As promised, here is how I’ve set up a template to use for a weekly “Sunday Links for Writers” post. I’d love to hear what others do to simplify and streamline blogging.
Setting Up a WordPress.com Template Post
1. Write the post with any headings, text place holders, formatting, images, categories, and tags that you want to be included in this particular kind of post (click on screen shots for larger images):
[Note added 9/6/11: I realize that you can also just save the post as a draft at this point, rather than publishing it as a private post, and it will still show up in the list of posts you can copy. So, if you want, you can save the post (without publishing) at this point and go to step 5.]
2. Before publishing the post, change the post from public to private. To do this, go to the Visibility section, which is in the upper right corner:
3. Change the Visibility to Private, then click on OK:
4. Publish the post. Because it is a private post, it will show up if you go to your blog’s home page (if you are logged in), but will not show up for other readers. If you want to check for sure, log off your account.
5. To use the template, open a New Post page and click on Copy a Post (in the Writing Helper section):
6. Choose the private, template post as the post to copy:
7. Fill in the headings and text placeholders, change the title (if desired), and add any additional tags or categories.
8. Publish!
Thank you for this. I may have a use for it in the near future.
Kate, if you do, let me know how it goes. I find I love to blog but want to find ways to do so a bit more efficiently. I can begin a post, thinking it will take 30 minutes, and a couple of hours later wonder where the time went!
I’m so impressed with the technological know-how of this post from the info to the screen shots, etc. Nice!! On an unrelated note, I’ve toyed with switching to the Chateau theme a few times. Do you like it? One issue I noticed is how how small the font is on the sidebar, especially the headings. Does that bug you? Do the benefits of theme outweigh that one issue? On the flip side, the side bar in my theme and the headings (mytique) seem a bit over the top. Hard to find just the right theme!
Nina, thank you! So far I do like the Chateau theme (I know that I probably change themes way too often than what is recommended, but it’s one way I indulge my need for novelty 🙂 ). I’m glad you brought up the sidebar font size, but I hadn’t yet changed any of the css since switching and that was one of the things I wanted to revise. I toyed with it some this morning and got the font a little bigger and the sidebar titles darker. These were the code changes. The font-size for the sidebar text used to 0.9.
.sidebar-widget {
font-size:1.1em;
}
.sidebar-widget h1 {
color:#343227;
}
Do you have the custom design option? If you do, I’d be happy to help the code for changing the heading sizes. It’s really easy.
Thanks, Lisa. This would be a great post to share with our UWM Spring Writers Festival group.
Anne
Anne, I’m so glad you wrote this, because I checked, and I hadn’t joined the LinkedIn group (thought I had), so I just did! I’ll post this there.
I am so glad you posted this! … I am so lost when comes to blogging. I did check out the link to Jane Friedman’s site and printed out a copy of blogging 101. Hoping this will help as i will be work ing on my blog over the next couple weekends.
Thank you Lisa! 🙂 for the great resources!!
Dee, Jane Friedman is wonderful! Best of luck with your blog work (I hope you have some fun along the way). 🙂
I have been looking for a better way to do something like this from the free wordpress blogs. This is a great way to save a lot of time, but Lazy old me would love to have it just be there every time I clicked to start a new post.
I guess you have not come across any way like that?