Happy February, beloved aLBoP readers!  In honor of the month of *luve* my INFJ and I want to take this month to celebrate how much we love you guys and how much love you’ve shown for us!  D’aww!!

 

A Little Bit of Personality is almost two years old and I’m constantly overwhelmed at how giving, loving and intelligent you guys are!  You’re always there showing us your support through both your words and actions.  You’ve been incredibly patient, even when things haven’t always gone as we’ve expected, or when trying to explain things in a brand new way is a little harder than anticipated 😉  Your questions are remarkable, thought-out and unexpected, so often giving me posts upon posts of information I’m bursting to give you! (Once again, patience is always appreciated ;))

 

And so many of you have made the extra effort to not only be readers and fans, but to be true friends; not just caring about the info we can provide you, but caring about us as individuals.  It’s incredible!  And I know, super mushy. 😀  (Cue the “Aw, Mom!  Gross! Can we go and play now?” kind of faces.)

 

Anyhue, in honor of how awesome you guys are, we’ve decided to use February to celebrate that awesomeness in a myriad of ways.

1) Thank You Videos!

We are *finally* going to make and release all the ridiculous videos that aLBoP supporters have creatively (and with evil laughs) suggested!  They are sure to be comfort zone razing, but crazy fun nonetheless 😉

 

2) Catching Up on “Love for aLBoP” Orders

In February I will also be attempting to get *all* caught up on giving out everyone’s digital Thank You gifts, including Thank You emails, wallpapers, and personalized stick figures I haven’t yet given to the generous parties!  I feel soooo bad that it’s taken me this long!

 

You’d think from helping other people with the way they think, by now I’d know that apologizing too profusely doesn’t really help anyone.  Instead I will merely say “Thank you” again, for being so patient.

 

{Bonus: As it happens, I’ve found saying “Thank you” rather than “I’m sorry” tends to be more effective in many situations, as apologizing tends to make both the wronged party and the mistaken party feel resented, while gratitude makes both feel appreciated instead.}

 

3) The Fan Love/Lurve Page

Also long promised, the “Fan Lurve” page will be a compilation of wonderful things fans of aLBoP have done and said!  I still can’t decide if “Lurve” is too silly or confusing, so please chime in and let me know if you like Love or Lurve better! 🙂

 

For months I’ve been collecting quotes of the sweet and beloved things you’ve said about aLBoP and how it’s helped you in your life.  Throughout February I’ll be asking you if it’s okay to use quotes from your individual emails, as testimonials about how much you love aLBoP 😀  Though I figure as long as you posted a comment publically it’s okay to use (though you’re always welcome to request your quote be removed 😉 ), if it was private, like in an email or Facebook message, I’ll definitely get permission first!{Edit 3-3-15: LIES!!!  Actually, my INFJ came up with pages upon pages of wonderful quotes from your emails, and I simply wouldn’t be able to catch up the way I need to if I emailed each of you for permission!  I’m being careful not to post anything too personal and feel free to request your quote be removed or made anonymous!}  Though of course you could help me by either giving me permission, or specifically sending in a brief aLBoP testimonial, if you want! 😀  Obviously that would cut down on the already daunting email load I’ll have for this project 😉

 

Also, pictures!!!  You know I love pictures! 😉  We’ve received a couple pieces of *incredible* fan art which were sent to us completely unsolicited!  I honestly never even thought to ask because I didn’t really think of what we do as being a fan-art-worthy endeavor!  lol  And yet the ones we’ve received have been so beautifully thought-out and inspiring that I get a giant lump in my throat every time I think of them (and not just because I have a sore throat atm :P).  We also have some awesome fan photos, including people wearing their “Keep Calm and Be Yourself” t-shirts and a few readers decked out in Halloween costumes by type.

 

Pleeeeease!!!  I’m not above a little beseeching 😉  Show us your beautiful art and your lovely faces!  They’ll make me super happy, as well as bringing color and interest to the Fan Love page, as long as you’re cool with me sharing.

 

This page is also where the “Friends of aLBoP” sections will list the names or pseudonyms of people who have supported aLBoP!  Yay!!!

 

Oh, and please let me know how you want to be credited, for testimonials, pics, donations, videos etc!  I’ve found this to both be a remarkably important problem and surprisingly forgotten thing to mention, with aLBoP in general.  Some people want to have their full names, websites, pictures, etc., while others don’t even want a pseudonym.  I really understand both ends of the spectrum and in between, but I never know which should be my default assumption.  As general principles, if it’s something sensitive, like a personal question from an email, “he” or “she” might be the most I’ll mention.  If it’s not very private, like a cool general question or a quote from something you said publicly, I lean toward your first name and last initial, or whatever you signed your signature with.  But honestly, people are so lovely and diverse that I usually don’t know what the heck to do and it would be nice if you just told me! 😀  /love rant done.

 

4) A “Fan Stats” Video

This one isn’t super important, but I thought it’d be fun.  So long as we’re not too swamped trying to finish all the “Thank you” videos (I know sometimes I put it in quotes and sometimes I don’t.  😛  I defy you and your grammar!), we’ll do a video talking about reader stats like the top ten countries aLBoP readers are from, what browsers they use and some of my favorite random search keywords!  Okay, that sounded cooler in my head (are you surprised I’m a nerd?), but we’ll also talk about trends we’ve noticed about what types tend to frequent the site the most, who speaks up in comments vs. who would rather email, and which types we wish we saw on aLBoP more because they’re way underrepresented!  (btw, Internet Explorer is waay far down on the list, which makes me so proud <3!)

 

What Comes Next?

What comes after all of this blatant fan fawning?  Well, that’s the thing; the whole point of aLBoP Amore Month is not simply to kiss your little feet, but to catch up, *especially* on the aLBoP Shop before the release of the long-long-long-awaited Modular Personalized Typings!  When we’re finished with aLBoP Amore (and maybe somewhat concurrently), we’ll be finalizing each of the sixteen modular pdfs, in their trademark aLBoP thoroughness, including the release of the remaining Type Angsts so that they can be referenced and applied to each type <3  We’ve also brilliantly (if I do say so myself) come up with even more ways to release them to you with greater haste and volume so no one has to be left out if they want help determining their own personality 😀  Yay!!!

 

Also, be thinking about what kinds of rewards you’d like to see on aLBoP’s Patreon page, which will most likely be coming in March (with rewards in April)!  We want to know what would excite you guys, especially on a personal-rewards basis, and we’re super excited for the group-funded tiers to bring you things like a certain number of guaranteed posts a month, more requested content like Q&As and Character Spotlights, and use it as an opportunity to bring you everyone’s favorite, Type Heroes, more quickly!  This way you guys get the content you want and we’re able to produce it and still have groceries!  Win-win!  All joking aside, you guys have been amazingly generous and we’d still be doing this even if you couldn’t support aLBoP at all… but the pace might have to be glacial.

 

Which, in a way, I think is a great segue into the next soon-to-come on aLBoP 🙂  Actively for months, and in the back of our minds since before aLBoP’s inception, we’ve been working on a new, completely free, by self-invite only (meaning you need an invitation, but anyone can ask for one), advanced-user section of aLBoP.  We’re going to call it aLBoP: Phase 2 (yes, as a call-back to Avengers, because *Avengers!*)  and it’ll be for the people who want more of the kind of content aLBoP has always offered, who are ready to apply even more awesomeness to their own lives, and who honestly want something new and archetypal to open new horizons to them.  It’ll also be a place for awesome people to get together, make friends and digitally hang out on the Official ™ aLBoP Forum!  Yay!!!  Many much yay!

 

While Phase 2 stuff won’t be anything secret, and we hope to lay it out in a format that anyone can understand, we want a little bit of a moat so that Phase 2 won’t be the kind of thing that people come from Twitter, Pinterest, Tumblr or Facebook, skim a post, leave a stupid comment, and leave.  While most our readers are fantastic, intelligent, thorough and caring, we do still get the occasional “Seriously?  I literally just answered that *in* that post!  Five times!!  In bold!!!” type readers and comments here in “Phase 1”, which are the kind of thing we want to avoid in Phase 2 with the kind of in-depth content we want to give you 😀

In short…
We are insanely excited about celebrating *you*, our readers and how totally awesome, amazing and rad you are!!  February should be a really fun month but, even more exciting, it’s a promise of things to come.  Because we love you <3 and we want 2015 to be a banner year for you becoming who you truly want to be!

Much love,
<3 Calise + Justin, her INFJ

Stay tuned!  Throughout aLBoP Amore Month content will be linked here:
Thank You Video: Beyonce Cover …and Interpretive Dance
Fan Love!