Deana Zhollis – Dream Notion

So, I’m continually figuring out little ways that I can do to market online, without having to spend too much time, since currently I just don’t have the time. As I do my baby steps towards marketing, that will be one last thing I need to do when I do have the time.

One thing I learned on my internet research is to put your Second Skill to work. If you put your Second Skill out there, you can drive more traffic to your First Skill. For example, my First Skill is writing and I do have a Second Skill, which is my job, of programming telephone systems and call centers. If I created another blog and/or website about my knowledge of my Second Skill, then on those web pages I can direct traffic to my First Skill with just a link/click away.

But, I’m not going to use my Second Skill, since I consider that “work”. I decided to open up another blog page about my new project: Transitioning from Relaxed to Natural Hair. Remember back when in 2008 I was looking for a Blog site? Well, I put my adventures on this page: Finding a Blog…. And I noted how much of a difficult time I had with installing Movable Type that I placed my own instruction on the internet on how to install Movable type to maybe help someone else.

So, why am I talking about Movable Type since I had such a hard time with it two years ago? Well, since I already had that blog uploaded on the net, I decided to use that for my blogging for my steps from transitioning from relaxed to natural hair. I mean, it was there and not being used, right? I had forgotten how difficult it was to even manipulate the thing. That blog was pretty plain, and so I had to figure out, ALL OVER AGAIN, steps on how to make it more personable. It took HOURS! And when I finally figured SOMETHING out (after resizing a picture file using Gimp, figuring out html tables and widths, learning where the header and banner and styles and widgets for columns were and what they did), I was only able to add a little picture and a short list links.

Then, MORE HOURS went in to figure out the RSS Feed for Movable Type (remember my I thought I knew blog). Well, I didn’t quite understand Movable Type atom thing (which is basically like rss), thinking some mysterious icon will magically appear on my header for people to click — something that indicated “Hey! This Page has RSS” button. No magically RSS button appeared, and I finally figure out that it was just “formatting” for people who use an actual software, or their webpage, to pull in the RSS on their browser. So I went to my Google Feedburner, made a thingy there. And copied a nice little path to make me a RSS button and link back to Google Feedburner, adding it to my Movable Type Banner Header. Side Note: I still have no idea how the atom thingy works since that is somehow directed back to my own webpage. Sigh.

Then I found out I had to UPGRADE the Movable Type thingy!! YIKES! That took me TWO WHOLE DAYS to figure out and complete. Duh! Naturally, I typed up instructions on how to Upgrade Movable Type as well. And along with that, I updated my instruction on how to install Movable type, because, 1) you basically have to reinstall the entire thing in order to upgrade it and 2) my first instructions were back in 2008 and outdated. Man! Uploading and Downloading files took 20-30 minutes. And I did it THREE TIMES because I didn’t see the BIG RED WARNING sign to NOT COPY MOVABLE TYPE FILES WHEN UPGRADING.

I’m SO GLAD that Word Press upgrades are now just a Click of a Button.

Don’t ask me why I’m making myself suffer through learning all this stuff. I don’t know. I get into something, thinking it won’t be a big deal, and get stuck. Then, since I can’t let it go, I have to figure it out until it gets solved. But hopefully, in the long run, what I learn will benefit someone else. That’s what I love about the internet, because that’s what I did to learn about how to transition from relaxed to natural hair. I gathered all the information together, and put it in a structure that suited me. And now I’m sharing that information on my other blog site. And as for “Marketing” I put a Big Sign up top:

Websites! I Like!

So there you have it. More steps in my Self Publishing Process.

Until next time… and oh yeah! Happy New Year!