About.com?

existing sites?

What happens when you apply for an existing site. Does the first guide's content stay up? I am sorry if this has been answered elsewhere in this thread. The thread is soooooooo long! Congrats to those who made it!
Thanks,
Kiersten

kierstenk said:

What happens when you apply for an existing site. Does the first guide's content stay up? I am sorry if this has been answered elsewhere in this thread. The thread is soooooooo long! Congrats to those who made it!
Thanks,
Kiersten

Click to expand...

Usually, the new guide starts with a brand new site. (The old site being wiped when the new guide goes live).

There could be exceptions to the rule. I wouldn't be surprised if an extremely popular site wasn't wiped when a new guide took over.

Come see...



http://herbgardens.about.com

Your site is beautiful, Amy! I'm going to go back now to read it and figure out how to grow huge amounts of dill!

Kari

P.S. I'd love to see your opinion of whether the AeroGarden is worth the money, Amy. Stephanie Gallagher has already reviewed it, and it sounds really neat, but I still can't decide if it's worth the hefty price tag. It would be great to have fresh herbs available year round without messing with dirt indoors (2 cats here) or running to the store when I run low.

Amy, the site looks great! You really do know your stuff!

Once I have full access to the Lounge forums, I'd love to ask your opinion on some of the new ACME tools.

My site when live today - http://accessories.about.com

I guess I need to change my signature here!

Yeah Amy and Kori-
Both sites look great! (triple smiley face!)

Thanks. Well all my links to Photo Galleries aren't working (developers are looking into it), so hopefully that gets fixed soon.

I applied and went through prep for one of the fashion topics (while still maintaining my current topic). And I graduated last week. So I'm be switching topics soon.

Click to expand...

^Which fashion topic...?


(Please tell me before I waste my time applying... )

This week's About.com Most Wanted:

Cystic Fibrosis
Senior Money
Kids and Money
Mutual Funds
ENT

Good luck!

Talk about bittersweet...

After trying for a handful of topics, I just received word that I've been accepted into prep. Yay for me! Unfortunately the celebration was short-lived because I'm booked to go on a 7-day cruise with my soon-to-redeploy husband the day after prep starts.

*big, big sigh*

I guess there's no way around this, right? I either cancel the cruise or say goodbye to one my chance at prep...

Cyfarwydd,
Before you decide to say goodbye to prep, contact About to see if you can postpone prep by one week. I don't know if they will, but it won't hurt to try...you never know. Definitely don't cancel your vacation with your husband. This time with him is important!

Keath

Thanks for the response, Keath. I replied to the acceptance email explaining my situation and asked them exactly for that - a week week delay on my start date. I really really really really want a chance at this Prep, but not enough to cancel this trip. I'm keeping my fingers crossed!

kewrite said:

Thanks. Well all my links to Photo Galleries aren't working (developers are looking into it), so hopefully that gets fixed soon.

Click to expand...

Hey Kori-

This happened to me when I went live. When you created the gallery did you by chance copy and paste the image url in the designated spot? That's what I did in prep and the pictures didn't transfer over right. What you can do is go back through and pick up your images using the 'select image' tool and 'exporting' in image management.

Anyway, that's IF that's what you did, and if you want to take care of it yourself.

Congrats to all who've made it!

Hmm... Thanks Courtney. I think I exported them through image management like I always do but I'll check. There are some other issues with my site, so the development guys are looking into all of it.

Jen,
Let us know how things go. Keeping my fingers crossed for you! By the way I love your website...Your golden retriever made me smile. We are golden lovers, as well. They are very special dogs. Ours is beside me now.
Good luck.
Keath

Thanks so much everyone! It is a crazy-mad house here this week. Planting started in our area, so dh is out driving truck till dark AND we are expanding our beds to include fruit trees and a pick your own strawberry patch. Happy times, but yeesh...

I am loving my site for About! I did make a mistake and posted a blog/article that was supposed to drip tomorrow, so now I am going to have to squeeze an extra article into my already packed day. Oh well..my bad.

Kori, I can not imagine going through prep while already a Guide. My emotions wouldn't be able to take that pressure. You rock!!

Kari and Sepvalia, thanks! If you want to post to my still-empty forum, I would love it. I haven't quite figured out how to navigate that yet.

Amy
herbgardens.about.com

The problem with asking for a delay is that About.com invites 4-6 people into prep. It's a little bit more difficult to deal with delays when you are working with a group.

You were right, Havlen. The editor replied back today and explained that because there are other people in the class, they can't push my start date back, effectively giving me a week's extension. They did say, though, that I'm welcome to start late and get as much done as possible during the 8 1/2 days that I'll have left. Or, keeping in mind that not every class yields a Guide, I could wait and see if they hold another class for this topic.

I'm willing to give it a go - nothing lost, I say, but I've never been through prep before and have no idea how a late start will work in with reviews and such.

I guess I can work on content over the next week and a half so I'm not starting from scratch, but from your collective experience, am I off my rocker thinking that I can get as much done, as well, as everyone else, and have a shot at the position?

You guys are great, by the way Thanks for your comments and support.

ameliawrites said:

Kori, I can not imagine going through prep while already a Guide. My emotions wouldn't be able to take that pressure. You rock!!

Amy
herbgardens.about.com

Click to expand...

Thanks. It was kind of horrifying going from having a couple thousand pieces of content back to zero again but I'm sure I will real love developing my new site.

Good luck with yours. I was reading it yesterday and it's very nice.

-Kori

Jen,

I did Prep on vacation the first time around and then I did it while hosting houseguests the second time. It's pretty hard, but you might as well try. The main obstacle you face is how deadlines during Prep line up with your trip dates. Typically you start Prep on a Friday and you have a deadline on Monday - then another one pretty close to that date - then things kind of mellow out. I imagine you could make an attempt if you were able to do work on that Friday and Saturday and explain to your mentor what's happening with your internet access.

Prep does take a lot of time, so if you won't be able to get online for a whole week it could be very frustrating - you could, of course, write every day and then upload it when you get back, but it's likely to put a damper on your trip.

I'm a military wife, so I understand completely the pre-deployment emotions you have to deal with, in addition to Prep stress.

I just found this site after completing Prep (wish it had been before!) I am utterly exhausted....but I guess that happens when you work full time also.

I meant to apply for all of the gardening topics they have (as I have a degree in Horticulture, experience, etc etc). I was busy and watched Organic Gardening and Herb Gardens disappear. I did finally apply for Trees and Shrubs, with the intent to go back and apply for the rest.

It turns out I didn't need to, as I got accepted to prep a few short days later. Prep began on April 4th. I didn't get much sleep at all the whole time. I ended up writing 9 blogs, 3 articles, 2 How to's, 2 glossaries, a before you buy, a guide review, and 2 plant profiles.

Well....Prep ended yesterday. My coworker was laughing at me because I was checking my email every 5 minutes. I was still surprised to get a note from my trainer yesterday afternoon - I graduated! You will soon see me as the Guide to Trees and Shrubs.

I also wanted to say hi to Amy and Colleen, as I have noticed that they post here. I went to your sites a LOT! I even have at least one link to something...the 4 soil tests (I think that's yours, Colleen? I'm very tired and can't remember I'm still trying to see how much I will write myself, and how much I will link to (since there are overlaps between all the garden sites)

I still can't believe I got the job. It's just....magical. I'm still getting started in the freelance writing world. I also just got a job writing for Tomato Casual and Garden Casual.

Anyways, good luck to all! I think I am going to just write down tons of article ideas tonight and semi-rest. I thought I would be able to get some more sleep at night while waiting to hear back, but I'm off and running to get the site ready to go live!

Vanessa

Wow, Vanessa, what a tale! I am glad to hear that you graduated. I will look forward to watching your site go live - I need shrub help in a big way, as we have annoyingly shady trees and cannot grow grass or even weeds under them!

Please let us know when you go live. I promise to visit.

Cyfarwydd said:

I'm willing to give it a go - nothing lost, I say, but I've never been through prep before and have no idea how a late start will work in with reviews and such.

I guess I can work on content over the next week and a half so I'm not starting from scratch, but from your collective experience, am I off my rocker thinking that I can get as much done, as well, as everyone else, and have a shot at the position?

Click to expand...

You'll want to ask the editor if there will be some leniency in the review deadlines and some of the requirements. You'll miss the first review. I can't remember when the second review is, but you'll either miss it or get back with only a couple of days to spare.

Not only do the reviews have requirements, you also might miss important feedback. The first review is all about categories which can be important considering that you'll be basing your articles off your categories. The second review is a content review and its great to get some feedback on how you can improve in using the tools.

So long as they are flexible about the review dates, I'd go for it. At the very least, you'll get some experience on the backend tools which would make the second time around much easier.

Honestly, it's difficult to write content ahead of time because you'll need to fit them into the templates. But, in your case, you are going to need to do some of the work beforehand. If you think you might have some time on your vacation to do a little work, you could print out the template pages so you can review how they are put together and then map out any changes needed to what you wrote leading up to prep so that when you get back you'll be able to quickly input it.

Also remember, while quantity is great, quality is king. They'll pick someone with 20 pieces of great work over someone with 40 pieces of fair-to-middlin' work. I know I didn't break any quantity records when I went through prep, but I tried to produce solid writing with few errors and strong blog entries, and that was enough.

Hi all! I haven't been around lately, but I keep peeking at the available topics. I think I might go for one again. Or two maybe.

Glutton for punishment? Or is the third try the charm?