The Mystery of the Disappearing Calendar: Solved!

What's the old saying? You learn something new everyday?

Well, we learned something new on Saturday about how the back door of our BryonySeries site works.

Like many authors, we use a website builder to create the website, because none of us are web designers with coding skills.

Now, except for updating the events calendar, I rarely make any changes to the site - Timothy has pretty much assumed the reigns there.

But apparently "except for updating the events calendar" is problematic if we are both in the site at the same time. 

I'll explain.

Tuesday was the last day I posted any events because I had received messages from people who clicked on the link and could not access the promised content. On this particular day, the content was coloring pages of Vikings.

So I waited until Saturday night when Timothy was not working to update the calendar. I figured if I had trouble, he could troubleshoot it, since he hand-built it.

Well, I had trouble with events either not saving or not publishing. So I called Timothy - who just happened to be working on the BryonySeries store.

We had some back and forth conversation and testing of saving and publishing and...voila! Mystery of the disappearing events solved.

New protocol: I cannot go into the back door of the BryonySeries website without first checking with Timothy.

Here are the events you may have missed. You can see them here. 

January 1: Listen to the other-worldly sounds of a frozen lake in winter.

January 2: Enjoy a really nice version of Auld Lang Syne by The Irish Rovers.

January 3: Learn about a famous faith healer of the nineteenth century.

January 4: Create a fun, mouse-themed tic tac toe game for you and the child in your life to play together.

January 5: Check out a variety of free, printable coloring pages of the Vikings.

January 6: Look at the type of tree you can make from cardboard!

January 7: Do you like to write your own stories? Are you over eighteen?

​Consider joining WriteOn Joliet 

January 8: Learn a few quick facts about the poisonous plant bryony, for whom the BryonySeries is named.

January 9: For bored kids and adults: make your own leprechaun sand from two ingredients you most likely have in your cabinet.

January 10: ​Read about which five Bordeaux wines are among the most expensive in the world.

Writing/Marketing Progress Summary

One, two, three, GO!

1) I spent about 12 hours working on Henry's chapter eight of Before the Blood last Saturday, assuming I'd complete it. However, the story took an unexpected turn requiring further development. So even though I'm the weekend editor this coming weekend, I SHOULD be able to finish it. In the meantime in my early morning writing time, I'm editing/fleshing out the stuff from Saturday.

2) No progress the last couple weeks on my second Cornell Dyer chapter book, Cornell Dyer and the Necklace of Forgetfulness. Hoping to add a chapter this coming weekend.

3) However, Joliet Montessori School has ten copies of Cornell Dyer and the Missing Tombstone, which they're using as a school project. Meaning the students have read and passed them around for review/critiquing practice. I'm meeting with them next week to discuss the book and hear their feedback,and I'm super excited about this. We're planning to post their reviews on the BryonySeries website. And speaking of which...

4) Rebekah did a super job with the new website, keeping the "feel" of the old one with a cleaner, updated look. However, the domain didn't transfer so (always something) so she's going to look into it when she has a moment - and probably not this week.

5) As far as reviews go, I appealed for them on social media. I supplied the books. No reviews yet. Need to reach back out to the reviewers...

6) Staying the course of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and, of course this blog. Time to review my marketing plan and see what's next!

7) I'm also developing a grassroots marketing plan for WriteOn Joliet members. More on this later.

8) Finally, I had planned to shoot Bertrands's First Book of Numbers last weekend but got too caught up in BTB. But I DO have all the props (bought those last weekend), which are taking up space on my bedroom/slash office floor. Here's the proof.

Short and Sweet: Where I'm at with Stuff

Here goes:

Fiction projects: Made some significant progress of Henry's story in Before the Blood this weekend and none on Cornell Dyer and the Necklace of Forgetfulness or Bertrand's First Book of Numbers. Hope to proceed and resolve this weekend.

Marketing: Maintaining what I've started and fleshing out an idea for grassroots marketing based on the Little Free Library/Little Free Food Pantry idea.

Website: Rebekah Baran made great progress yesterday on a new site with Sarah Stegall's files. Both the desktop and the mobile views look great. Hate to tempt fate, but she could be done this weekend.

And there ya go!

Throwback Thursday Canceled in Favor of Website Whining

So we returned to bleak and veered to hopeful, all in two hours.

Apparently GoDaddy's mobile view is extremely limited in what one can hyperlink and where. Rebekah discovered it while working on the site. So she called GoDaddy, and tech support confirmed it.

Last night, she began experimenting with other sites. With seven books published and more to come, and with two BryonySeries-related products available, a CD of original piano music and soy candles in five scents (and hopefully more product to come), we cannot afford NOT to hyperlink.

This is the upgrade???

Soon after Rebekah hung up, we received one of those "tell us how we did, we'd love your feedback" survey." I passed.

OK, whining done.

We've got our attention on this website issue and won't let it go until resolved.

Updates to follow.

In the meantime, if you'd like to check out the existing website (on a desktop), now's the time because it's going away: www.bryonyseries.com.

Website: Maybe Not So Bleak

So quick update from yesterday's dirge.

Rebekah played around with more templates yesterday and did two and half sample pages.

We are encouraged. And the mobile view looked great.

She did run into one small snag, so we'll call GoDaddy after work. No sense in her continuing if we can't resolve it.

Now, how long it will take for us to get the new site up and running is a huge unknown.

But short bursts (kinda like I do with most of my fiction-writing) is sure to get us to the finish line, methinks.

The End.

Website Woes Continue, Seeking Help

I'm totally clueless when it comes to building websites.

Sarah created a beautiful one from a GoDaddy template and its stock photos, her first website attempt, in 2010, but this was back when most people logged onto websites from desktops or laptops.

In short, the mobile view sucks. And not in vampire lore sucks.

When she built it, I had two visions for the site: a place for basic information about my books and where to buy them.

A journey through a virtual Munsonville was the second. Sarah accomplished both. 

But GoDaddy's answer to our problem is "start over."

Seriously???

The problem is that no one has that kind of time. When Sarah built the website, she was a full-time mom of one preschooler and was seeking a creative outlet. She gained great skills while helping me, which she now uses in her very full-time job.

Rebekah is trying to learn, but honestly, she works many hours, too. But she's fiddled with the new GoDaddy templates and isn't a fan. She can't get the "look" right.

And it's heartbreaking to take it all down.

So here we are.

Our budget is limited, and our skills more so.

But if anyone wants to help, we are open to it.

To view the current website (on a computer, not your phone), go here: www.bryonyseries.com.

Website Woes

So after nine months of going back and forth with GoDaddy over the extremely poor mobile view of the BryonySeries website, we've been told to upgrade, which means rebuilding the website.

This explains why, when Rebekah tried upgrading last summer, the website disappeared, throwing her into a panic.

We're feeling a little discouraged.

In 2010, Sarah Stegall spent many months creating an entire realm of a website, to reflect the rich storytelling that unfolds in the BryonySeries. The thought of beginning anew is disheartening to all of us.

Another GoDaddy customer said it should be possible to download the files so we can rebuild with them. Rebekah said she could play with the new template someday when she has time.

I can hear the chorus of why we should turn to another company and do our own web hosting etc. People have told us we won't make any money this way and so forth.

But we chose this company for its 24/7 customer service. Except for this one point, we have been extremely happy. Plus, we aren't trying to make money on our site with ads, etc. We see the website as a portal into the world of my books. It's to present information and imagination, and we're trying to do so within the limit of our website-building capabilities (and those are pretty limited).

So we are in the process of trying to sort this out and soon as the situation is seriously curtailing marketing efforts since we want to feed everything back into the website.

Stay tuned.