plans continue

for the hiatus and site upgrade. My punch list is evolving:


Let publicists know about the break and re-luanch plans-- emailed Julie, Miriam and Tracee on 4/23 (done)


Let advertisers know about break and re-launch plans. msg'd all 8 advertisers on CMF. will take PW widget down during hiatus.

TRL on hiatus 4/29--5/26 4/29--migration post goes up. post is closed to comments.

1) JD creates mirror

On mirror site:

2) change theme to http://wordpress.org/extend/themes/whiteplus

substitue existing header graphic for theme included graphic in new theme. re-size rather than crop the header image. make sure the barcode scanner's line shows


3) Consolidate all of the About pages under one About Page that has links to About Me And About This Blog, About The Links, About The Bookstore, About Books and Libraries, About My Audience, About Libdrone.com,


Add widgets and privacy policy page-- this page may go under About or under something else but definitely buried.

Add review copies and submission page-- this can under Something


4) Change dotCom page title to Blogroll. continue to promote the libdrone.com addy but get rid of the too cutesy dotCOM page name

5) Review and Revise Suggestions and Guest Reviews page

6) Add bookstore page using Amazon's a store AND Powell's bookshelf pages. "Freedom of Choice"

Ask JD about putting up a second WP blog to use for the sales and blogroll pages. gives me a second sidebar to sell ads in. And now that I am signed up for Amazon I CAN do the LibraryThing THING as below, on the store site

7) Experiment and work with widgets and widget placements to get a very well designed an professional looking layout

Add a Welcome page that explains all of the changes


8) check and test EVERYTHING three times

9) Write and schedule May 26th, 27th, 28th and 29th posts about Michael Connelly's The Scarecrow, Barry Eisler's Fault Lines, Steve Luxemborg's Annies Ghost, Joel Goldman's The Dead Man


consider) ??Renew paid Library Thing membership Re integrate Libary Thing Links to all posts less than one year old. Consider using Library Thing widgets to place long strings of book covers on some pages. (but would have to sign up for Amazon to get paid and don't really want to do that. Include a link to library thing profile in sidebar leaning maybe to Yes on this

May 24th-- JD points the URL to the new site a full day plus before the Resuming post goes live

(gives time to work out any kinks and can put up a 'how do you like the new look' post as soon as the new site is up and running properly)


sent to advertisers:




Hello,

From April 29th to May 26th my blog The Thin Red Line will be going on hiatus. The site

will be up (and will continue to get traffic from search visitors, which is my main source of

traffic) but I will not be posting any updates during this time. When I relaunch on May

26th, I will have a brand new look and theme and a number of new pages and site features. I

am writing to you because you have an advertisement on my site that will be running during this

planned hiatus. As I said, the site will be up and will no doubt continue to receive search

visitors, so your ad will receive some impressions. If however, you feel that you want to

pull the ad during the hiatus, just reply and let me know and I will request that your ad be

canceled and your credits refunded. Alternatively, I would be happy to place an ad on your

site when I re-launch next month. I wanted to let you know about this a few days in advance,

just to keep you in the loop. Thank you for advertising on The Thin Red Line, which will

be back for it's third great year starting 5/26.

Alan

coming changes over on libdrone

In a little more than month from now The Thin Red Line will be Two Years Old and in preparation for that milestone I am going to take a hiatus from publishing libdrone.info from April 29 to May 26th. When my hiatus begins I will have written and published 351 posts, an average of 3.36 or so posts per week. (Under promise, over deliver. That's why I changed my announced post frequency from "almost daily" to thrice weekly. The daily posting target was frankly too much work. And I spend a great deal of time selecting and reading the books that I review (it actually got me in trouble, at least to the degree of a Warning for reading on duty last week; oops) and I definitely want some time to reflect, review, revise and re-launch the site into my third year. This is my tentative plan for the hiatus and relaunch:

TRL on hiatus 4/29--5/26 4/29--migration post goes up. post is closed to comments.

1) JD creates mirror

On mirror site:

2) change theme to http://wordpress.org/extend/themes/whiteplus

substitue existing header graphic for theme included graphic in new theme. re-size rather than crop the header image. make sure the barcode scanner's line shows


3) Consolidate all of the About pages under one About Page that has links to About Me And About This Blog, About The Links, About The Bookstore, About Books and Libraries, About My Audience, About Libdrone.com,


Add widgets and privacy policy page-- this page may go under About or under something else but definitely buried. another buried page??

4) Change dotCom page title to Blogroll. continue to promote the libdrone.com URL but get rid of the too cutesy dotCOM page name

5) Review and Revise Suggestions and Guest Reviews page

6) Add bookstore page using powell's partner bookshelves

7) Experiment and work with widgets and widget placements to get a very well designed and professional looking layout

8) check and test EVERYTHING three times

9) Write and schedule May 26th post about Michael Connelly's The Scarecrow


May 24th-- JD points the URL to the new site a full day plus before the Resuming post goes live.


The plan probably isn't complete in that I also need to plan policies and procedures to deal with advertisers. My post announcing the hiatus that will be up (but Not commentable on) the entire time I am offline is written and assumes an openly celebratory tone and announces a very special book selection for the come back. This is my first experience doing a written plan for a blot or website transition. Have you given your site a major makeover? If you did, please leave a comment and let me know any tips or suggestions you have.