.” You can change those manually.
What I tend to do is write my post and then, when I’m ready to post it and want to make sure it has the right date and time attached, I start a new post and copy and paste its date and time so that they overwrite the existing date and time given for the old post. Then I delete the new post and the old post I was working on has an up-to-date date and time.
If I just used my own date and time didn’t copy the new time and date from a new post, the time difference between the US and the UK would muck up my posting: my posts would probably be held by Blogger for about 6 hours before it would make them go live. If you want Blogger to post something while you’re away, though, then you can do that kind of thing deliberately: set the date and time to whatever time in the future you want the post to appear, and Blogger will post it for you when that time arrives.
#16 by heidenkind on November 28, 2009 - 4:42 pm
I also love images (of course). I echo Keira’s recommendation for flikr images. If you go to the flikr homepage, put your mouse on explore, then go to creative commons, you can search through millions of images that you can use on your blog, as long as you give attribution to the creator. Just go to the category (there are different ones), search for whatever you want the image to tie to, and sort by most interesting.
I wish someone would swoop in and redesign my blog. I hate blogger templates and I’m not really happy with the way my site looks right now. But I only know the most basic HTML, so I’m kind of stuck with it.
#17 by Wendy on November 28, 2009 - 7:10 pm
@AnimeJune: You can change that AnimeJune! After you’ve finished typing up your post, just click on the Post Options link in the bottom left hand corner and it gives you the option to change the date and time on your post. If you select a time/date in the future and hit publish? It will automatically schedule and post your post on that day/time. No need to go back in and hit the publish button.
#18 by Jessica on November 28, 2009 - 7:36 pm
Er wait. Background? Isn’t it … blank white? I love how uncluttered your blog is, actually, although you went and flipped everything.
@Janice: @Keira: @Laura Vivanco: @heidenkind: @Wendy: Thank you for the advice on the images. Very helpful!
Keira — thanks also for pointing us to your blog innovations.
@Magdalen: I am excited about your blog, but one thing I wanted to ask is whether you were aware that “romantica” is a name some epress came up with (Ellora’s Cave, maybe?) to refer to erotic romance. Is that a deliberate choice that reflects your reading preferences or the blog’s content? I’m thinking no, but wanted to ask.
@AnimeJune: I am looking forward the Christmas posts, and I love the idea of a Second Chance. I also have read 3 titles by Singh and really wasn;t as over the moon about her as so many others. Glad you are getting some help with the post date (and thank you @Wendy: @Laura Vivanco: for your help. Squeee! I love this kind of thing.)
Meri, oh gosh, I keep putting those off. Yes, I have “Sperminator: Rise of the Peens”, “Hard Off: Taming the Endless Erection”, and “Will It Fit? A Feminist Psychoanalytic Take on Terrifyingly Large Penises” as drafts. Maybe I can do them during Ham/mukkah, my week of m/m reviews, beginning — as you know — December 11.
@KristieJ: Look at you, Miss Official, with your swag. I love your banner — I totally associate it with RoR, so I agree you shouldn’t change it.
@katiebabs: Cruel woman, not providing the link to 101 Ways to Kill a Peep!! I feel confident I woudl never have heard of this site or Accidental Dong if I did not know you, Miss Babs.
@limecello: For those of us who just do this for fun, I mean, are not even serious hobbyists, all the heavy publishing stuff can get to be too much, I agree.
@Janine: I said in the post that telling us what blogs you have been enjoying lately is one of the options. I am glad you are enjoying your own, LOL.
All these folks talking about backgrounds, help me out. What blog has a background you admire? I can’t think of any background I would really like that isn’t just white or some plain light color. Perhaps I do not know what the word means?
#19 by Wendy on November 28, 2009 - 7:45 pm
Der. I guess I should have read all the comments first before posting – since Laura also answered AnimeJune’s question.
Anywho….
Nothing that scintillating in the works over at the Bat Cave. I’m sort of going through a patch where I feel like I have “nothing remotely interesting to say.” Some would argue that’s all of the time (hardy har har). I suspect I’ve got the bah humbugs because of holiday craziness and the fact that my reading has taken a dive again. Um, which is what I should be doing now. Reading. Not putzing on the Internet.
Pretty happy with my blog at the moment, but still kicking around the idea that I should have a third column. Also thinking about spotlighting other blogs every so often. I dumped my blog roll ages ago – and that gives me some guilt. I really should do a better job with my blog pimpage. Bloggers like KristieJ make the rest of us look like slackers on that front. She’s always so good giving shout-outs to the newbies.
#20 by Sherry Thomas on November 28, 2009 - 8:26 pm
For images, try stock.xchng.
Free and royalty-free.
#21 by Janet W on November 28, 2009 - 9:00 pm
Well gosh, count me in as someone, who when polled on the notion of “romantica”, thought it sounded fine and unusual. Chalk up yet another reason to read something e-pubbed and sultry … who knew?
Altho hey, take back the word/night and all — maybe Magdalen will end up being wildly popular and the word will take on yet another meaning. It could happen!
#22 by Nicola O. on November 28, 2009 - 9:17 pm
Let’s see, my biggest challenge lately is just sitting down and writing the posts. I’m reading like a crazy woman but haven’t had a lot of writing/blogging mojo. I kind of feel OK about it as long as I post at least once a week though. 2-3 times is ideal for me and maintaining the kind of traffic I feel good about, but it’s also still a hobby and there are a number of higher priority life things going on lately.
On backgrounds: I really hate when there’s a picture or graphic that the text rolls over. I find it distracting and hard to read. Not so bad if the image is just at the bottom or side edges but when it’s the whole body of the post… no. don’t like. Creative, yes, but also distracting and too hard to read. I also don’t like light text on a dark background. And you kids should get offa my lawn (ie, I’m showing my age).
#23 by Nicola O. on November 28, 2009 - 9:22 pm
@limecello:
What kind of formatting do you need to do? If it’s resizing, that’s pretty easy to do with Microsoft Picture Manager, which I think is free if you’re on a Windows system.
If it’s wordpress, I’m afraid I can’t help. WP has some beautiful themes, but I’m a Blogger girl.
#24 by Janine on November 28, 2009 - 10:24 pm
@Jessica: I don’t blog hop that much. I enjoy this blog, Keishon’s blog, AAR, Sherry Thomas and Meredith Duran’s blog, and then there are a few others I check out from time to time like Tumperkin’s, Kristie (J)’s, Karen Scott’s, Access Romance gab, Book Smugglers, and a few others that people link to. I used to enjoy RfP and Meriam’s blogs, but alas, the last time I checked, they had not been updated in quite a while. But yeah, I do, since you point it out, enjoy my own blog too, narcissistic as that may be!
#25 by Keira on November 28, 2009 - 11:29 pm
@Sherry Thomas: Thanks Sherry! I’m definitely going to use this site now that I know about it!
#26 by Phyl on November 28, 2009 - 11:38 pm
I spend hours writing blog posts in my head while I’m driving, walking, doing the dishes, you name it. Do I actually sit down and write these (brilliant, witty) posts? HA! But I like having that small space on the ‘net that’s mine and I do appreciate it when folks drop in. So I try to get at least 3-4 postings done a month.
I admit that I get nervous about violating copyrights. So I post my own pictures, or free clip art, or book covers from an author’s site. In this last case, yes, I’m probably violating a copyright, but then I am publicizing a book, so does someone really want to get mad?
And I’m a previous winner here
Please don’t enter me this time around.
#27 by Keira on November 28, 2009 - 11:52 pm
Oh I hear you about the topics. I have two or three or ten different documents on my computer somewhere with snippets of ideas started but never finished. Sometimes they languish there forever.
I also get them while away from the computer too. That’s why I try to keep a pad of paper in my purse. Just a small pad mind you like one of those mini spiral thingies. Sometimes though I forget it (the bad thing about switching purses) and have to scramble for a piece of scrap paper. Even then I might lose it! Eek lol
#28 by Carolyn Crane on November 29, 2009 - 8:31 am
This week on Thrillionth page: Internetz, Internetz, who is the softest cat of them all? I’m sure this cat focus will lose me only a dozen or so followers.
I hope nobody notices that I’m blowing off my xmas gift exchange in romanclandia cartoons this year. I haven’t read enough books that other people have read, and you need this store of common reading for the cartoons to make sense. Even though it was a fun, relaxing thing to draw them by the fire. Oh, now I’m missing it.
But hey, I have a question: how do I get my avatar to show up here when I make a comment? I’ve tried to fuss around with your login and cocomment stuff, but nothing ever pans out. I see that many of your more high-functioning commenters have figured this out.
#29 by Maili on November 29, 2009 - 8:55 am
@Janine:
Until you mentioned it here, I forgot I created that DA banner! I’d love to see it again because I can’t remember anything about it except the colour scheme and the stamp.
@Jessica:
A gentle correction: it was a reader who came up with the term – during a discussion about Robin Schone’s The Lady’s Tutor – long before Ellora’s Cave trademarked it, which caused a fuss among readers and authors for a bit. The fuss was because EC insisted they coined it until someone provided evidence that it was coined around long before EC was founded.
I’m a HUGE fan of plain backgrounds. I like it when the posts are against white or pale background and the main body background (outside posts) is dark. It helps to focus and hold my admittedly short span of attention. When the main background is fussy or heavily patterned, it can be distracting.
As a blogger or for other blogs, I have to be honest and admit I really dislike my writing style, my English, the long-windedness and my style of reviewing, so I avoid writing whenever possible. I love conversations, though, so I force myself to overcome my dislike and just write. It’s a constant struggle, which is probably weird to some as I have for years word-whored all over the place.
#30 by Meri on November 29, 2009 - 9:22 am
Jessica, Hanukkah would be a great time, I’ll have more than just latkes to look forward too! Though latkes are enough to make me happy, too (-:
Another vote for plain backgrounds – no graphics and pics, it’s distracting and should be left for the banner.
#31 by Magdalen on November 29, 2009 - 10:27 am
@Maili: I picked “Promantica” because a) it was available as a domain name, b) it sounded smart and positive, and c) I liked it. (I could have had Romlandia.com, but as I associate the term “Romlandia” with all of us — the association of people on the Internet interested in romance fiction — I did not feel comfortable with claiming I could speak for the, uh, nation of romance fans!)
As for Romantica — yes, I was aware that Ellora’s Cave had trademarked it. So in an excess of caution, I have consulted my Intellectual Property attorney (my ex-husband, here for Thanksgiving!), who says that as the root word, ROMANTIC, is so generic, and as all they did was tack the A onto it, that’s not a very unique mark. My adding a P to the front of that is actually a more distinctive change.
(He then wandered off, warning me that I was getting that advice free, and “you gets whats you pay for,” in that faux-Cockney accent they like to adopt from time to time. Brits…)
But here’s the thing — I don’t personally see ROMANTICA as a very good portmanteau word for erotic romance (or romantic erotica) — the word ROMANCE rather dominates, and it really does look like someone stuck an A onto ROMANTIC, which is a perfectly straightforward word in its own right. ROMOTICA? Nope, sounds like a disease. EROTICANCE? Sounds like pole dancing at the local strip club.
If I’d been asked to define ROMANTICA before knowing of the association with Ellora’s Cave, I’d have said it was some discrete measure of romance – multiple instances of romanticum, if you will. But I concede no one asked me!
I dunno — I think my brain’s gotten addled from living in a house with 50+ dictionaries.
#32 by Nicola O. on November 29, 2009 - 10:55 am
@Carolyn Crane:
http://en.gravatar.com/
#33 by maered on November 29, 2009 - 11:47 am
I love the Babbling about Books blog. Mho! The Love Doctor is hilarious. Love his antics.
I love the blogs which review new authors and series that I normally wouldn’t buy. Love the recommendations. Keep up the good work, guys!!
#34 by Maili on November 29, 2009 - 11:56 am
@Magdalen:
Oh, I don’t have a problem with your domain and blog title at all.
When we found out EC trademarked ‘romantica’, there was a massive howl of protest because it was already in common use.
EC issued an official statement, which settled the fuss. I can’t remember a single thing about this statement, though.
However, I disagree with you on ‘romantica’ not being a good word. At the time many dismissed erotic romance as an excuse for erotica, even though many erorom authors and readers explained that romance is the dominant element in a typical erotic romance. To combat the anti-erotic romance bias, erotic romance was shortened to ‘eromance’, but this was mistaken as ‘ebook/epublished romance’. So, one reader – it was CD or SueK?- came up with ‘romantica’ (romance + erotica = romantica; as in romance first, erotica second), which I felt was perfect.
All that said, it was me who used ‘Romlandia’ (at AAR boards or mailing list years ago), but I’m sorry to say that it had nothing to do with the community. In fact, it was meant as an insult. *bows head in shame*
Bear it in mind I and many others often used ‘Romland’ as a lazy shortcut in our posts when referring to the romance-oriented universe within the genre. Such as certain genre boundaries, behavioural patterns, popular settings and time periods, character types, and so on.
At the time I was increasingly fed up with certain authors and readers who constantly defended stereotypes and historical errors in the romance genre. Let’s face it – it was pissing me off, especially where Scottish historical romances were concerned.
During yet another long debate about historical accuracy, I (in a fit of childish temper) accused this group of being supportive of ‘Romlandia’. It’s a combination of Romland and the title of a Mickey Mouse surreal-magical-fantasy film, Fantasia.
Thankfully, it’s evolved to something positive now. I admit I still feel a twinge of guilt when I see ‘romlandia’, though, because it’s a reminder of my not-so-finest hour.
Edited: I’m still hoping that someone coined the term ages before I did because the weight of guilt would finally be off my back.
#35 by Renee on November 29, 2009 - 1:13 pm
@Limecello: I find that my ability to manipulate images in WP improved when I started editing my blog in Firefox. I use Safari (I have a Mac) for most of my internet activities, but am only to resize images with it using percentages–which is a hassle when I want different images to be the same size. In Firefox, however, I can click on the image in the “Visual” wysiwyg and move a corner to get the exact size in pixels that I want. (The dimensions in pixels show up when you start to resize the image.)
It might be worth opening your WP Dashboard in different browsers to see how they differ.
One WP thing that is driving me nuts is my inability to post “Sprouts” in my sidebar, since I’m unable to post Flash content directly into my blog. Anyone have suggestions?
#36 by Magdalen on November 29, 2009 - 1:31 pm
@Maili: Not a problem for me. I always think of Rudolf Friml operettas with fake country names ending in -andia, although I can’t actually confirm that any such fake place occurs in his work. I guess in my head it’s shorthand for highly fictitious and romantic-sounding place where the prince is likely to have been switched at birth with the commoner — you know the thing.
And, as others have noted elsewhere, the meanings and context of words used on the Internet probably have a half-life measured in months, if not weeks! So hold your head up high! You may well be the only person who still remembers what you wrote and what you meant…
#37 by Jessica on November 29, 2009 - 4:19 pm
@Maili: Wow, this is so interesting. Thank you for correcting me. I strongly prefer to hold true beliefs, so I don’t mind being corrected at all.
I also like the term Romantica for erotic romance, for the reasons you give.
I love the bit of history on Romlandia. Thank you.
@Renee: I hope you get help on the Sprouts question. Do you have wordpress.com? that is one of the reasons I went to a paid host and wordpress.org (not that I ever use flash or anything!)
@Magdalen: Very interesting. Your comment makes me want to do my next Sup Saturday post asking people how they named their blogs!! (TM)
As an aside, I wonder if EC knows it trademarked something that couldn’t be trademarked?
@maered: I also really appreciate the way romance readers have diverse tastes that overlap with many genres and “literary” fiction.
Although I have mixed feelings about books reviewed way in advance, since I can’t buy them and often forget them by the time they are published.
@Carolyn Crane: no cartoons? *weeps*. You’ll have to comment again to let us know if you got your gravatar working.
#38 by Tumperkin on November 29, 2009 - 5:08 pm
I have a very plain white blog. Admittedly, but that is mainly because I am technologically inept (I’ve also failed to get a gravatar sorted out despite two separate attempts) but I do also like a clean minimal look. I Iove my text colours (dark red for titles/quotes; turquoise for links). I must admit to preferring a restful vibe to a terribly busy one. I like the look of SL-wendy’s blog a lot. Her cartoony banner is bright and vivid but it’s not clogged up with lots of other stuff.
I tend to find that with blog-hopping, I only comment regularly on about 5 or 6 blogs. That doesn’t at all reflect what I actually read. Lately I’ve been very much enjoying Victoria Janssen’s blog and said SL-Wendy who I’d been ‘aware’ of but hadn’t read until recently.
I also miss RfP and Meriam.
#39 by Jessica on November 29, 2009 - 5:57 pm
@Tumperkin: I also have been enjoying Victoria’s blog a whole lot. she has recently been doing a series of posts on Dorothy Sayers’ Peter Wimsey novels as adapted for Tv, and before that she had a great list of recommended steampunk. Here is the link: http://victoriajanssen.blogspot.com/
I also miss RfP’s blog (although I am grateful when she occasionally shows up here) and Miriam’s (where are youuuuuuuuuuuuuu???????).
And of course, I love SuperWendy.
#40 by rigmarole on November 29, 2009 - 7:49 pm
I have a nice, roomy place to store my images online, but it cost a fair chunk of change to get it. If I didn’t have it, I’d probably bring the resolution on those hi-res images down and upload those to Photobucket or Flickr, and save the originals, if I couldn’t bear to part with them, on my external hard drive. (Which I could not live without, by the way.)
Until very recently, I’ve shared images without much thought about where I got them and whether they were meant to be passed around willy-nilly. (I’m not talking about personal photos, mostly just fun stuff found in communities, et cetera.) A few months ago, I started posting much more regularly on Tumblr, and now I’m trying to be a little more conscientious. I put a notice at the top of my page, saying that people can contact me at [email address] about credit.
I think I’ve just got this attitude that the internet is the Wild West and anything goes, or close to it, anyway. That’s almost a decade of doing what I please, so it’ll take a while to adjust my habits. I’ll get there, though.
#41 by Kate on November 29, 2009 - 10:49 pm
Just wanted to mention briefly that I (finally) threw down on the Windflower World Tour, and that the book will be off to Literary Escapism next. Thanks for the open thread!
#42 by Janine on November 29, 2009 - 11:06 pm
@Maili:
I loved that banner that you did for us. Unfortunately I don’t think it will make a comeback because it said “Best Regards, the two Ja(y)nes,” and there are a lot more than two of us now.
#43 by Maili on November 30, 2009 - 1:54 am
@Janine:
Oh, I don’t mean having it back up on the site. I meant seeing the banner itself. I have seen it now after finding a copy of the banner at the Wayback Machine yesterday.
http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://dearauthor.com
#44 by Jessica on November 30, 2009 - 9:26 am
@Kate: I loved your Windflower post (and, for anyone wondering, when I say loved, it doesn’t mean I agreed with everything, just that I found it very worth reading), and was going to link to it in my Monday Morning Stepback post but I saw Ana and Thea already did. Thanks for the heads up!
#45 by Anne Fescharek on November 30, 2009 - 1:30 pm
I have a blog (that is, I have claimed “www.softfuzzysweater.com) but I don’t know what to do to set it up! I know I want to devote to romance, but what to add? Where to go?
#46 by Sherry Thomas on November 30, 2009 - 7:18 pm
What I find interesting is how a blog becomes popular. This blog’s popularity shot through the roof in the very short amount of time it’s been around. You don’t provide daily reviews. You don’t comment on every issue. There is a near-complete absence of @#$%-stirring. And you even discuss academic topics–and I read them, even though my brain is better wired for mindless gossip.
And I come back and I visit and I read most of the comments too.
Is it just the voice then? The particular RRR presence? The brainy but not snooty company? The interestingness that is the sum of all the parts?
(This train of thoughts brought on by this post, which I totally didn’t think I’d bother either read or follow.)
#47 by Jessica on November 30, 2009 - 7:54 pm
@Sherry Thomas: Thanks! I guess what you say is true, if the roof is a very low one. I’m very happy right now with the people who visit. That’s all I know.
#48 by Keira on December 1, 2009 - 3:48 pm
@Carolyn Crane
Gravatars are linked through email addresses. You can set up a few, but it’s probably best to set up just one and change it when you want to do so instead of alternating.
Once you register (and register with the email you want to attach the image too) you’ll have 4 options for uploading an image: from your computer, from the internet, from a webcam, and a previously uploaded image.
Select the image and then it’ll give you an option for cropping. I suggest using a large image for better quality. After that you simply give the picture a rating and confirm it to use as your main gravatar.
Hope that helps!