Stefan Hayden

But that’s not actually what this post is about. This post is about building community. Because how better to reward to reward the people who got you on the bestseller list then with an email like this:

Subject: OMIGODOMIGODOMIGODOMIGOD Body: OMIGODOMIGODOMIGODOMIGODOMIGODOMIGODOMIGODOMIGOD OMIGODOMIGODOMIGODOMIGODOMIGODOMIGODOMIGODOMIGOD OMIGODOMIGODOMIGODOMIGODOMIGODOMIGODOMIGODOMIGOD OMIGODOMIGODOMIGODOMIGODOMIGODOMIGODOMIGODOMIGOD OMIGODOMIGODOMIGODOMIGODOMIGODOMIGODOMIGODOMIGOD Over the five days between the release of Paper Towns on October 16th, and the completion of tabulation for the weekly NYTimes Bestseller List on tuesday the 21st... John Green Sold Enough Books To Be Number FIVE On The New York Times Bestseller LIST!!!!!!!!! OMIGODOMIGODOMIGODOMIGOD OMIGODOMIGODOMIGODOMIGODOMIGODOMIGODOMIGODOMIGOD HAHAHAHAHAHAHHAAHAHHAHWOWOOOOOOOOWOWOOOO NERDFIGHTERSSSSSS!!!! NUMBER FREAKING FIVE!!! That's five spots better than we had to do! John just called to tell me and he is freaking ecstatic. "It can't have happened...it just seems so impossible," I think is the way he put it to me. A lot of great authors go their whole lives without ever making the list and you, my friends, did that for John Green. It was indeed the best birthday present he has ever received. That's not to say that you shouldn't go buy Paper Towns if you haven't already. The book really is fantastic, and obviously helping John get on the list was only one of the many reasons to buy it. I mean...it's a really good book, I've read it twice already :-) And I'm not the only one saying it...not only has it sold really well, it's getting fantastic reviews. And all of these things that really matter to authors like John are starting to happen. It's showing up in airport stores where there are only one or two YA books ever on the shelf. The displays are staying out longer, his publisher is pushing to get more copies into more stores. And those copies will be bought by people, who've heard about how fantastic Paper Towns is from you (or little notes stuffed into unsold copies...of course.) SO EXCITING! Thank you all so much for helping to give John the best birthday present ever. AHALKJHJL:KHGEUHSKDJH SO COOL!!! NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR JOHN GREEN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! HAHAHAHAHAHA WOOOHOOOO!

If that doesn’t energize your community then nothing will.

For Books I Am Reading I have been using Get Satisfaction for keeping in touch with my users. It’s worked out pretty well and kept me from having to build anything myself.

Now they have released a widget that puts a “feedback” tab on the left of every page and brings up a lightbox where they can send feedback right from the page. Sounds like a cool idea and I’m up for trying it for a little while at least.

Being a bit crazy when it comes to how I want Books I Am Reading to look I’m not sure I love having that black tab on the left. The site is pretty sparce and I’d like to keep it that way. Originally I thought I would just put the widget where ever I wanted it to go. I figured it would be a good addition to the 404 page. Sadly that is not an option but perhaps it will be one in the future.

If I get more engadment out of the community I’ll think about keeping it around. But if not then I will most likly take it off and keep the design as minimal and clean as possible.

Hopefully we are just a year or two off from css being this easy.

While I wasn’t looking my youtube subscriptions has surpassed 100. Why should you care? Because back when my bloglines reader first hit 100 feeds I knew that rss readers were going to be big. And yet there still is no good aggregation for online video.

Is 9:30 in the morning to early to say this is the weirdest thing I will see all day?

Christian Nymphos:

we each do have some good friends who have called us abnormal because of how happy we are in our marriage beds. Their attitude is that a wife should just put up with sex once a month or so to keep the husband happy. So for them to hear us praising our husbands and talking about how much we enjoy being with him, they do think we are “against the norm” so to speak. The secular world would probably find us abnormal as well. I mean think about it. We have all of these sexual desires and cravings and yet, we’re only focusing these thoughts on our husbands. We left our mothers and fathers and now are cleaving unto our husbands as God commanded. Our thoughts and urges are directed towards them. So for the people “of the modern, secular, world,” I’m sure they find us abnormal.