Wednesday, February 8, 2017

What to Do? … What to Do?


Have you ever come upon a situation that made you stop and say to yourself, ‘what to do?’ I’m not talking about a serious problem more one of confusion.

As you’ve probably already guessed, this isn’t going to be a post about books but more about this and that book-related. It’s one of those posts where I’ve been pondering things and would love your opinions and suggestions.

My first dilemma deals with Gmail and not being organized.

I’ve used Gmail since I began blogging in 2009. I noticed recently that I’ve used up 47% of my 15GB. I realized that I have emails from guest posts and tours that date back to 2009 saved in my Gmail folders.

How long do you keep emails? What about emails dealing with guest posts and tours?

I try to clean out my inbox daily, but I do a poor job of it. I leave items to go back to the next day or the next and then … well you know how that goes.

Okay, once you’ve downloaded the material from an email, how long do you keep that information? I create a folder for each day’s blog post. In that folder, I put the word document(s) and photos that make the post, as well as a copy of what the post actually says. I write everything out before I type it into blogger. I put the day’s folder into a folder for the month that it posts and then that folder into a year folder. So, if you click on folder 2016 you’ll see 12 folders, one for each month of the year. If you click on folder December 2016 Authors, you’ll see a folder for each day I posted.

Can you see where this is going? I have folders dating back to 2013 on my computer. I would have had them back to 2009 but my old computer crashed and those earlier files are still on the old hard drive. Do I need to keep them longer than a year?

My next issue deals with blogger. I know, I hear your groans already. I used to use Windows Live Writer to prepare and schedule my posts. Since it no longer works, I prepare the post in blogger. I can’t size my photos other than small, medium, etc. and I don’t know how to link them to a site. I’ve lucked up a couple of times where you could click on a photo and it take you to another site but I don’t know how I did it. That happens when you try about 10 or 15 different things and then finally give up and something works.

Do you use a special program to prepare your post for blogger? How do you link photos to a site in blogger? Is there any way to size photos in blogger other than small, medium, etc.?

I’ve thought about changing over to WordPress, but that’s a lot to change over. Besides, I’m not overjoyed with WordPress at the moment. I use WordPress for MC Book Tours.

I like WordPress for the most part except for its fonts. Maybe it’s because I’m currently using the free WordPress with a free template, but I can’t select the fonts I want to use when I prepare a post. I can only select from Paragraph, Heading 1-6, and Preformatted.

How can you pick the font you want to use when you’re writing your post in WordPress?

Now that I’ve asked for your thoughts and suggestions on all these questions, I’m going to do a bit of shameless promoting.

MC Book Tours currently has one book tour underway and preparing for two upcoming tours.

Author William Michael Davidson is on tour with his novel, THE REMNANT (which was released yesterday by Dancing Lemur Press L.L.C.). You can check out his tour schedule HERE. Follow along each day and enter the giveaway to win a copy of his book. The tour ends Feb. 22. Don’t let the genre stop you from checking out the book I think you’ll be surprised by what you find.

The next upcoming tour is for author Maria Santomasso-Hyde’s HE GAVE ME BARN CATS. This novel will be released March 14 by Dancing Lemur Press. The tour will run March 7 – 21. You can read more about this charming story HERE as well as sign up to participate in the tour.

The next tour features author Hank Quense’s novel, CREATING STORIES. This writing resource book will be released April 1 by Strange World Publishing. The tour will run March 20 – April 14. To learn more about Hank’s book and to sign up to participate in the tour, click HERE.

If you have a book coming out, be sure and check out the services offered at MC Book Tours.

Okay, now that you’ve read my ramblings PLEASE share your thoughts and suggestions. Do I keep all the old emails and folders? How can I size photos in Blogger and add links to them? How do you change fonts in WordPress? What problems are you having?

6 comments:

  1. I adjust the size of my images in PhotoShop long before I take them into Blogger. That helps. (I also write out my posts and html format them in Word before pasting into Blogger.)
    Folders? I still have all of mine back to when I first started blogging. I just move them into a yearly folder to save on clutter.
    I have cloud storage for my email, but that fills up very quickly. Everything I've downloaded to my computer - it's all still there!
    Switch to Wordpress? Not now. Would take way too much effort...

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    1. Alex, sounds like we do several things a lot a like. I haven't tried the cloud storage, but I have a feeling it would filled up fast too.

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  2. You ask good questions, Mason. I've been on WordPress for a while, now, and I wouldn't go back. I switch fonts using HTML code; WP lets you do that. And I use Microsoft's PictureIt (Express Version) to do my 'photo editing before I publish posts. All in all, you have to sometimes fiddle with things a bit, but I do like WordPress. And, as for emails? I try cull every week or so, just to be sure I'm not keeping things I don't need. Just my two cents...

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    1. Margot, thanks for the tips. I need to learn more about working with HTML code. For the most part, I've enjoy WordPress too except for the font thing.

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  3. I have folders going back over 15 years. LOL Some of my stories are saved now as Word files, transferred over from an earlier program, so they are even older.

    I try to guestimate the size in Photoshop but if it's still too big, I just go to the next size smaller. I just try to get close to what I want.

    There is a way to link photos but I've no idea how. It probably involves more html that I know.

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  4. Hi Mason - thanks for this ... I was waiting to see what a few others said ... I draft my posts in Word, find appropriate for the post ... date them relevant to the date of publication and save them in my pictures file.

    I then put my post into blogger, at certain points in the script I add in photos ... occasionally one is way too small for me to use, but the rest I leave (unless for the odd geographical one where I want to make sure the 'concept' can be seen I expand the size: it then might be slightly out of focus - but what I want to show can be seen), or centre the photo as it is too big - occasionally. I have to load each one separately ...

    Emails - I'm afraid they sit there ... I probably should delete them out of archives. I save all my posts and other drafts in separate folders, then they're backed up on an external hard drive.

    I'm very basic in my approach ... cheers Hilary

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I'd love to hear your thoughts on today's post. Thanks for dropping by.