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I've been thinking about moving my blog over to wordpress. But I was also thinking of rebranding my blog. I've done Laura's Review Bookshelf now for 4 years and I'm just ready for a new and unique change. I've contacted Lori from
Imagination Designs to redo a blog for WP. I'm excited but also very nervous about this. I read through Lori's link she wrote when she switched over and although it calmed me down, it still caused me to question if I'm doing the right thing.
Now I would move everything over from blogger to WP, but I would change my blog title. I've been thinking of some names for a young adult blog. My hubby has NEVER been a fan of Laura's Review Bookshelf. He thinks it's a mouthful. So I came up with
Simply YA Books. I've already created a WP blog with that name but am keeping it private until I decide if this is the route that I will definitely go. I'd like to make this a really exciting blog and hopefully garner new friends to it.
So I'm kinda asking my followers what do you think of moving and rebranding? Please let me know in the comments.
My New Book Trailer - On the Bright Side
I'll talk more about my rebranding in a little bit. First things first, in celebration of Finishing On the Bright Side. Here is my new book trailer - enjoy! :)
My Other Book Trailer - Grace Under FireFor those who haven't seen it - my trailer for
Grace Under Fire is still up. This is the book I am going back to know and I must say, I am excited to talk to Grace again. I've missed her!
RebrandingO.K. so as you can tell by now, I am in the process of rebranding. I tend to rebrand every few years because it's fun. Of course, once any of us become authors, you don't want to rebrand that often but It's good to keep it fresh.
So, I thought it was time to rebrand and have something fresh as I got out to market for the first time. For good luck!
First - big round of applause for Hubby at
Graphic Cat for all the great flash and design. I admit I get some great concepts, but none of them would come to life if it wasn't for him. He's like my genie - I say "I wish I could have this because of this." And POOF - he makes it happen! (Thanks hubby!)
Also - he busted his
humpster to get this done for me (late nights, sacrificed work, no sleep) so we could launch everything this weekend!
I think I'll keep him ;)
Why the design??I thought I would explain a little about why I did what I did for my branding look.
I think all of this represents me and my writing.
If you look at my web site - here is what I did. Maybe this will spark some ideas in you for your "platform".
Colors- I decided to go with peach, purples and white. I do have a some dark colors on my web site.
- I like the idea of peach being the light tone of my books representing the humor,
- The shades of purple represent my darker side. I do have some dark tones running underneath my stories.
- The white represents the pure side of my characters
Elements- The girl represents my strong female protagonist. I shadowed her because I don't want you to see any one of my characters. It could really be any of my protagonists. You also cant tell her age. She's mysterious, yet playful. She's serious, yet she's still finds time to blow a dandelion and enjoy the small things in life. She's dark, yet feminine. She's strong and dominate in her life (hence the large size). She takes charge.
- The dandelion symbolizes the "magic" in my books. There is always some type of universal magic that I try to weave into my stories.
- The plants/flowers represent my eco-themes. All of my books have some type of "environmentally friendly message. I would not say they are dominate or preachy but nature is always a character in my book.
- The daisy (in my name) is something I have always used. It is my signature. It the "110% of me" that I put into all of my books. No matter what I give all of me to every character and every edit. Every process along the way.
- My web site tagline - which is not up yet - is "planting seeds in the imaginations of children" - I think the planting metaphor relates to the dandelion seeds floating off to wherever and whoever is (will be) touched by my words.This phrase is why I write.
So what's next?
Check out my
web site teaser - my full web site will be launched this coming Monday! I know you will all mark your calendars. :)
My
twitter template (and of course my blog) has changed as well.Because if you rebrand - it all needs to sync up! (Im sure you have heard me say this before.
Obviously there are still some kinks but they'll be worked out by Monday. But I wanted you to get an idea of the things that go into branding.
I'd love to hear any feedback or if you have any questions about branding in general (or even on mine), leave me a comment and I will answer them for you :)
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I think moving is a great idea if you are tech savvy enough to do it. I totally would, but I'd have to pay someone to do it. And then what about my almost 800 GFC followers? And why is Wordpress so much better? I just need to know more of the benefits before I take those risks.
Well I know that GFC followers don't come over, but your RSS followers do. I'd probably have my hubby do it. I've been with Blogger for a while and personally getting a bit tired with all the problems.
It seems like wp is way more popular, but I don't know enough about it to be much help! I like the idea of a new name, though- gotta agree with Bill on that.
I use wordpress! I've waffled on whether or not it was the right blog to go with in the past, but now that I've learned more about how to use it, I really like it. You can customize SO much of it--I made my own design for it, though I did use a program (Artisteer) so I didn't have to deal with/learn all the technical details. (Not that I couldn't learn them, but having to learn everything seemed so overwhelming that I wouldn't have gotten started otherwise.) And if you have someone designing it for you, then you won't have to worry about that stuff either.
You can customize your blog so that your homepage is either your blog, or a static page if you want it to be more like a website, then pick a different page to be the blog. And you can customize individual pages to either have your sidebars or to leave them out. And it's super easy to add widgets and things.
I say go for it! :D
that's a tough call. I've thought about moving to WP adn also changing my blog. I lost my identity somewhere along the way and need to get it back. I would love to move to WP because it seems more powerful. My issues would be finding a host and securing a domain name. I will be watching how you do this and hope you blog about the whole process, including the rebranding.