I've got some really big changes coming up fairly soon, in the next 2-3 months. As my business has been so blessed, and has grown so rapidly, it's time for some expansion! :)
I wanted to let you all know what to expect from these changes. So here it is!
Firstly - I am going to open up a website. This website will be committed to my business. This means that all business type stuff (Sales, repair posts, etc.) will be moved off of this blog. This new website will be a non-blog website. It will remain the same, and house all my information on my business, services, pricing, etc. I will also be putting up my pens-for-sale there.
The reason for this new website is to keep separate my business side, and my fun side. I still want them connected at the heart of it all, but I want to make it easier for my readers to find what they're looking for.
Secondly - I'm going to create a second blog! This one is going to be devoted to repair stuff. For anyone out there who likes to do "home-repairs", you'll want to subscribe to that when it comes out! You'll get some great repair tips, as well as a first-hand look at my repair bench, and what goes on there.
Thirdly - The name of my business is going to change. This is a very important one. I will make this change very slow, so you all don't have to worry about it. From now on, I am going to drop the 777 part of my business name. I never thought my business would be so big, but now that it is, I feel the need to go by my real name. I believe that my real name shows more honesty, personality, and integrity than going by a false "username". I hope that's understandable to you all. :)
The new business name is very simple. Tyler Dahl Fountain Pens. For short, Tyler Dahl Pens. The new website will be launched late October, to early November. I happen to be a web-designer myself, so I'm building it in my spare time. Here's a little sneak peek for you:
Well, what do you think? I'm pretty happy with how it turned out myself. :)
Fourthly - This blog name will change. But fear not! Thanks to google and blogger, I can transfer everything over cleanly and easily. Your subscriptions will be moved over automatically to the new blog.
Here's how the names will go:
tylerdahlpens.com - Main website. The place for using my services. This will have a wealth of information about me, what repairs I do, and FAQ's on sending in your pens for repair. There will also be a place on there to buy the restored pens I sell.
tylerdahlpens.blogspot.com - This will be the new name of this blog. The place for all my ink reviews, pen reviews, tutorials, and other fun stuff! It's going to be a while before I transfer things, as I want everyone to get ready before I make the "big jump".
repairersbench.blogspot.com - The pen repair blog. This is where I'll talk about pen repair, how-to's, and post updates from my workshop. This is going to be a fun one!
My new email address is: tyler@tylerdahlpens.com Please try to change over to this one sooner than later. :) It's going to be hectic for me trying to manage and sync both accounts. Eventually the old email (777penrepair@gmail.com) will be discontinued, but for now it does still work.
There is however, something very important that I want to let you all know. Through all these changes, I want to make sure that you understand this.
Though these changes may "shake" things up a bit, they will not affect how I run my blog and business. I am, and always will strive to maintain my personal touch. I will maintain the same quality in my repair services, as well as in my reviews on this blog. I will still always be open to answering your questions personally, and in a timely manner. If you've got any questions about these changes coming up, please shoot me an email. I'll discuss it with you personally.
That's all for now! Enjoy the new repair blog! And please, let me know if you've got any feedback/advice for me. It's much appreciated!
Regards,
Tyler Dahl
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Hi Tyler,
ReplyDeleteCongratulations on all of the exciting changes. I've already signed up for the repair blog and changed over the e-mail address. I wish you every success and happiness on these new ventures.
All the best,
Freddy
Tyler, this is very excited. Congratulations on your business success! Sounds like a lot of change, but for good reasons. I'll still be following ya! =)
ReplyDeleteThank you Freddy! your speed, and participation are both greatly appreciated. :)
ReplyDeleteI'll be glad to have you with me! Yes, lots of change.
ReplyDeleteI just hope that I can keep up with it all. :D
I think it's a great idea to separate business and hobby. I run a couple of gaming blogs and I like to keep them separate because audiences are not always the same.
ReplyDeleteYes, the different audiences thing is one of the reasons for the change. The other one is that blogger just doesn't offer the capabilities of a full website! I am extremely lucky to be a web-designer as well as a pen-repair guy. It makes all my website jobs real easy. :)
ReplyDeleteCongratulations Tyler. We wish you the best of luck.
ReplyDeleteDavid in Jakarta
Dang I didn't know you were a web designer. That's cool. I happen to be a web programmer in real life. This should be easy for you then. Otherwise you'd have to pay others to do it for you and it can get expensive.
ReplyDeleteThank you David, it's much appreciated.
ReplyDeleteA programmer, eh? Well, we might make a good team. ;)
ReplyDeleteI was going to learn programming, flash, and all that stuff, but I just didn't enjoy webdesign enough to make a good business out of it.
So I switched to fountain pens. :D
Yes, making a custom site like the new non-blog one would cost at least $1000.00+ from a decent company. I've already got like, 20 pages! I am very grateful that I was able to pick it up easily. The photoshop part is just downright fun. :)
The new website is going to have a real wealth of information on it - articles, FAQ's, and other good stuff. I really can't wait till' it's done!
I would advise against Flash. IMO, Flash is only useful for games and certain applications but a website made entirely in Flash, or which has huge Flash sections, is very annoying.
ReplyDeleteYes, I can see that now. Flash was trying to be the next javascript, but pretty much failed...
ReplyDeleteTwo things I learned about website design right away:
1) never have music playing when you first open a website (exception - a professional musicians website)
2) never have a movie playing when you first open a website. Because of my satellite internet, I am limited to watching videos only at certain times of the day. If I go on a site that starts playing a video on auto, I leave, and usually never come back.
I'd be interested to see some of your work though.
Yeah those are big no-nos. I'm strictly a back-end programmer, database, server-side + Javascript so there's really nothing out there that I can showcase.
ReplyDelete