Michael Janzen

This past week I finished an update to Basic Simplicity. I also launched a new blog dedicated to the theme to help focus on theme content. I’ll also be writing about my adventures in problogging with an emphasis on avoiding all the deep bullshit you’ll read about making money.

Don’t get me wrong, you can make money blogging, but it seems most of the probloggers are so focused on selling the idea of blogging to schemers that they often sound like schemers themselves with all their ebooks, mentorships, and classes. I have no plans to ‘make money’ writing about blogging; I’ll stick to selling something of real value, tiny house plans. So in other words… what I’ll have to say about blogging will be free.

So if you want a slightly different tone I hope you’ll follow me at BasicSimplicity.com. I also setup a Twitter account specifically for Basic Simplicity theme and blogging tweets @basicsimplicity.

I just finished submitting two of my busiest blogs to be published on the Amazon Kindle. It was really easy to do but there is no guarantee they will approve it. I’ll post here again and report back later on whether my blogs were approved or rejected. But in the mean time let me explain why and how to publish your blog(s) on Kindle.

Overview

What’s a Kindle? Amazon has developed a electronic tablet for reading electronic books.

A blog on Kindle? Amazon has opened Kindle up for reading blogs just like you would read an electronic book. Subscribers pay a monthly subscription fee to Amazon.

Why is there a subscription fee? There is no option to deliver the blog free on Kindle at this time. I guess Amazon is thinking that a small subscription fee is worth the convenience of reading blogs on Kindle.

Do I get paid? Blog publishers get 30% of the monthly subscription fee. The subscription rate pricing is determined by Amazon.

How To

Step 1. Create an Account: (Create your Kindle Publishing Account) You’ll need to provide your tax identification number (like Social Security Number), address, and answers to security questions like your mother’s maiden name, and other information just like you would for any affiliate account. This is not the same as your Amazon Associates account.

Step 2. Add a Blog: You’ll need to prepare the following graphic images and information before you’ll be able to complete their submission form:

Screenshot: This image must be 800×600 pixels or smaller and less than 1.0 MB. You must use GIF, JPEG, TIFF, or BMP.

Masthead: This image must be 430×50 pixels or smaller and less than 1.0 MB. You must use GIF, JPEG, TIFF, or BMP.

Blog Description: Write a concise description of your blog that surfaces the most popular features of your blog. I always refer to my Google Analytics account when trying to understand the most popular content on my blogs.

Keywords/Tags: They allow 128 characters worth of keywords/tags. Be sure to choose wisely because these are used when people search for Kindle content.

RSS Feed URL: I submitted my original WordPress generated RSS URL. I didn’t want my Kindle account to rely on my Feedburner RSS URL. If you don’t know what your RSS URL is just view source and look for a line of code that looks like this:

<link rel=”alternate” type=”application/rss+xml” title=”Tiny House Design RSS Feed” href=”http://www.tinyhousedesign.com/feed/” />

The RSS URL in this example is: http://www.tinyhousedesign.com/feed/

Submission Form: Here is a screenshot of their submission form. Just click the thumbnail to see the full size image.

Step 3. Wait for Approval: It takes up to 72 hours for Amazon to approve or reject your submission.

Conclusion

This seems like a really interesting way to monetize and promote a blog. I think it’s still too early to know if Kindle will be a big hit like the iPhone but it does make sense to jump in early and get your blog on Kindle. It takes little time and costs no money and has great potential.

The newest Kindle seems like a really nifty device. I like it mostly because it would make it easy to downsize the bulk of a library and reduce the number of possessions we own. As a simple living advocate and anti-consumerist it’s a little ironic that I’d actually see value in any consumer product but this one would actually reduce the books your have to store.

Create your Kindle Publishing Account

Update! Both blogs I submitted were approved and are now available on Amazon Kindle. Take a look:

• Tiny House Design
• Tiny House Living
  

A couple of weeks ago I began re-testing a popular WordPress plugin called WP Super Cache. I had tried it before but had installed it incorrectly and crashed my biggest blog. This time I installed it right and it works great. It works by making flat HTML files of your blog’s web pages and moves the traffic load to Apache (the web server software) and off MySQL (the database software).

The benefit of this is that Apache can take the load and MySQL burns up the servers processor, relatively speaking. My host, Media Temple, charges more money when you use more than your fair share of your shared server’s processor. This seems fair and I like Media Temple because their system can auto scale-up to take huge traffic days, and I’ve had several on Tiny House Design.

My testing has shown that WP Super Cache does reduce my cost because it lightens the load on MySQL. It also speeds up my page loads because Apache is incredibly efficient at serving up flat HTML pages and images.

So I highly recommend WP Super Cache but will also warn you to be sure to read all the installation documentation and learn how to back it out if you experience a crash.

Here are screenshots from my GPU usage (processor use) at Media Temple and Google Analytics during the same time period. As you can see traffic was flat and GPU usage remained low.

Above: Control panel on Media Temple that shows low GPU usage.
Below: Report on Google Analytics.

I submitted my minimalist WordPress theme to the Free Theme Directory the other day and got a note back from them with a few suggestions. It didn’t take long to implement their recommended improvements and now Basic Simplicity 1.3 is available.

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Over the last few nights I whipped up a simple administration screen for my free WordPress Theme. Now you can make very quick style changes right in the WordPress user interface; there’s no need to edit the stylesheet. You can also add your Google Analytics code, Google site verification code, and custom CSS.

• Go Get Basic Simplicity

These will be the last few edits for a while; I think I have it working well enough to start using basic simplicity on all my blogs. I have a few more features I’d like to add but I’ll hold off and give this version a careful test drive. If you give it a try too and run across any bugs please let me know. If you have any suggestions for future versions I’m all ears as well.

I just uploaded the next version of basic simplicity, the WordPress theme I created. The biggest changes are the addition of four more widget areas (for a total of 10) to make it easy to add advertising to the top right and bottom of posts and pages.

I also added a mini-stylesheet to the bottom of the main stylesheet. This is bound to cause a little confusion so in the next iteration I’ll create a theme admin screen to allow quick color and style edits right in the WordPress interface.

• Visit My Theme Page
  

It is very easy to add your photo to your blog posts and comments on other people’s blogs… in fact it’s fully automated and you don’t really have to do anything after you set it up.

Gravatar via WordPress (works for most blogs)

1. Go to wordpress.com and get a free account. Use the email address you use when you blog and post comments because it will be used as your unique identifier.
2. Once you’re logged in click: My Account and select Edit Profile. (My Account link is in top left corner.)
3. One the right side of the page is a place to add your Gravitar. Gravatar stands for Globally Recognized Avatar, which means it can be used all over the web. You can also just go to Gravatar.com instead of WordPress.
4. Save that and move onto Blogger.

Photo via Blogger (optional)

1. Go get a free account at blogger.com. Blogger is owned by Google so if you already have a Google account activating a blogger account is virtually automatic.
2. Once you’re logged in click Edit Photo or Edit Profile. Both links take you to the same page.
3. Upload your photo and you’re done.

Photo via Google Account (optional)

1. If you have a Google account click My Account.
2. Add you’re photo, and you’re done.

Conclusion

Spending five minutes and completing these three simple steps will put your photo posts and comments all over the place. Gravater works on most blogging platforms and many blogs are already setup to display gravatars. If your blog (or theme) doesn’t show gravatars and you want to add them visit this help page on Gravatar.com.

I added the Blogger and Google account instructions as optional steps. I suspect in the future these will either be combined and/or used more commonly by Google. Today Gravatar is the most common provider of avatar images on blogs so it’s really the first place you should put your photo.

I saw this CBS video the other day that focused on Obama and the economy. One of the things he said strait-out was that he’s working to avoid total economic collapse and a depression. This is not news of course but to hear him dance around the d-word was a bit of an eye opener. It’s one thing to hear our media talk about it and another to hear him say it.

I hope the work he’s are doing today will actually help us avoid more trouble. But I’d argue that we the people shouldn’t wait for the official announcement of a full-blown depression or our own personal financial demise. We should change our lifestyles today, live frugally, and prepare ourselves for the possibility of harder times. Here are some things you can do right now to prepare:

• Always work to improve your personal health.
• Buy bulk dry food (beans, rice, grains) and always have a reserve.
• Learn to cook creatively with beans and rice.
• Learn to bake from scratch.
• Switch from coffee to tea, it’s so much cheaper.
• Plant a victory garden.
• Raise chickens, if your community permits them.
• Downsize everything you can.
• Sell possession you don’t use or need via craigslist, garage sales, and ebay.
• Create additional revenue streams by monetizing hobbies, blogging, etc.
• Prepare a worse case scenario plan (job loss, homelessness, etc).
• Build a tiny house on wheels.

For optimism’s sake lets say we’re not headed for the second great depression. In any event this advice is good advice. By preparing for the possibility of a depression today the worst result is that you’ll be better positioned for the future.

“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change that survives.” – Charles Darwin

I recently did a little redesign of my most popular blog TinyHouseDesign.com. My hope was to give it more than a more professional appearance. My primary goals were actually to increase site stickiness and improve ad revenue. Both these goals were accomplished by making the site easier to navigate and easier for users to discover older content. Here’s what I did:

• Added category links at the top of the page.
• Created a long column of 150×150 thumbnail images.
• Included related posts after each post.
• Increased the number of posts per page from 3 to 10.

All of these changes help people stick around a little longer since there is more to see. I could have done these navigation changes with the same old theme but I really like this new one and you should see the simple code. I love simplicity.

I finally got around to doing some posts on Tiny House Design again. I’ve been slacking. I posted three different short posts on stories I’ve been aware of for a week or more. I’m glad I finally got back to it.

I also had an idea about a blog customization, maybe a wordpress plug-in opportunity, and that’s to put a microblog right inside a larget blog. Maybe control is using a category or something. For all I know it exists already, I’ll go check.

Basically the end result would be the main blog and a sidebar with very short posts, almost like twitter posts, but with thumbnail images to get more looks. This would allow a blogger to write a longer quality post and short blurbs without cluttering up the main page. Just a thought, not sure if that would really help keep the blog active or just lead visitors away faster with more exit links. Might be worth exploring.