Hello All!
So, normally I like to write a nice long post for you, every week, just to let you know what’s going on in my life, and what I’m thinking about. The thing is, this week the post would have read a bit like, “Ack! Ack! I’m writing a book and oh my god I’m writing a book, and I think I’m going to really have to turn in this book in in three months and I want it to be good, oh God. Must write book!” Next week, my goal is to have more coherent thoughts, but we’ll see. So, I’m going to spare you a more extensive update as to the contents of my brain, and instead tell you about the changes I’ve been making to APW, that I’m pretty excited about.
More Conversations: Those of you paying close attention will have noticed that at the end of most posts these days, you’ll see a purple band that says “More Conversations,” with links to a few other posts. This isn’t one of those link-within widgets, that automatically creates links to a bunch of posts with similar titles. Nope! This is a tool that we built so we could suggest other posts from way back in the archives on similar subjects. We pick the links ourselves, and sometimes I get all excited when I find a post in the archives I’d forgotten about (because, um, APW has a lot of archives these days). So if a post on any given day hits a nerve, and you want more conversations on the topic… well… we picked out a few that we thought you might like.
Share This: At the end of every post these days, you’ll see three icons: the Facebook “like” button, the Twitter button, and the Stumble Upon button. This means if you really like a post, it’s really easy to share it (For serious! I’ve been sharing all the APW posts on Twitter this way, and it’s awesome.) Lately, I’ve been being asked by readers what they can to do support APW (Which always sort of shocks me. It somehow doesn’t occur to me that people want to help. I’m a little dim.) And one of the simplest ways to help us out is to share a link, if you particularly like a post one day. Like it on Facebook, or Twitter it. Or if you really love us? Stumble it. That matters to us in a huge, huge, way.
Comments: We did some general fixing up of comments, trying to incorporate all your requests. Now, when you respond to a comment, your comment box pops up right below the comment you’re responding to, instead of at the end of the page (thank God). But more importantly, for those of you who are spelling impaired like I am, the comment box now has its own spell check feature, plus you can edit your comment after you submit it, or request for it to be deleted, which should make you look smarter.
Editz: First up, let me be really clear: I’m dyslexic, so spelling is a problem for me. Assistant Editor Lauren tries to make everything pretty for you, but sometimes she makes a mistake. So! Now, at the end of every post, you’ll see an Editz button. If you catch us making a mistake, hit the button, mark the mistake, and we can easily make the change. Wheeee!
Sponsored Posts & How To Posts: You may have noticed that Sponsored Posts and How-To Posts now have a pretty little splash of color across the top, with a bit of explanation. This allows us to run How-To posts while reminding you that DIY is not necessarily *better* or cheaper (easy traps to fall into). Plus, it makes sure that you always understand that sponsored posts are paid slots, and that you know a little bit about how I pick advertisers, and what APW’s business model is. Because I’m all about full disclosure, always.
How You Can Help APW (But only because you asked…)
As I mentioned, I’ve been getting asked recently about ways that y’all can help APW. I’m not joking that I’ve been baffled that people wanted to know these things. I’m dense enough that it never occurred to me that people actually wanted to know how they could help. So, I thought I’d give you a really clear list of things you can do to help, other then read and comment and tell us what you love and what you want to see more of (because those are by far the most important things).
- You can shop on Amazon by clicking through our Books section of the Blogs & Books page (that way we get almost 6% of every penny you spend. What? Easy).
- You can share APW links that you particularly like through the Share-This feature I explained in the post.
- You can shop APW sponsors for your wedding (but you knew that).
- And you can always give money anytime. Think of it as the price you pay for a magazine subscription, and know that every penny of that money goes to Alyssa & Lauren‘s salaries.
But mostly, you can keep on being your awesome selves: reading, commenting, sharing stories, and generally making me think I have the best job in the world.
Now, um, back to writing that book.
Smooches,
Meg
