To add to what timethief said, here's more info about feeds in general. It contains the same links timethief gave for your feeds, plus a few more:
http://en.support.wordpress.com/feeds/
Read more...
From http://en.forums.wordpress.com
To add to what timethief said, here's more info about feeds in general. It contains the same links timethief gave for your feeds, plus a few more:
http://en.support.wordpress.com/feeds/
From http://en.forums.wordpress.com
@killerdays
As airodyssey has said all wordpress blogs are equiped with feeds. This is the URL for the RSS feed to your posts (entries)
http://projectwolf.wordpress.com/feed/
This is the URL for the RSS feed for comments made on your blog
http://projectwolf.wordpress.com/comments/feed/
Click them and prove to yourself they are working. If you wish you can set up blog subscriptions. See here > http://en.support.wordpress.com/blog-subscriptions/ and here > http://en.support.wordpress.com/widgets/blog-subscription-widget/
From http://en.forums.wordpress.com
oooh, yeah, that's what I want.
THANKS SO MUCH! :)
Also, is the RSS Feed link everything (includes posts and comments), while the Post and Comment RSS Feed separate them?
From http://en.forums.wordpress.com
Did you like the scent while unboxing your new Apple MacBook Pro computer? How about a signature perfume for that smell? Well it seems a lot...
From feeds.quickonlinetips.com
Gaming cafes have become popular in India in a big way. I recently visited F.o.G. or Federation of Gamers at a popular shopping mall in Delhi, a...
From feeds.quickonlinetips.com
We analysed the state of comment spam on our website over the last few years and Akismet stats reveal that a whopping 3 million spam comments...
From feeds.quickonlinetips.com
Apple has officially released a stand-alone flashback trojan removal tool to remove the ‘most common variants’ of the flashback malware which has infected thousands of...
From feeds.quickonlinetips.com
I guess I'll try a forum plugin for WordPress. Do you happen to know any of the downfalls of doing such? I've just heard such great things about bbpress.
From http://bbpress.org
WordPress 3.3.2 is available now and is a security update for all previous versions. Three external libraries included in WordPress received security updates: Plupload (version 1.5.4), which WordPress uses for uploading media. SWFUpload, which WordPress previously used for uploading media, and may still be in use by plugins. SWFObject, which WordPress previously used to embed [...]
From http://wordpress.org/
Howdy, folks! Another week, another beta. Since we released Beta 1 last week, we’ve committed more than 60 bug fixes and feature adjustments based on testing and feedback. If you’ve been testing Beta 1, please update to Beta 2 to make sure things are still working for you. If you are a theme or plugin [...]
From http://wordpress.org/
WordPress 3.4 is ready for beta testers! As always, this is software still in development and we don’t recommend that you run it on a production site — set up a test site just to play with the new version. If you break it (find a bug), please report it, and if you’re a developer, try to [...]
From http://wordpress.org/
The South by Southwest Interactive Festival (SXSW) holds a special place in the history and heart of WordPress. Though the conference has changed in the years since I first met Matt in the hallway in 2003 — before WordPress even had a name — it’s still arguably one of the most influential events in our [...]
From http://wordpress.org/
We hereby declare 2012 as the Year of the WordPress Meetup. You'll want to get in on this action. So what is a WordPress Meetup? Basically, it's people in a community getting together — meeting up — who share an interest in WordPress, whether they be bloggers, business users, developers, consultants, or any other category of person able to say, "I use WordPress in some way and I like it, and I want to meet other people who can say the same.
From http://wordpress.org/
WordPress.org is officially joining the protest against Senate Bill 968: the Protect IP Act that is coming before the U.S. Senate next week. As I wrote in my post a week ago, if this bill is passed it will jeopardize internet freedom and shift the power of the independent web into the hands of corporations. [...]
From http://wordpress.org/
You are an agent of change. Has anyone ever told you that? Well, I just did, and I meant it. Normally we stay away from from politics here at the official WordPress project — having users from all over the globe that span the political spectrum is evidence that we are doing our job and [...]
From http://wordpress.org/
WordPress 3.3.1 is now available. This maintenance release fixes 15 issues with WordPress 3.3, as well as a fix for a cross-site scripting vulnerability that affected version 3.3. Thanks to Joshua H., Hoang T., Stefan Zimmerman, Chris K., and the Go Daddy security team for responsibly disclosing the bug to our security team. Download 3.3.1 or visit [...]
From http://wordpress.org/
The latest and greatest version of the WordPress software — 3.3, named “Sonny” in honor of the great jazz saxophonist Sonny Stitt — is immediately available for download or update inside your WordPress dashboard. WordPress has had over 65 million downloads since version 3.0 was released, and in this third major iteration we’ve added significant [...]
From http://wordpress.org/
The third (and hopefully final!) release candidate for WordPress 3.3 is now available. Since RC2, we’ve done a handful of last-minute tweaks and bugfixes that we felt were necessary. Our goal is to release version 3.3 early next week, so plugin and theme authors, this is your last pre-release chance to test your plugins and themes to find any [...]
From http://wordpress.org/
I think the forum plugins tend to be slow, but that's just anecdotal.
bbPress is great, it will just require some work to make it look like your WordPress. It's not as simple as just creating a page and BAM! bbPress looks like WordPress. You will need to create a new template for bbPress that looks like your WordPress blog, or find a bbPress template that matches what you're using for WordPress.
From http://bbpress.org
With the 5.0.5 release behind us, we are now in full swing on development of 5.1. This is the first post 5.0 release that will include a bunch of new features. We want to try to keep you up to date with our 5.1 status. With support for updates from within the WP Admin, [...]
From http://simple-press.com
We know – a Simple:Press update can’t be compared to a yummy Easter Egg, but it is a picturesque way to wish all of our users a happy Easter weekend and to announce that we have made version 5.0.5 available along with some plugin and theme updates. While the updates since V5 have been mainly [...]
From http://simple-press.com
If you are reading this then you may have noticed that a lot of things have changed around here. The latest and by far the best version of Simple:Press is out in the wild, a fresh lick of paint has smartened up our websites and a new approach to supporting our plugin is in place. [...]
From http://simple-press.com
Yesterday, after a little more than a year in development, we released Version 5 of Simple:Press! At it’s heart, Simple:Press 5 is a from the ground up rewrite. For the previous 5 or so years we have developed the plugin, the codebase had remained largely the same. We were definitely getting limited in what we [...]
From http://simple-press.com
With Simple:Press 5.0 having reached Release Candidate status, we have no frozen our strings. This means the translators can now begin the process of translating Simple:Press 5.0. For 5.0, we are going to do translations a bit different. We have launched a new collaborative translation site in the hope of coaxing more folks into helping [...]
From http://simple-press.com
After a long year of redesign, restructuring and rewriting of all the code, Version 5 of Simple:Press has finally reached beta and is now available for download – later than we imagined when we started but – hopefully – better and more rugged for the long gestation. We would especially like to thank all those [...]
From http://simple-press.com
Today, we have released Simple:Press Version 4.4.5. This is primarily a bug fix release to coincide with the WordPress 3.2 release cycle. WordPress version 3.2 is currently in RC2 status and will be released any day. Simple:Press version 4.4.4 (the previous release) works just fine with WP 3.2 so an upgrade is not required unless [...]
From http://simple-press.com
Just an update on the upcoming Simple:Press 5.0 Alpha testing. A couple weeks ago we announced the alpha was nearing. We are happy to say, the Alpha will start on Friday, July 1. If you have already volunteered to participate in the Alpha, we should be contacting you this weekend for some details and preparation. [...]
From http://simple-press.com
It has been no secret for a long time now that one of our major goals for Simple:Press version 5.0 has been the replacement of our now tired old skins and icon sets with proper themes – and we are pleased to deliver on that promise. Themes are the heart and soul of version 5.0 [...]
From http://simple-press.com
The Simple Press train continues down the path for our much anticipated 5.0 release. We are inside two weeks of launching an initial alpha testing period for 5.0. The primary purpose of that alpha will be to put our theme and plugin APIs through the ringer. But, 5.0 is not all about plugins and themes. [...]
From http://simple-press.com
How can you download all images from Tumblr blogs? Tumblr is a popular microblogging platform used by many photo bloggers, and in general Tumblr blogs...
From http://feeds.quickonlinetips.com
Did you like the scent while unboxing your new Apple MacBook Pro computer? How about a signature perfume for that smell? Well it seems a lot...
From http://feeds.quickonlinetips.com
Gaming cafes have become popular in India in a big way. I recently visited F.o.G. or Federation of Gamers at a popular shopping mall in Delhi, a...
From http://feeds.quickonlinetips.com
We analysed the state of comment spam on our website over the last few years and Akismet stats reveal that a whopping 3 million spam comments...
From http://feeds.quickonlinetips.com
Apple has officially released a stand-alone flashback trojan removal tool to remove the ‘most common variants’ of the flashback malware which has infected thousands of...
From http://feeds.quickonlinetips.com
Moser Baer Zap is India’s first credit card shaped USB flash drive launched by Moser Baer. How many times do you buy a pen drive...
From http://feeds.quickonlinetips.com
Junglee.com is a new shopping search engine in India provided by Amazon.com that helps to find online shops that sell the latest gadgets, electronics, software,...
From http://feeds.quickonlinetips.com
Forget 3G – Airtel has become the first telecom operator to launch ultra-high-speed 4G LTE broadband Internet in India. Kolkata has become the first Indian...
From http://feeds.quickonlinetips.com
Does your first AdSense unit have the highest CTR? Which is the first AdSense unit loading in your HTML code? Always remember that the highest...
From http://feeds.quickonlinetips.com
I did not type a single word of this blog post! Using speech to text software is the new way to blog. Speak to type....
From http://feeds.quickonlinetips.com
The latest and greatest version of the WordPress software — 3.3, named “Sonny” in honor of the great jazz saxophonist Sonny Stitt — is immediately available for download or update inside your WordPress dashboard. WordPress has had over 65 million downloads since version 3.0 was released, and in this third major iteration we’ve added significant [...]
From http://wordpress.org
The third (and hopefully final!) release candidate for WordPress 3.3 is now available. Since RC2, we’ve done a handful of last-minute tweaks and bugfixes that we felt were necessary. Our goal is to release version 3.3 early next week, so plugin and theme authors, this is your last pre-release chance to test your plugins and themes to find any [...]
From http://wordpress.org
WordPress 3.4 is ready for beta testers! As always, this is software still in development and we don’t recommend that you run it on a production site — set up a test site just to play with the new version. If you break it (find a bug), please report it, and if you’re a developer, try to [...]
From http://wordpress.org
The South by Southwest Interactive Festival (SXSW) holds a special place in the history and heart of WordPress. Though the conference has changed in the years since I first met Matt in the hallway in 2003 — before WordPress even had a name — it’s still arguably one of the most influential events in our [...]
From http://wordpress.org
We hereby declare 2012 as the Year of the WordPress Meetup. You'll want to get in on this action. So what is a WordPress Meetup? Basically, it's people in a community getting together — meeting up — who share an interest in WordPress, whether they be bloggers, business users, developers, consultants, or any other category of person able to say, "I use WordPress in some way and I like it, and I want to meet other people who can say the same.
From http://wordpress.org
WordPress.org is officially joining the protest against Senate Bill 968: the Protect IP Act that is coming before the U.S. Senate next week. As I wrote in my post a week ago, if this bill is passed it will jeopardize internet freedom and shift the power of the independent web into the hands of corporations. [...]
From http://wordpress.org
You are an agent of change. Has anyone ever told you that? Well, I just did, and I meant it. Normally we stay away from from politics here at the official WordPress project — having users from all over the globe that span the political spectrum is evidence that we are doing our job and [...]
From http://wordpress.org
WordPress 3.3.1 is now available. This maintenance release fixes 15 issues with WordPress 3.3, as well as a fix for a cross-site scripting vulnerability that affected version 3.3. Thanks to Joshua H., Hoang T., Stefan Zimmerman, Chris K., and the Go Daddy security team for responsibly disclosing the bug to our security team. Download 3.3.1 or visit [...]
From http://wordpress.org
WordPress 3.3.2 is available now and is a security update for all previous versions. Three external libraries included in WordPress received security updates: Plupload (version 1.5.4), which WordPress uses for uploading media. SWFUpload, which WordPress previously used for uploading media, and may still be in use by plugins. SWFObject, which WordPress previously used to embed [...]
From http://wordpress.org
Howdy, folks! Another week, another beta. Since we released Beta 1 last week, we’ve committed more than 60 bug fixes and feature adjustments based on testing and feedback. If you’ve been testing Beta 1, please update to Beta 2 to make sure things are still working for you. If you are a theme or plugin [...]
From http://wordpress.org
I think the forum plugins tend to be slow, but that's just anecdotal.
bbPress is great, it will just require some work to make it look like your WordPress. It's not as simple as just creating a page and BAM! bbPress looks like WordPress. You will need to create a new template for bbPress that looks like your WordPress blog, or find a bbPress template that matches what you're using for WordPress.
From http://bbpress.org/
I guess I'll try a forum plugin for WordPress. Do you happen to know any of the downfalls of doing such? I've just heard such great things about bbpress.
From http://bbpress.org/
“What makes a blog popular? What drives page views?” These are the questions that we’ve been try ]]>
Out of the 30+ million blogs on WordPress.com, we randomly selected a sample of almost 100,000 blogs to perform a regression analysis. Here are our findings, together with a few recommendations. We hope that this provides some new information, and kudos to you in case you’ve already incorporated these tips into your blog – the data suggests that you’re on the right track. Keep it up!
Make your blog easy to follow – It almost sounds obvious, but the simplest way to build more awareness is to make it easier to do so. Make sure that you have the follow widget as visible as possible. If your readers receive a notification every time you post, or see your post in their reader, there is a much higher chance that they will revisit your blog.
Comments, Comments, Comments – The most successful blogs, we found, created and encouraged a dialogue with their readers. The best way to make people more engaged with your writing is for you to engage back and start a conversation. In your posts, encourage people to comment. Also, make sure that you reply to people’s comments and continue the dialogue. This back and forth conversation is a significant driver of page views; holding all else equal, every additional comment can potentially drive up to 18 incremental page views! You can start by simply asking follow-up questions at the end of each post: ”have you ever done X?”; “do you think Y is acceptable?”. You can read some more thoughts on how to build your audience and how to get more comments.
Post Frequently and Regularly – Your readers want to know that you are there for them and that you are “on it”. If you post frequently and regularly and have enabled the follow feature as we mentioned above, checking your blog could become a daily routine for your readers. Even if it’s a short post, write something new as frequently as possible, and at regular intervals. (The Daily Post can help with ideas, as can the advice on how to get more traffic)
While these three tips were shown to be the most important drivers of page views in our analysis, you might consider other parameters, which we found as having a partially significant effect: syndicating your post to Twitter and Facebook (using Publicize), for example, could lead to additional page views.
Happy blogging!
The API gives developers access to posts and comments, as well as the ability to Follow, Like, or Reblog content for users. Other features from WordPress.com, like the daily handpicked content on Freshly Pressed, are also available through the API.
An excellent example of an application that uses the new API is the Windows 8 WordPress.com app, available now.
Our goal with the new API is to simplify the experience of using and adding to the data available on WordPress.com. To do this, we now use the OAuth2 protocol to authenticate requests for data. To retrieve public data, you can make unauthenticated requests. To perform actions, such as making new posts or comments, you would need to make authenticated requests. When the API returns data, we now return a standardized JSON object for ease-of-use.
The REST API also self-documents itself; as we add new endpoints, the documentation on our Developer Resources blog will auto-update to provide you with the latest information. In addition, you’ll also have access to a Developer Console, which will allow you to run real REST API queries and see real JSON data directly in your web browser. You can read more about the Console here.

Ready to build an app and integrate it with WordPress.com? Great! You can now sign up for and manage your OAuth2 tokens without waiting through an approval cycle. If you have any questions or feedback on the API, please get in touch with us. Make sure to follow the Developer Resources blog for news, updates, and documentation about the REST API and other awesome services we are making available to developers seeking to integrate with WordPress.com.
Also See The Daily Post’s advice on Comment Community, and our previous post on Comment Etiquette.
It wasn’t just a one-time event! The Automattic Worldwide WP 5k is back again in 2012! Set your timers for April 29th! At Automattic we work from all over the world, and we use internal blogs for socializing and exchanging non-work ideas in addition to making WordPress.com and our other products more awesome. One of the things we’re really concerned about is staying healthy – we even have an entire internal blog dedicated to fitness.
We had a great idea: Get all Automatticians from 79 cities & 24 countries to run/walk a 5k on the same day! This way we can get some exercise together as a company even though we’re apart (though we won’t rule out a softball or Texas scramble at our next meetup).
A year later, and there are now 105 Automatticians we hope will take part in the 5k all around the world in 2012.
We want to invite you to join us, WordPress.com users (and self-hosted WP users, too!), in the Worldwide WP 5k – the 5k blogged around the world! The date is approaching, so read on to find out how to participate.
WHAT IT IS: A 5k run/walk (approximately 3.1 miles). You can run, walk, or skip. It’s up to you. There’s no time limit and there’s just one requirement: that you participate! You can do it inside or outside, on a treadmill or on a track, or even do a swim or a bike ride instead of running/walking – just get moving!
A 5k is roughly equal to:
If you ran/walked last year’s Worldwide WP 5k, why not try to shave a few minutes off your time and set a personal record (PR)?
WHEN: We’re all busy, but we want you to participate, so we’re giving you some flexibility, too. The WWWP5k is set for Sunday, April 29th, but you can do your run/walk anytime from April 23rd-29th (you’ve got a week to fit it in).
WHO: Anyone who’s ever used or loved WordPress (and your families and friends, too). Heck, the entire Internet is invited!
HOW: Post about it on your site and tag the post “wwwp5k” so we can find you (and for a chance to be Freshly Pressed).
If you’re not on WordPress.com, link back to this announcement post so others can find it and participate, too.
You’re welcome to blog your entire route and your preparation (videoblog, perhaps?) but above all we’d love to see where you are and how you’re completing your 5k. Give us a picture of you and what you see when you cross the finish line and tell us your location as you complete your 5k with the rest of the world. Some tools & suggestions:
If you’re not up to running this year, never fear, you can get started with the Couch to 5k method which several Automatticians like – 9 weeks from couch potato to running a 5k, and be ready to run for next year. But make sure to walk this year – no excuses!
Will you be joining us for the Automattic Worldwide WP 5k on April 29th?
Heads up, Custom Design users! The Custom CSS feature on WordPress.com now supports all of the new features of CSS3. This means that you can use gradients, animation, multiple backgrounds, @media queries, and many more new features in your custom CSS.
If you want to make your images pop and tilt, give your post titles a polished letterpress embossed look, or add high-dpi graphics for retina displays—you can do that. If you’ve just got to have a Machu Picchu color palette complete with linear gradients to show off your lovely llama, you can do that too. CSS3 opens the doors to all the latest cutting edge things going on in the web design world today. If you can dream it, you can do it.TM
The CSS editor itself has been upgraded too! Now that we’re using Ace, it’s just like having a desktop code editor in the browser: syntax coloring, auto-indentation, and immediate feedback on the validity of the CSS you’re writing are just a few of its features.
If you don’t have the Custom Design upgrade and you want to use these awesome new features, including fabulous Custom Fonts which are included with the upgrade, you can add it to your blog from the Store link in your dashboard.
Mimbo Pro is a sharp-looking, premium magazine theme from Pro Theme Design. It takes your content and formats it in a structured way grouped by category. Using all of the standard WordPress functionality, custom headers, custom backgrounds, post thumbnails, custom navigation and more – Mimbo Pro makes your content look awesome. You can get a better idea of just how awesome on the theme showcase.
Blaskan is a minimal free theme focused on blogging, designed to present your text, photos, and videos in a clean, contemporary interface. Your readers will love that its responsive layout means your content looks attractive—and readable—on devices of all sizes. The classically simple design sports crisp typography, three layout options, and post thumbnails support. Designed by Per Sandström, Blaskan is a perfect fit for a journal or photoblog. Learn more on the Theme Showcase.
Vintage Kitchen is a food- and kitchen-oriented premium theme designed by Caroline Moore. What’s so special about this theme is, as you can see, the brilliant look of it! It has fun and colorful—yet balanced—illustrations, a script typeface, and subtle textures. Together, all of these design features can set your food blog apart from others. Take a closer look on the Theme Showcase.
Have fun checking out these themes! We’re looking forward to seeing how you use them on your blog.
We know many o ]]>WordPress.com blogger scored a book deal for You Are Not So Smart. But what if you want to do it all yourself? As a blogger who has authored several successful books with publishers, and who works on WordPress.com, I recently self-published a book based entirely on posts from my blog. I wanted to see what I could learn, and I’m here to share it all with you.
The book I self-published is called Mindfire: Big Ideas for Curious Minds. It’s a collection of my best essays from my WordPress blog at scottberkun.com, where I write about ideas, creativity and leadership. The book has done well, and has often been in the top 100 books on philosophy and other categories on amazon since it was published.
There are four questions I often get asked by other bloggers.
This is the wrong way to start. A book is a different reading experience than a blog, and to “shape” a blog into a book assumes words are like clay, where you can shove them into any shape you like. A book is a longer reading experience, and every chapter, or every page, needs to line up in a readable way with the others. It will take some effort to rework material written for a blog to fit well together as a book. Don’t start with the assumption you’ll include every single post on your blog, or keep them in the chronological order they were written.
The first step is to make two lists: possible posts and possible concepts. You might discover a book concept that’s strong, but you only have 10 or 12 posts that fit. That’s ok. You can always choose to write more. Of course the theme of your entire blog could be the theme for a book, but consider other concepts too.
I went back to the beginning and made a list of posts that might be good enough to include. I made a separate list of possible book concepts. One concept I saw in some of my posts was intelligent provocation: asking big questions and offering intelligent and entertaining answers. I filtered the list based on that concept, and arrived at 45 possible posts. Then I hired an editor to help refine the list, and the result was 30 posts that, while all written independently, fit together into an excellent read.
There are services like Blurb or Blog2print that will take your WordPress.com blog and build a book from it. If your WordPress blog is self-hosted, and not on WordPress.com, you might take a look at Anthologize, a plugin that automates the process of converting your blog into an e-book. But these services do nothing to shape your work into a great read. No software can do this for you. There is an enormous distance between a ‘book’ and a ‘book someone will enjoy reading’ and that distance is closed only by your hard work.
Plan to take a draft version of your book and ask people to read it. Ask for feedback on improving the order of posts, or which posts don’t fit. You’ll notice people expect tighter and more careful writing in a book, compared to reading posts online. It’s acting on this feedback that makes the difference between a book that feels like a book, and a book that feels like a bunch of random posts thrown together. Revise posts, or write new material, to develop the book into a singular strong narrative. I asked for volunteers on my blog for people to give feedback on the drafts and their input was a key part of making the book so strong.
To go the traditional route, you’ll need to reach out to publishers or agents and try to find one that’s interested. This takes significant effort beyond writing the book itself. In all cases, traditional or self-published, the hardest part is writing and editing an excellent book. If you’re dedicated to your book, self-publishing can allow you to focus your energy on making the book better, rather than in searching for someone to give you a chance you can give yourself.
If you already have a well edited manuscript, you are most of the way there: the technical parts of self-publishing are surprisingly easy. You take your complete manuscript, after it has been copyedited and reviewed by an editor, and convert it to a PDF. With a PDF in hand, there are many services that will convert your PDF to a print or digital book for you.
For Mindfire, I used Lightning Source for the print edition, and a service called BookBaby to manage the digital editions. These services list the book on amazon.com, and it can be purchased like any other book on amazon.com, including Kindle, iBook and other digital versions. It doesn’t cost much: maybe a few hundred dollars. If you choose to only produce a digital version, it can be much cheaper.
The more work you do, the cheaper the services are. If you are willing to hire your own editor and cover designer, or do those tasks yourself, and take care of details like getting an ISBN number, you can user services like Lightning Source or CreateSpace to simply print and distribute he book. But if you want to hire people to help you, services like CreateSpace and Lulu.com let you pay them to take care of many steps on your behalf.
The rise of the iPad and Kindle have proven the demand for longer reading experiences, experiences longer than what the web provides. A compilation of your work offers a deeper experience than what people get through your blog alone. Blogs are fantastic for small to medium length reading experiences, but to consume 40 or 50 posts without interruption, posts that are chosen to fit together on a specific theme, you need something else. A book is a better experience for this kind of continuous reading.
A book gives you an object demonstrating your talents to potential clients, business partners or anyone in the world you wish to impress. Since a book is often perceived as being a greater accomplishment than having a blog, it can be a stronger invitation to a new reader to give your work a try. It also allows your fans and friends to buy copies of your book to give to their friends as gifts: it helps them help you spread word of your work.
If you involve your readers as your produce the book, they will naturally help spread word when it’s done. Using polls I asked my readers to help pick the title, to give feedback on several rounds of cover designs, and many other decisions. This attracted new readers curious about how books are made, and allowed me to collaborate with my readers on the book, increasing their interest in seeing it finished and released.
It’s counterintuitive, but giving the book away for free for a time helps a new book, and your blog, tremendously.
First it rewards your regular readers – who deserves a free copy more than your regular readers? The free give-away helps enlist them to reach out to their networks to bring more people to your blog for the first time. I gave Mindfire away for free for 48 hours, and had over 10,000 people download the book. It’s true my blog is popular, but many of those downloads were by people who had never heard of me before. My great fans on my site helped spread word on twitter and Facebook of my free offer, spreading my reach for future blog posts and books. I still give 1/3rd of the book away for free as a preview for anyone who wants to give it a try.
You’re a blogger: start by blogging about it. Ask your readers if they’re interested in helping you work on a book. Post your list of book concepts and see what they think. Perhaps there’s an author, editor or designer who reads your work that can lend their expertise. Take a careful look at the work you’ve already written and start thinking about what concepts might match.
Have questions about converting your blog into a book? Leave a comment.
Designed by Jason Schuller of Press75, On Demand was created to bring videos front and center. Adding them into posts is a snap, and you’re free to use virtually any embeddable video format from any video service. On Demand also works brilliantly with WordPress.com shortcodes.
Also included in On Demand is a custom Featured Posts widget that allows you to pull in any number of posts from a specified category, as well as several nice Theme Options to help you show off your site content exactly as you’d like it.
There are lots of other goodies offered by On Demand. A custom background color, custom website logo, social media links, four widget areas, and full width page template all come rolled into this video-friendly theme.
On Demand is a premium upgrade for your blog; read more about its features on the Theme Showcase or dive right into previewing it on your blog from Appearance → Themes.
As more and more of you take advantage of our fabulous Upgrades, we’ve been conscious of the increasing need to offer a great way to manage your purchases. What if you could track all of your upgrades, manage them, renew them and *gasp* even cancel them, all in one place? Well, starting today you’ll see a new page in the Store section of your dashboard: My Upgrades.
On that page you’ll find the list of the upgrades purchased for the site you are managing, followed by a lists of the upgrades you have on your other sites, if any.
Domain registration, mapping, Custom Design, Space upgrade, VideoPress or Premium theme, you will find them all here, along with links allowing you to renew, enable auto renew, update credit card data, or cancel ( and get a refund within the appropriate timeframe ).
As you can see, the status of each upgrade and its expiration date are clearly displayed there, with some handy color-coding:
You’ll also find some handy dandy links to more information about each upgrade, just in case you forget why you bought it! When appropriate, we give you links to the settings page, too.
We’ve got plenty of exciting updates planned, including the ability to visualize, save, and print your own billing reports and purchase receipts – so keep an eye on the page for more!
Never forget a renewal anymore, visit the My Upgrades section of the dashboard.
First, we have Standard, a sleek, exacting theme designed by 8BIT for professional blogging with an emphasis on contextual display of your content.
Your content, in each of its various forms, deserves to be presented with unique distinction. Thanks to Standard’s support of post formats, it can. Image, video, quote, status, and link posts all receive a beautiful visual treatment.
If your visitors are browsing on a mobile device or tablet, Standard has got you covered. Its responsive layout adapts gracefully to smaller screens. View it in action on the demo site, or head on over to the Theme Showcase to read more about Standard and its features.
Next, we have Chalk, an innovative theme designed with a strong focus on online educators by The Theme Foundry.
Posts containing to-do lists, chats, links, podcasts, photos, and video are beautifully styled. Chalk comes equipped with a responsive layout allowing your blog to look great on screens both large and small. A custom options screen is also provided enabling you to change colors, add social media links and much more. Want to discover more about Chalk? Head on over to the Theme Showcase and read all about it or take it for a test-spin in the demo site.