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Ask Jami: WordPress Questions and Answers

April 18, 2013 Random Musings
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My two WordPress workshops are next week, so this is the last time I’ll mention them here on my blog. Try to contain your disappointment. *grin* Today, I’m summarizing the questions and answers from the Facebook chat about WordPress I did last week with Lisa Hall-Wilson. Facebook makes looking through old posts a hassle, so I wanted to [...]

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When Should We Upgrade to a Paid Site?

April 2, 2013 Writing Stuff
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Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve shared several posts about websites and blogging. I promise I’m almost done with all that. On Thursday, I’ll resume my usual balance of craft, author entrepreneurship, publishing industry, and writing life posts. (Believe me, I get as sick of ruts as you all do. However, I hope this [...]

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Is Your Site Secure? Tips from a Tech Guy

March 28, 2013 Writing Stuff
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When we first create a blog or website, all the decisions we need to make can quickly overwhelm us. Do we really need a website and a blog? Should we go with Blogger or WordPress? Do we want to go the free route or pay for a self-hosted site we’ll own? That last question encompasses many complicated issues [...]

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Does Your Site Welcome Disabled Readers? — Guest: Linda Adams

March 26, 2013 Writing Stuff
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I wanted to give us a break from the all-website-all-the-time posts I’ve had here lately, but then an idea hit me that was too good to ignore. More accurately, Linda Adams left a comment on my post from two weeks ago that struck me as something we don’t talk about enough: accommodating disabled readers in [...]

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What Should an Author Website Include?

March 21, 2013 Writing Stuff
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Some writers—understandably—don’t want to blog. Blogging can take away from our writing time. Thinking of post topics can be difficult. And if we don’t gain a readership (or our blog readership doesn’t cross over into the target audience for our books), it can feel like a waste of time and effort. However as I mentioned [...]

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Switching from Blogger to WordPress — Guest: Natalie C. Markey

March 19, 2013 Writing Stuff
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Last week, I announced my two workshops on WordPress for beginners. One workshop is geared toward those ready to invest in a paid website/blog, and one workshop sticks to free resources. Some might wonder why that second workshop focuses only on WordPress. After all, Blogger (also known as Blogspot) is free too. Does it really [...]

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Do Authors Need a Website and Blog?

March 14, 2013 Writing Stuff
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Today I’m opening two workshops to help beginners set up websites and blogs. With that in mind, I want to go back to “step one” and review why authors might need a website and blog. Years ago, authors could get away with pounding on their typewriter in seclusion and never interacting with the public. Now the [...]

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Goodbye, Feedburner! Hello, Ownership of Our Platform

October 2, 2012 Random Musings
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Months ago, I wrote about the death of Google Friend Connect (GFC). Many people who used the GFC social media and feed reading service couldn’t believe that Google would drop a service used by so many. When it died, people lost blog readers and newsletter subscribers. Rumors are swirling that Google is at it again, this [...]

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Goodbye, Google Friend Connect–Now What?

February 28, 2012 Random Musings
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We’ve all seen the Google Friend Connect (GFC) widgets on websites and blogs we visit.  Some sites have asked us to join GFC to qualify for a contest or giveaway.  On our own blogs, we enjoy seeing the avatars of our readers (and the numbers of our “members” go up). However, Google is retiring GFC [...]

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What Makes You Feel Legitimate?

February 2, 2012 Writing Stuff
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Last week, we had a great discussion in the comments about whether we call ourselves writers or authors.  In general, we agreed that while we don’t judge others by what they call themselves, we each have our reasons for what we call ourselves.  Many echoed the idea that we want to feel legitimate before we’ll [...]

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