Site updates

GigMasters.com — not for me

by Marcy

My experience with GigMasters.com in the last three months:

1 beautifully composed web-based press kit
17 leads (people looking for music)
–only 1 of which specifically asked for hammered dulcimer
0 hires

If people could find me by searching for things like “classical,” “celtic,” “unique,” or “acoustic,” I bet I’d be doing better. But you can’t just say “classical” etc on this system — it’s only “classical harp,” “classical piano,” and so on, and there’s no “classical hammered dulcimer” option.

People hire me because they hear my music and like it, or because they’re looking for something different. Not enough people know about dulcimer to go looking for it.

I mentioned my concern about the categories, suggesting that it makes more sense to separate type of music from type of instrument, and one of the account executives responded that they’ve been using this system for 15 years. And some other polite but inactive language.

Bummer. I will NOT be renewing.

Now accepting Paypal

by Marcy

I have finally entered the modern age — you can now order my CDs online using Paypal!

At the moment I have things set up for individual CD purchases. To buy more than one, you’ll have to either do mail order or buy each CD individually. I’m not sure yet if Paypal’s cart system works with WordPress.com, but I will look into it when I have some more time.

I may also need to adjust the shipping and handling fee once I figure out how much my actual costs will be. Sales tax for Indiana residents is already taken care of.

Mailing address

by Marcy

I’m chagrined to confess that I missed the renewal notice for my Plymouth Post Office Box. I’m not sure how long it’s been out of commission.

If you sent me any mail that I haven’t answered, please let me know.

I am considering renting a box in Culver instead, because I am in Culver more often than I’m in Plymouth, so keeping up with a box there would be more convenient.

I’ll be sure to post the new address when I get it! Meanwhile, please comment here or email me before sending mail.

Going live

by Marcy

I just recently moved this site over here to WordPress.com — no more having to manually upgrade every time WordPress releases a new version, and no more new web design skills to learn to keep up with the latest standards.

I believe I’ve checked everything important and the whole site should be working just fine. Please let me know if you have any problems.

During the transition, my email address may have some issues — if your email doesn’t get through (or you don’t hear back from me), try again in a few days, or leave a comment here or on the home page.

Thanks for your patience!

New event plugin

by Marcy

I just found and installed a new event calendar plugin that will help me organize and display upcoming events. It’s Event Calendar 3, and I like it even better than the one I previously used.

It took me a while to figure out how to install it. I knew to unzip the compressed folder after I downloaded it, but silly me, I didn’t realize, until a visit to the support forums, that then I needed to open the unzipped folder and upload the folder inside — I had tried uploading just the unzipped folder itself.

Tada!

And I even have an event (one lonely event — may more come soon!) to post!

Email problem fixed

by Marcy

We just recently got DSL service in our area, and so our local email address has changed. The email address associated with my website here (see the contact page) is automatically forwarded to our local email, so I changed the forwarder to reflect the new local address. Unfortunately, I had it wrong and just now realized that and fixed it. If you have had trouble emailing me in the last two weeks (i.e. if I haven’t answered you!), please try again — it should work now. Otherwise, you can leave a comment here in the blog letting me know if your email isn’t going through.

Finally — WordPress Pages

by Marcy

Well, now I’ve done it. My entire site — except the front page and the teaching articles — has been converted into WordPress Pages. Much easier to deal with than raw HTML. And I like the look better, too.

I think I’ve gone through and fixed all the links. If you find any broken ones, please let me know so I can correct them.

New stuff

by Marcy

Today I finally upgraded to the latest version of WordPress.

And I got a new plug-in that will list my schedule of upcoming events in the sidebar.

And I revised my list of categories.

I find myself thinking again about transferring all of my site pages into WordPress.