Welcome back to Austen Promises and the Writer’s Journal!
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After such a fantastic couple weeks of journal posts, I kind of hit a wall. LOL That last one is a hard act to follow! So, I decided to make this week’s post a series of rambling thoughts that come to me. Maybe we’ll hit gold in here somewhere. 😉
I had thought about writing about Gumroad. I feel like I need to educate people about it. One of the drawbacks to it, and this is something I was already aware of, is that people who don’t have strong tech skills struggle with it. I have discovered that a large percentage of my readers are older ladies who don’t necessarily know how to navigate non-standard sites, and have no idea how to side-load. I do plan to write up a page describing it—a step sheet, if you will—and share it around in the hopes that people will read it. I’ll add a link to it to every book page, as well.
Speaking of book pages … I often have to look at examples of things in order to do my own. This website is a perfect example. If you go to the Welcome page, I have it laid out with my theme song, my newsletter sign-up, my books, and my blog posts. I modeled it after Leenie’s site, which is very well laid out. She told me she had the things on top that she wanted people to see first. Basically, all her stuff is listed in order of importance. I think mine is, as well, but we have one big difference to our pages. Well, okay, two, if you count mine being all purple and hers being all pink. 😉 I do not have a “coming soon” feature, and she does. I don’t remember if that is what she calls it, but that’s what it is. I’m considering adding that to my page, if I can get my mind wrapped around it.
As for the website, I may be moving to a new platform in a year or two. I currently use WordPress, and they have made changes that I do not and cannot like. The changes are to the way we create and edit posts. I write mine in Microsoft Word and copy/paste into the blog post draft. I copy and paste the logo and links at the bottom of each post from a previous post. The new WordPress editor uses blocks and is designed for you to write every post in the actual editor, including the logo and links I just mentioned. Well, I don’t know that it’s designed that way on purpose, but it sure seems like it. I am not going to do that, because it’s much more difficult and time-consuming to do it that way. I have installed a plugin that allows me to use the “classic editor” for now, but eventually, I will be forced to use the new one if I stay with WordPress. Quite frankly, the new editor is much more difficult to use, and I’m going to have to use it to do Austen Authors posts. I can’t begin to describe how I’m dreading that. So, I am currently researching other options. I have time, though, so don’t look for any changes for a year or more.
I sat down and prioritized my goal list for 2019 today. That might not be accurate. I listed four items on the list that I intend to have completed by the end of January. I will focus on those four and then re-evaluate at the end of that month and choose four other things for February. I looked at the sheet with the idea in mind of doing a task analysis for each, but didn’t end up doing that. Some things simply require more funds, and that’s something that I have to kind of play by ear for now.
Those are the thoughts that have been playing in my mind today. Do any of them resonate with you? If so, which ones, and how?
I know it’s a day late, but … Merry Christmas! <3
Come back next Wednesday for another peek into my journal! <3
