Everything Typepad

Turn Your Blog Into A Book

Our friends at Blurb, the book printers, have a special New Year offer just for bloggers who want to convert their blogs to books. So if you are ready to make the leap from the computer screen to the coffee table make sure you grab one of the discount codes.

Naturally they featured a TypePad blogger, Kristin Espinasse of French Word-A-Day, for the promotion.

Kristin chronicles her adventures in France in this beautiful blog. Check out the interview with Kristin at the Blurberati blog and learn her secrets to success. Her number one tip is familiar to all bloggers: just get started, don’t wait to be perfect!

If you want to create your own blog book then get cracking! The blogger offer ends on Sunday January 31, 2010.* Just type in the appropriate code below at Blurb checkout and click APPLY:

USD$ Promo Code: BOOKMYBLOG (save US$10)
GBP£ Promo Code: BOOKMYBLOG2 (save £6 )
EUR€ Promo Code: BOOKMYBLOG3 (save €8)
AUD$ Promo Code: BOOKMYBLOG4 (save AUD$12)

Here’s the Blurb team’s fine print:
* Offer valid through January 31, 2010 (11:59 p.m. PST). The discount is applied toward the product total on one Blurb book made by you. Maximum discounts for each code are listed above. Not valid toward items in the Blurb Gift Center. This offer is good for one-time use and cannot be combined with other promotional codes or used for adjustments on previous orders.

P.S. Don’t forget to leave us a link to your finished books on the Blurb book store in the comments – so we can all check them out!

P.P.S. If you know someone who *should* have there own book, get them started with their own TypePad blog.

Help UNICEF Raise Money for Haiti Relief Efforts

Design Within Reach is matching donations to UNICEF to help the victims of the devastating earthquake. To make your donation go farther, visit the DWR blog and follow the donation link. (To learn more about UNICEF's efforts, visit the UNICEF blog.)

If there are other matching donations or other ways to help around the TypePad community, leave a comment and let others know.

TypePad for the iPhone: Update Now Available

The latest upgrade to the TypePad for iPhone application is now available for download in the iTunes App Store. The free TypePad iPhone application works for all TypePad blogs, including Micro.

New features:

• Automatically include location information in posts. You can set this up in the new settings section.
• Update Twitter when new posts are published.
• More control of your photo size and quality sent from your iPhone.

Bug fixes:

• Improvements to overall stability and user experience.

Go check out TypePad for the iPhone now. >

Help Your Friends Get Started on TypePad

If you are one of those people who has found themselves wistfully thinking "if only I had a dollar for every time I recommended TypePad to friends..." we have some good news for you. You can have $30!

TypePad works with Commission Junction, an affiliate sales management company, which rewards friends of TypePad for recommending our service. Every full sale of TypePad Pro that comes from the link or banner on your site will be tracked and rewarded.

To collect your 2010 windfall just sign up to the TypePad affiliate program now. You'll register with Commission Junction, add TypePad as a partner, then select a badge for your site and away you go!

Plus we have created a special New Years discount code for you to hand out in conjunction with the sale. If they enter "2010RESOLUTION" in the discount code field when they register, they'll get 15% off the regular price of TypePad Pro AND you collect $30. Everybody wins! The code expires at the end of January though so the clock is ticking.

We took a moment over the holidays to create some prettier badges that you can use on your sites. They have a more arty, crafty feel and are available from within Commission Junction. We hope you like them. But if you think you can design something better we would LOVE to see it. We will happily feature you, your work and your blog in return. Let us know in the comments.

     
 

Join the TypePad affiliate program on Commission Junction now and help us get everybody blogging in 2010.

Blogging Your New Year's Resolutions

Some people love to make resolutions. And some people, a much smaller set, love to follow through with their resolutions. TypePad marketing guru Claire Alcock is one of those people who loves making resolutions and tries her darndest to keep them.  This year she took a new approach to the resolution project and documented it on TypePad Micro.

We asked Claire a couple questions about her resolution process.

Why did you blog your resolution?

In short, the new and improved me -- the 2010 version -- needed to socialize my resolutions. Traditionally, I would make a little list of the things I wanted to achieve in a notebook that would burn a hole in my pocket. I knew what I had resolved, so did the notebook, but no one else did. It was a battle between me and my conscience. You can predict the usual outcome.

So this year I decided to do something different. Blogging my resolutions has allowed me to offload some of the burden of the notebook and focus my energy of achieving my goals, rather than feeling guilty about a neglected list. It combines all the best pieces of project management: structuring my thoughts through writing them down, assigning goals and actions, socializing the plan, getting feedback from the team. Accountability is an amazing motivator.

Micro has been the perfect tool for this. Making the blog took about 10 minutes. Everyday I search the web and TypePad blogs looking for inspiration and there is a ton. When I find good stuff I use the TypePad bookmarklet in my browser to capture it in an instant. Comment notifications remind me to revisit the blog regularly and review “the List”. I can’t ignore it!

Commentors also offer support and encouragement on my goals. But the best thing is, as I cross post the blog to update my Facebook status my friends have chimed in as well with great thoughts and funny reactions. Suddenly it feels like a group effort.

This is not a new idea, I know there are tons of TypePad bloggers like Susanna's Sketchbook who were doing this long before me!

What are some other ways people can use a blog for a resolution?

This process of writing out plans or tracking progress towards a goal in a social way can be used in so many ways. It seems everyone’s favorite resolution after the holidays is losing weight. Why not put your target weight on a blog, outline how you intend to get there and then update 5 minutes each day on your progress. You might even inspire others while you’re at it. Here's a truly awesome example from the Chic Life.

2010 may be the year you have decided to turn things around career wise. Define your goal on your blog, list out the things you have to do to get there -- update your resume and LinkedIn profile, register with a recruitment firm, go to professional networking events-- and track your work. It’s today’s check list.You can be sure the information you share will be useful to other people about to embark on a similar journey.

Have you already broken any resolutions?

Ummmm…. Well, knowing myself only too well, I built in an escape clause to my “No drinking in January” rule. The "No drinking alcohol, except red wine in an emergency"? I totally cashed that in last night. And yes, I have already come clean on my blog.

What blogs will you use to help with your resolutions?

A few I've been reviewing this year are 350.org, lifeinaventicup.com, Sage Spa, and The 17th Man.

Have started a resolution blog like Claire’s? Let us know in the comments.

Looking Forward to a Great 2010

Happy New Year from the TypePad team.

It’s the first Monday of 2010 and we thought we’d look forward to some exciting things coming up in TypePad-land this year. Here are the main themes for the beginning of the year.

• Connecting – online and offline – to fellow TypePad community members. Watch this blog for upcoming meet-up events in your area and online events to help you discover great people on TypePad. We’ll also be introducing new features to make it easier for you to connect with bloggers who share your interests, whether your scrapbooker, a bookkeeper, a designer, an economist or anything in between.

• Looking good in pictures. TypePad is the home to some of the most creative and beautiful artists online. We’re improving our image and media management in 2010 so you can spend more time making your art and your readers can spend more time gushing over your amazing creations.

• Great theme design. In addition to making it easier for you to customize your own design, we’re also going to make it easier for any designer to make a great looking theme on TypePad. And we’ll be adding more themes from around the TypePad community.

• Getting the most out of TypePad. We’re super-excited about the launch of TypePad for Dummies in February, written by Melanie Nelson and Shannon Lowe of the TypePad community. We’ll also be adding more resources, both from the community and from our TypePad One team, to help you create the perfect site.

We hope you had a happy and safe holiday. Now let’s get blogging.

Confetti-Filled Thank You

Just a personal note from me with some news that's both sad and happy. While it's sad to say that I'll be stepping aside in my official capacity as community manager soon, I'm happy to say that I'm not going far. I'll be helping our friends (and neighbors!) at Get Satisfaction as a community and account manager. I know I'll see all of you participating over in the TypePad forums there, right?

A huge, ginormous, *confetti*-filled THANK YOU to everyone in the TypePad community. You've all been an integral part of my path as a community manager, and a huge part of my life at Six Apart. It's been a pleasure and a delight to get to know so many of you: via your blogs, in person, running into you on the street...you're all amazing. I'm so proud to be part of this community, and happy that you're here too.

We've got some great community manager prospects on deck for the new TypePad One team, but if you know someone in the Bay Area that you know would be great, please let us know. It's an amazing place to work, with some of the smartest people I've had the good fortune to work with.

Here's a little snapshot of my life over the past 5+ years at Six Apart: