Who Knew? (And How You Can Be In The Know)

Wow!  This is crazy!  I never imagined my fun little experiment would take off like this!  Who knew that cooking with on-sale ingredients was such a hot topic?  An amazing number of you have signed up as followers, subscribed via email, checked out this humble little blog, and posted about it on Facebook. 


(For those of you who are interested in the stats...as of this writing, the blog has had over 950 page views!  This doesn't mean that 950 people have checked out the blog, but it means that there have been 950 "clicks" on recipes, posts, and comments.  So, in theory, it could mean that two people have each clicked 475 times.  The post with the highest number of clicks (95) was Parmesan Chicken Breasts.) 

I've had a few questions about how a blog works and how you'll know when something new is posted.  Some of you are experienced bloggers and/or blog readers, but for those of you who aren't, I'll explain a few things.  (And by the way, I'm kind of learning as I go too!)

• When you sign up to "follow" this blog (by clicking the "join this site" button), you are basically announcing to me (and to my other readers) that you have been here and checked it out, and that you're planning to come back.  As the editor of the blog, I can see that you signed up to be a follower/member, but I cannot see your e-mail address (which is fine).  It's a nice way of saying "hi", and it's kind of fun for new readers to see who else is interested in the blog.  But you won't be notified if/when I post a new recipe.

• If you want to be in the know about what's going on here, and you don't have time to continually check the blog (who does?), you can subscribe via email.  Yesterday, I thought this feature was "broken" so I took it off the blog.  (It's back on here now!)  But it turns out that I just wasn't smart enough to understand how it works.  (See, I told you I'm learning as I go!)  If you subscribe via email, you will not receive an email every time there is a new recipe or blog post, but you WILL receive a "daily digest".  Your email will look like it comes directly from Cooking Up a Sale, and it will include any and all posts that have been added to the blog in the last 24 hours.  The email will have clickable links to the posts, so you can easily jump directly to the blog.  If I do not update or post to the blog, you will not receive an email at all.  One downside to this is that if I edit an old post for spelling or typos, you might receive that post as part of your daily digest.  This is because Feedburner (the automated emailer) reads "new activity" on that post.  The other (minor) downside is that Feedburner does not jive perfectly with all email servers, so your daily digest might have margins, fonts, and spacing that are messed up.  

• Another way you can be notified when I post something new is to like Cooking Up a Sale on Facebook.  This blog now has its own Facebook page, and I'll update the status whenever I post a recipe or deal on Cooking Up a Sale...so you should see the updates in your news feed.

If you have any problems with your email subscription or with finding things around the blog, don't hesitate to ask!

Once again, my blogger's email address is dblisamarie{at}gmail.com.

Happy Cooking!

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