My first eBook, The Cheat's Guide to Customizing Blogger Templates, has been far more successful than I could have imagined. According to my hosting stats, this has been downloaded over 15,000 times since it's release (which astounds me!), and I've had loads of wonderful feedback about this.
Now that my "offline" schedule is a little less busy, I've begun writing two new eBooks which will be available for download in the near future.
As before, these eBooks will be focused on the needs of those using Google Blogger to publish their blogs, and will be available for free download through this blog:
Choosing and Using a New Blogger Template
One of the most requested article suggestions for Blogger Buster is -
A step by step tutorial to change your Blogger template without screwing everything up! (via the Skribit widget)While I have written a few tutorials in regard to this so far, I think a complete guide would span quite a few pages if written as a post.
So instead, I'm going to release this tutorial as a short eBook, with a few added bonuses which you won't find elsewhere.
I hope to have completed finished writing this within a week or two, and will distribute this directly from the site.
"The Blogger Book"
Okay, I admit I haven't conjured up a definitive title for this eBook yet, so any suggestions would be most welcome!
This eBook will be "the biggie": a compilation of useful information, tutorials and insight to help you build a better blog with Blogger.
I hope "the Blogger book" will appeal to Blogger users with all levels of experience, from those just beginning to use Blogger to those who have been blogging for some time! It will be about using Blogger in general (rather than focusing exclusively on one aspect of Blogger), with useful sections and tutorials that you won't find anywhere else online.
As you can imagine, this eBook will take significantly longer to write. So far, I'd guess this will be well over 100 pages long (perhaps closer to 200) and although I will be giving this ebook away for free, most likely this will be offered only to subscribers (as an incentive to subscribe to Blogger Buster).
What do you think about this? Would you still be interested in "the Blogger book" if I offer it only to subscribers?
Your suggestions are warmly welcomed!
If you have any suggestions for the content (or format) of either of these ebooks, I would really like to hear from you! Please feel free to write your comments below, I'd love to know your opinions and will be sure to consider any suggestions you may have.
Yes, I will definitely be interested in the ebook, whether it is to be available for everyone or for subscribers only :)
ReplyDeleteI will even consider buying it if for any reason you need some money. thanks for all the helpful posts here Amanda, Blogger should give you an ambassador award or something, hehe!
Haha, I couldn't agree more with Bobbyt, your blog has siglehandedly taught me to recode Blogger and customize just about everything I could think of and then some. I would absolutely be interested in a long ebook no matter how it is distributed.
ReplyDeleteI would also be very interested in your ebook idea of hom to change a template (especially if it's already customized) without screwing things up. My main personal website brianmounts.blogspot.com is in dire need for a redesign but I don't want to screw everything up so I just don't touch it too much.
I would also be interested in some toutorials on how to optomize a template for different web browsers and different screen resolutions. Just a thought. Thanks again for the great work! You should charge for this stuff!
-Brian
I would love it!
ReplyDeleteDefinitely interested in both of those! I will be looking forward to that.
ReplyDeleteMaybe I missed something but what do you mean by subscribers?
Rebecca
langsung tak tunggu E-booknya ya wakakakakak :) hayoh lo ngerti apa ga tuh
ReplyDeleteEither way I am very much interested in the e-book. Eagerly awaiting to download and then pour through its contents.
ReplyDeletehey amanda!!
ReplyDeleteofcourse i will be interested in the book, anyone who really wants it should subscribe to the blog or if they dont want to subscribe, make a payment for it!
Can u add a small section in ti on how to change the header and the background depending on diff times of the day? and add some graphic designs around the blog?
on a side note am wanting to change the template from magical to something else on my blog... any ideas? i do want a 3 column template... my blog is www.bawandinesh.blogspot.com
Please do take a look if you get the time :)
New to blogging, having just started last april, your insights via blogger bustr have been a great help to me. I would ask perhaps in the forthcoming e-book, that you de mystify HTML code writing and editing-----pretty scary stuff to us novices. My advice is yes make the book free to those of us who subscribe, let others pay if they want it.
ReplyDeleteFor Bobbyt: Thank you for the vote of confidence! Blogger Buster recently got a "Blog of Note" award from Blogger which I was really happy about :)
ReplyDeleteI've no plans to sell the ebook though. It's my pleasure to write on a subject I love!
For Brian: I'm glad to know you're looking forward to these ebooks.
I hope the template ebook will be much more useful than a long blog post for readers such as yourself. While I try to make templates as easy to install as possible, there are different methods, installation methods and also ways to maintain widgets. All that info in a single post would be a lot to digest in one go!
Optimizing templates for all web browsers would make for a great post. There's still a lot I have to learn for myself about this (so many differences in presentation between FF and IE6 for example!), though I'll certainly keep this in my book of future post ideas!
For Carrie Sue: Thank you, I hope you will enjoy reading these once they're complete :)
For Rebecca: I'm glad to know you are looking forward to these too :)
ReplyDeleteBy "subscribers" I mean those who subscribe to the newsfeed or receive updates by email. It's completely free to subscribe to Blogger Buster, and this ensures you can receive news of new posts as they are published.
You can learn more about subscribing on this page, which explains the newsfeed in much more detail.
Hope this will be useful for you!
For Rakesh: Thanks for your kind comments!
For Bawa: I remember having read a great post about changing the banner image for different times of day. I'll search for this again later and will update with the link once I find it.
My best advice for changing templates would be to find a template which you like, and modify this to suit your needs.
The "Cheat's Guide" ebook may be a useful read in regard to this as it explains some simple yet effective methods, such as changing the background, sidebar colors and header. In the big ebook, I plan to write a whole chapter (or a part containing several smaller chapters) about customization, including graphics and such which I hope may become useful.
Thank you for your lovely comments!
For GJG: You're right, a chapter on the basics of HTML and CSS would be invaluable to many readers, especially those who are quite new to blogging.
Just today I discovered some highly useful "cheat sheets" about HTML code which helped me learn about a few things too!
I do have a couple of posts in progress for beginners (which may also serve as refreshers for those more experienced in customization). I will post these before the ebooks are complete as it may take a few weeks or so to have them both ready for release.
Thank you for your insights and comments!
Hey Amanda,
ReplyDeleteBe sure to thank Nicole over at SAHM for directing me to this site. I have been blogging for about nine months and am ready to take the next step in giving my blog a face lift. This book/site sounds like a good place to start. I will be sure to subscribe and see what I can figure out.
Many thanks,
S.Amou
hi amanda,
ReplyDeleteI am doing a survey of influencial bloggers and writing a script which guess the blogging platform of the blog; wordpress, blogger, movable type and few others .. I am mostly concentrating links which r not hosted on the blogging vendor but independently hosted,even if its a redirection to a domain name like blogger.I got a corpus of links from technorati, I have a question to ask .. Can a blogger actually change meta tags like .. [<]meta name="generator" content="Blogger" /[>] (if u do a view source of html ur blog, u will find it there ). Is it possible to remove, edit this meta tag ? I am jack of all trades, u seem to be master of blogger platform .. It will be very nice, If you can help me on that .. Either reply here or at http://dipenchaudhary.com/node/10 ..
thanks ..
I'm so looking forward to new ebooks too. Thanks a lot for your hard work.
ReplyDeleteAmanda, First off thanks for the first e-book, I loved it. Very helpful especially to a newbie like me. Second, thanks for all the free widgets and hacks, I have employed some of them and they work great. Third I have your feed run to two different places so I can check for recent updates easy.
ReplyDeleteLast but not least, I can't wait for your new e-books. Even if you put a price on them, or maybe place an optional donation button and see what happens. You should profit from your work! Lord knows you have helped me.
Amanda, Thank you for helping me survive with Blogger. Definitely looking forward tot he changing your template ebook. While the free ebooks are appreciated, I think you would find most readers willing to pay a little for your work.
ReplyDeleteI am so glad that I happened to come across your site. You have helped me immensely in customizing my Blogger templates and doing a little SEO. You are a treasure!
ReplyDeleteThanks so much. If/when you do write another book, I think you could sell it. I'd gladly evangelize for you!!!
I would be interested. Would like it if you talked about how to create/upload a personalized header on the blog as well.
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ReplyDeleteIt is an intrestinng site and very helpfull.
ReplyDeletei wait the ebook ... :)
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ReplyDeletevery nice, i like it very much. it is full of innovative knowledge. thank you
Giving away a good ebook for free to your subscribers is a marvelous idea. This will surely increase the number of your subscribers. The fact that a lot of people send you requests on topics to write, this is a sign that your ebook is going to be a hit.
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ReplyDeleteDefinitely interested in both of those! I will be looking forward to that.
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