Pimp my Typepad blog

If looks are important, and they are, and you have a Typepad blog, you could do far worse than check out Typepadhacks, a blog by John T. Unger. He caught hold of a need - how can I make my Typepad blog better? - and is blogging tweaks and hackwizardry on a daily basis - much of which is garnered from the masses of blogbrains that gather around his three month old blog.

At ScooptWords we're all about selling blog content, selling words to print publications. What John's doing is quite different, but there is a related point here (honest). In a way, John's selling himself, his brand. He's now a recognised Typepad expert who could (probably) walk into a job at SixApart before the end of this year if he wanted to. Typepad themselves would do well to consider formally incorporating Typepadhacks into the Typepad brand. Or does Typepadhacks have more value to Typepad as a completely separate, independent entity?

The whole idea of 'selling a blog' has yet to catch on, but it will. I know of one blogger who is in talks about selling his two blogs to a mainstream publisher and becoming part of a larger network. It's all part of the same game: making cash from your content, from your brand. And making your blog more functional, more pretty, is another important part of that. Typepadhacks will help you get under the bonnet of your Typepad blog to do the necessary if you're so inclined.

Comments

[John T Unger]

Graham,

Thanks for the kind words! And yeah, although TypePad Hacks does not directly generate revenue, it does further the personal brand.

For me, the money in blogging comes from selling my art… I've made five grand in the last week on eight sales that mostly came through my blogs! I'm now almost *worried* every time I see an email from PayPal because I'm getting overbooked. Which is, admittedly, a nice problem to have.

TypePad has actually offered some paid work, but I may need to turn it down or put it on hold till winter when the art sales slow down. If I do take it, I'll post about it on the blog but for now it's sub rosa.

The real motivator for me with the hacks blog has been the amazing people I've come in contact with and the hope that it will improve blogs for all TypePad users. And those goals seem to be clipping along just fine.

Thanks again for the post above!

[Graham]

Thanks John, good to hear blogs are good for your business. And I am not at all surprised Typepad contacted you. I hope you can find time, so long as the work's interesting and there's plenty lucre.

I've had your post, How To: Create a Dynamic Horizontal Navigation Menu for TypePad Blogs

http://www.typepadhacks.org/2006/05/how_to_create_a.html

open for the last day or so. Haven't quite worked up the nerve to try it out, but I will. Cheers.

[John T Unger]

Graham,

As noted in most of the hacks, the best tactic is to try a hack out the first time on a test blog rather than the live site… takes a lot of the edge off and keeps your "real" templates safe until you are sure you've got it down.

I almost always test everything on a blog that isn't live unless it looks dead simple.

[Ted]

John, I won't even do something that looks super simple. I test everything out somewhere that isn't live, because even stuff that looks simple beforehand somehow turns into a huge mess. Then again, thats probably just cus I'm a moron. :P