Get Set Up

by Tom Johnson on Jul 10, 2009
categories: technical-writing

Rather than use Writer River as the interface for publishing links, we use Publish2, which is a link sharing platform. You use Publish2 to manage your links, and then publish your links to one of the blogs that you have configured in Publish2. You can add multiple blogs and Twitter accounts to your Publish2 profile, and then publish a link to all of the sites at the same time. You just have to set up your blog and Twitter accounts in your Publish2 profile and then it's all automated.

To get started:

1. If you haven't already submitted a request to become a link journalist, complete the form here.
2. Look for my invitation to join the Publish2 technical communication newsgroup.
3. Click the link in the Publish2 invitation email and register for a Publish2 account. For the news organization, list Writer River.
4. After registering, you'll be prompted to add a Publish2 bookmarklet to your browser. Follow the on-screen instructions to do this. If you're not prompted to add the bookmarklet, log in to Publish2.com and go to Settings > Add Bookmarklet.
5. Near the bottom of the bookmarklet, under "Also add this link to," click Set Up Account (next to blog). You can also enter the blog settings from the Publish2.com site by going to Settings > Blogs.
6. Enter your blog user name and password.
7. As desired, add other blogs and Twitter accounts that you want to publish your links to (you configure each of these from the Settings menu in Publish2).

That's it. Now you can add links to Writer River using one of the following methods:

• Add Links Using the Publish2 bookmarklet
• Add Links by Importing Your Shared Items from Google Reader