Back before the book came out, the PR people at Penguin said, “Good news! We have enough money to get your a website.”
I said, “Cool.”
They said, “What would like to have on the website?”
So I thought about what might be cool. Maps. A bestiary. Samples of music. An FAQ. A way for readers to contact me…
“…and maybe a blog,” I said. “I could probably try doing that.”
Of course, it quickly became apparent that my fancier ideas were problematic because I don’t have any graphic skill or the ability to code. but blogging comes fairly easy to me. Probably all those years I spent writing for the campus paper.
All this while, through three years and roughly 350 blogs, I’ve been using blogger. Not through any concious choice, mind you. It’s just what the website people gave me, so I used it.
The interface wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t great, either. There were certain features I wanted, but they didn’t seem to be available. Eventually I did some research and discovered what I probably wanted to be using was WordPress. That’s what most of the pros and tech-heads use.
So this week the website folks migrated my blog over to WordPress. Most everything should look the same, the old blogs are still there (though we lost some comments, sorry.)
It feels a lot nicer already. Smoother. The interface is intuitive. I don’t know if this is the Cadillac of blogging tools, but it’s at least a nice Lexus. Blogger was sort of like a Geo Metro I used to drive. Serviceable but tinny.
I’ll beg your indulgence while I’m getting used to the new platform. Normal blog-service should return on Monday, but I have way more buttons and gewgaws available to me now. As I play with them, I’m bound to fuck some things up.
For example. There’s a button up on my toolbar with a honest-to-god omega on it. I’m almost afraid to push it. Do I really want to potentially Omega my blog?
I think I do.
…
Oh. It just adds special characters to my text. Ω. Not quite as cool as I was hoping, but not as dangerous as I feared. I can use it to spell Tinuë the right way. Functional. I like functional. ƒ
And how about a link? Let’s see what I have in my bookmarks…
Holy shit! Homestar Runner posted something new! They’ve been MIA for about four months now. I was worried about them.
Lastly and leastly, let’s see if I can post a picture.
Hmmm…. nope. Got an error message.
See what I mean? It will probably be a couple weeks before we’re back up to full speed. But once I’m over my learning curve, we’ll be better than ever. Promise.
See you soon folks,
pat
81 Comments
Can I post a comment?
Can I comment?
Ah hell. Now I’ve got to figure out this whole comment moderation thing…
So that’s why I got all the RSS data sent all over again a couple of days ago… Just imagine how happy I was when I woke up and saw that I had 50 new updates… shortlived excitement…
Moderate this, Rothfuss!
In the time I’ve been using Blogger, I’ve gotten used to it grinding to a halt on odd occasions, never letting me do quite what I’d wanted – generally being rather rambunctious. But WordPress, for all its superlative power and functionality – and there’s no doubt about that – strikes me as the kind of platform you have to learn. Blogging is an intensive enough hobby as is. So with Blogger I remain.
Good luck learning the ropes, mate. You’re a braver man than I.
What are all these 1’s and 0’s all over the place????????
You consistently crack me up. I’ll be reading your blog, whatever form it’s in.
Honestly, I preferred you blogging on the blogspot platform as I subscribe to your RSS feed and the entire post would show up on my reader. Now only the beginning of your post would show up instead of the entire thing and I have to click to get to your blog to read the whole post. Not a major issue, just slightly annoying to me.
Comments not working?
.
can i comment!?
Long time reader, first time poster, Big Huge Fan…
Just wanted to offer to help you with the WordPress implementation if you need it. I run several sites that use WP as the backbone so know my way around reasonably well. Just shoot me an email if you need help on that end, or if you need a comment moderator. :)
I think you’ll be glad you made the transition. I did the same thing (years of Blogger, before moving to WordPress last December). It felt like a huge betrayal of my dead Google, but you just can’t argue with the feature set.
The site looks great, too. I guess I need to click through from Reader more often….
It says your last comment was at 8:39 am, are you blogging from the future?!?!?!
I’m not sure if you already know this, but in case you don’t: the RSS feed now only shows the first few lines of a post. It would be nice to have it back the old way, with the full post.
Or you could write a whole play on the comments system.
Trust me, it’s fun!
When is the blog “Why I don`t talk about book two” coming out?
PS: The new Design is nice.
Good luck with that Pat. I’m sure you can do it!
When will you show us the blog “Why I don`t talk about book two”?
PS: I like the new design of the blogs.
When will you show us the blog Why I don`t talk about book two?
PS: I like the new design of the blogs.
Pat,
Congratulations on joining the big-boys and girls. I migrated from google sites to wordpress a few months ago and haven’t looked back. Trying to put a picture in can be tricky, though, as I only figured out how to do it a while ago.
When you go to insert a picture, you upload it and all taht and it’s pretty intuitive. The screen you get afterwards, though, can be tricky. There is a nigh-invisible button at the bottom that says “insert into post.” That’s what you’re looking for.
Mayhap I am treating you like an infant in assuming you haven’t seen this button. I’m sure you’ll get over it if I am, but I know it took me forever to find said magic button (that’s what she said?), so I thought I would pass the wisdom off to you.
Deuces,
V.A.Luttrell, fellow wordpress blogger extraordinaire
Oh, so this is why I can no longer read your posts in full in my rss reader, only get a teaser…hate that.
Well, that explains why your RSS feed got all odd a few days ago.
Have fun learning…
moderation is overrated.
Everything in moderation….. uhh
If it would help improve your moderation skills, you can try deleting this comment. It’s pointless, and made by someone of no particular interest.
=D
haha, come to canadaaaaaaa
Ah, I see….you have to approve each message individually. LOL
Yay, wordpress! You might need more widgets to post the pictures, but it depends on your basic template.
Would having a comment to moderate help?
Or are they just piling up now while you watch helplessly? ;)
good luck with the new lexus.
good luck with the new lexus!
other people can comment too!!
other people can comment too!
Can others comment? Does it matter? Because I didn’t come to your site to read the words of others…
Thanks for writing! I look forward to your new books, but your blog is entertainment enough to give me all the patience in the world!
Good luck with the new interface Pat.
good luck man! there are no tutorials or something?
saludos desde MEXICO!
Good luck man!!…. theres no a tutorial or something?!
saludos desde México!!
WordPress is pretty potent and I hope it serves your needs. The plugins can be quite helpful… if you can think of it, there is probably already a plugin for it. Well… most things normally people can think of… anyway, just a few suggestions on Plugins (aka Add-Ons type thingies) (obviously your team probably has all this handled, but here goes anyway).
Google XML Sitemaps (automatically generates your sitemap for you when you publish/post, notifies the search engines, and you can submit it to Google’s Webmaster tools too get some good info and so they know every nook and cranny of the site)
Tagaroo (helpful, but a bit annoying as well. Basically searches your post and gives you recommended “tags” … people, places, concepts).
Tiny MCE for WordPress (gives you a much better toolbar (copy, paste, replace… )… add Tiny Tables and it gives you the ability to see your tables in your post (add rows, columns, widths)
All in One SEO .. automatically generates meta data (keywords, description et cetera). Creates SEO rich page titles based on your settings, and gives you an override section at the bottom of the page. A bunch of other things.
Keep up the great work.
Can I comment?
WordPress is ACE :D And I’m sure I’m not the only one who’s super-happy not to have to share every bit of information entered with Google anymore…
Looking forward to lots of WP-powered posts!
As a PSA, the switchover caused the RSS feed to just display a snippet of the blog post (rrrrrrrr), but resubscribing will fix that so the blogs are displayed in their glorious entirety.
I commented too!
I didn’t actually know ‘leastly’ was a word. ^_^
I feel like an idiot.
First ;-)
Great News Pat, the old Blog was rly oldschool. Have fun trying new things.
Looks like you’ve already figured out most of it at least. Nice risk on the Omega by the way. Would you have reconsidered pushing it if it was a big red button?
Good News Pat, the old Blog was rly oldschool. Have fun trying new stuff ;)
First!!! (after pat)
there, something for you to use to learn to moderate, one of those pesky ‘first’ posts
Congrats on the improved blog, Pat. Hope it works out well for you.
That should be fun for you. I’ll Help by posting an offensive blog and seeing if you can remove it:
I hate all people of different ethnic origin, gender, sexual orientation, and height!
Good luck removing that Cocktail of hate and Bile pat!
Hi Patrick,
I built my own personal site in WordPress. I would be more than happy to help you out if you have any questions about WordPress.
Sincerely,
Scott
Gotta say, I sure love your blog posts. You manage to make changing blog services sound fun.
Hi Pat,
First time posting a comment. Just wanted to say your the first person I have ever followed their blogs. You are rad, and the world should know it. Take care.
Jason
love you pat, love your blog
Gotta say, I sure love your blog posts. You even manage to make changing blog services sound fun.
Yeah. Rss feed nit the whole post…. Disappointing.
And he hasn’t released the “why I donttalk abot book two” post because that would violate the first rule of book two “you do not talk about fight club… Sorry book two.”
TBH as a reader I prefer blogger, just because WordPress seems to cut off the blog entries when you go to read them in Google Reader. Which is just about the only thing my company hasn’t figured out how to block, since we use Google Apps at work. Does WordPress have an option to show the entire entry in rss feed readers?!
Heh. If you’d like, you can try to moderate this comment and see what comes of it. I promise not to be offended :p
I can edit it, apparently. That’s a little creepy, me being able to go in and edit other people’s comments…
wow. the comment-writing is easier (and way cooler) as well. :D
@tigerass: you forgot “of other reading preference than NotW”
Now that you’re on wordpress, be sure to hook up with the Gravatars plugin or something similar. Possibly you already have, I’ll know once I’ve posted I suppose.
Love WordPress :) That’s what I use for my own sadly-recently neglected blog…
Also, just in case it comes down to opinions, I’m going to disagree with the poster up above me who wants full blogs sent through the RSS feed.
When we’re talking about serious content, along the lines of your average blog post, I rather like seeing RSS updates in the “abstract” form – a couple of lines and the link.
It may have something to do with the way I read my RSS feeds, but I prefer them punchy, or as samples with the option to read more. Plus, there are any number of formatting issues that make RSS-pushed posts look awkward, as compared to the way they appear in the intended environment.
So, yeah, assuming you have the patience to slog through the hundred or so comments you get on posts, that’s my $0.02.
Good luck with wordpress ;-)
While you fiddle with the buttons: So far you blogger RSS feed showed the full blog entry, the new wordpress only a short teaser – I guess many people like to read their feeds in the feedreader – would be great if you could re-enable full feeds!
thanks! (But if this delays the next volume I would of course live with the excerpt feeds :-) )
Like the “comments” ability way more then your other blog program.
P.s. Homestar Runner huh? Forgot about them… That site was certainly the source of many untimely chuckles during my freshmen year.
Just fyi, the old blog still has a working url, so people who have bookmarked that url as I did won’t know about this new blog until they navigate to your main site again. Maybe a redirect or extra post on the old blog is in order to alert people that you’ve switched?
Cheers,
Joho
12 hours, that’s what took me to read book two. All the way through the book I was sad to see how fast the pages went by. You are a brilliant writer, indeed a Diamond, not an uncut Diamond, a cut wonderful Diamond and I am most honored to experience your writings.
Your books makes me laugh, makes me sad, angry and proud. All these different emotions rush through me as I rush through your world, Kvothe’s world.
I was so angry when I found out about the “white-sock” and so speechless to be tricked by a simple horse seller only to remember/rediscover that I am not Kvothe. Oh, I beg you to write more and hope you will have time to do this as well, also that you enjoy writing just as much as I enjoy read what you write. Because I am for sure addicted! :)
@Christine (and Patrick, and others who also mentioned this):
WordPress has back-end functionality that will let you specify whether you want RSS feeds to publish the entirety of posts or only a snippet (as a means of keeping traffic coming steadily to the site, rather than people just lurking the feed in their readers).
To change this functionality so that feeds will publish entire articles rather than just snippets, log into the Dashboard and go to Settings > Reading. Once there, check the “Full text” radio button under “For each article in a feed, show”, and your RSS feed will then syndicate entire articles.
That’s all there is to it! Happy blogging!
And congratulations on making the switch to WordPress, Pat! It’s an exceptional platform. Just wait until you start exploring the world of WordPress plug-ins!
Good call Jessica,
I was slogging through the comments to see if someone had already posted this fix.
Here’s a screenshot of how it to do it if you need visuals!
http://screencast.com/t/NTE2ZGVl
It would be nice to get the full text in my reader again.
Oh, and great blog. I love seeing that there’s a new post.
Aaron
Hey,
I just wanted to tell you that your book is really great. I’m currently stationed in Baghdad with the US Army and I carry my kindle with me everywhere I go. Reading helps me take my mind off of just how crappy things here can be. A friend of mine sent me a link telling me that I should read Name of the Wind or she was going to stop giving me suggestions of books to read. Since she feeds me an almost constant stream of sci-fi and fantasy titles, I downloaded it as soon as I could.
I read fairly fast so I spent the next three days reading it, and then I spent the following four days reading it again. Your writing gave me a direct line out of this awful deployment and into your story. When I’m having one of those wish I was anywhere but here days, I’ll probably read it again. I’m guessing that will probably be next week. So, thank you, for Kvothe and the first day of his story. I look forward to the next.
SPC Robert Nevius
III CORPS
USF-I
Read Book 2 in 2 hours? Hmmm, did someone score an Advance Readers Copy or something? I’ll give some more money to Heifer for a copy and you don’t even need to match me Pat. ;^P
You should have your blog people look into adding the wordpress plugin WPTouch. It is a really nice plugin that when properly configured presents a very nice mobile interface to smartphones and other mobile devices. It can be configured to support iphones, blackberries, etc.
Did you get to pick the word verification words or something? Mine are “upgrading” and “manned.”
Anywhoozle. Have fun with it :)
Can you please please please switch back to a full RSS feed? I really hate partial RSS feeds.
Oh, okay — that’s why I just logged on to LJ and found about 20 post of yours in a row, dumped through my RSS feed (some new, some repeats, but all bearing the same timestamp). And here I was grumbling because I thought LJ was being buggy — now I’m impressed that the switchover managed to keep my subscription in place! :)
a lot of comments!
Just so I’m not being a dinkus, I would like to add the following: WP is not bad and I like your beard. Cheers!
W00t! If you need any WordPress help, send me an email.
I’m the “Michael Adams” on http://wordpress.org/about/
Hello Pat,
I follow your blog on google reader (an rss aggregator) and have enjoyed reading all your entries without the hassle of having to click away from reader. But this new wordpress thing has decided to cut your posts short – 4 lines short, in fact.
Is there any way you could change the setting that does that, and make wordpress display the whole post?
Thanks :)
WordPress is awesome. I also changed from blogger to wordpress, mostly because it was too closely connected to google for my taste. I’m using wordpress for more than a year now and haven’t regretted it since ;) You’ll get used to it pretty soon, no worries!
I went and added the new blog URL to Google Reader https://blog.patrickrothfuss.com and the feed is back with full content in all its glory.
Glad I wasn’t stuck with the truncated feed. :)
I don’t suppose there’s any chance you could sweet-talk your lovely website maintainers into fixing the RSS feed, could you? The updated RSS was changed so that only the beginning of a post is displayed, rather than the full post. This is pretty annoying when using a reader, as it means you have to click through to the site to see everything *grumblegrumblecomplain*
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