If traditional publishing is about "creating an experience," curating and highly editing the reader's passage from the front cover to the back, running a website like Apartment Therapy is much more about hosting a party for our reader community. There are multiple "front doors" and mediums that we flow into and there is no "end" as our database of posts is just about endless after eight years. Our job? To keep the room warm and inspiring, all the refreshments well stocked and a well lit open space for people to step forward and share.
The important thing that we try to keep in mind is how are you, the reader, doing? What are you thinking? What are you saying? What are you reading?
We publish, and then we listen. And then we publish what we hear. And then we listen again.
About 50% of what we publish comes from our readers, and we constantly look to surface the passion and richness of what our readers are doing to keep our collective finger on the pulse. And with our reader community growing, this pulse if more and more important.
For example, we publish about two house tours a day (hundreds a year!), all of which are homes that our readers live in. These are homes MADE by the people who live in them and not just styled for a photo shoot. This is the good stuff. When we started in 2004 it was really hard to get into people's homes and convince them to share, so all of the editors shared their own homes first. Back then many readers didn't think that their homes were worthy of view and some didn't want to be photographed, as they were shy of being on the web. This was before Facebook became ubiquitous, and we shared everything in our lives.
But I knew that these "real" homes were the most inspiring, so we kept at it. Now the range of homes that I see gracing our site each day is amazing and the smiling faces of the proud homeowners is a testament to how far we have come. I love seeing people on our front page. It makes it all so much more personal and interesting. After all, what we're about is sharing our personal lives at home - after we leave work. Home is where the heart is.
Now whenever anyone wants to partner with us, whether it's another blog, a person or an advertiser, I always say, "if you want to work with us, you will be working with our community - we're inseparable." There is no better example of this than the last two book projects that we did with our readers. Both of these started with publishers who wanted me to write a book under the Apartment Therapy banner about home design. I quickly pivoted with them and pitched them books about how our readers live right now with my own commentary. They got it.
Apartment Therapy's Big Book of Small, Cool Spaces was born from over 200 submissions in response to a shout out on the website. We then narrowed it down to twenty homes and forty rooms in New York City and Los Angeles, and then I got to travel to every one and meet everyone. It was a huge amount of fun (and a great job to have).
This was the inspiration for the project:
Here are a few of the portraits taken by Jim Franco that are beautiful, but didn't get any real exposure in the book.
Bethany Obrecht with me at home in Brooklyn
Kelly Van Patter at home in Los Angeles
Vane and Chad Broussard at home in Brooklyn Heights, NY
Alex McClain at home in downtown Los Angeles
Timothy and Laura Dahl (of Charles & Hudson) at home in Santa Monica, Los Angeles
Tracy and Michelle McCormick at home in downtown Los Angeles
Manson Fung at home in Los Angeles
Katie Ryan at home in the hills of Los Angeles
Finally, thanks to everyone who has ever graced our pages here at Apartment Therapy. We wouldn't exist if it weren't for you, and I love that we have the most fabulous, involved, supportive, creative readers around.
Keep sharing your inspiring achievements, and I'll let you know when the next book project is coming. It's going to be better than ever. :-)
Best, Maxwell
(images: Sibylle Roessler, Kristy Ahumada, Bethany Nauert, Marcia Prentice, bottom 8 from the Big Book: Jim Franco)
Previous:
Ellen's Thirties Style Small Space
Juan's Garage Turned Modern Guest House
Good Food to Share 
The Big Book of Small, Cool Spaces 
Apartment Therapy Presents 
The Eight-Step Home Cure 
Commercial Flour Sa...
10 Picnic-Ready Salads to Eat Outside
Recipe: Thai Ginger Chicken Stir-Fry
Thanks Maxwell!
I really enjoy apartment therapy, but will take this opportunity to make 2 request:
Would be to have a link to ALL the post from every category, with the exception of the cooking ones since that's a separate site. Since the new redesign I have this nagging feeling I am missing post because I'm not clicking on every sub-category. I really enjoy this site, and would like to see it all.
I seems like a lot of focus was taken away from green living. While before there was a whole site dedicated to it, now its just sort of an afterthought on the left side list. I still am very interested in green living, and feel it should be placed in a more prominent section in the top of the page menu, where it seems the previous sites that were combined back into AT were linked.
Otherwise, I have to say I enjoy this site, and was happy to share my apartment with everyone, and will continue to visit the site regularly.
I'd like a link to those featured posts.
Thank you for this post Maxwell. I really do feel a part of this vibrant community.
Love your website! I enjoying reading it everyday!! Keep up the awesome work.
Yeah! Links to those featured in this post would be nice...
And, yes, keep up the good work!
Thank you Maxwell for creating AT! I have all 3 of your books and read the website almost daily. I love the idea of featuring real homes because most of us can not attain what is featured in typical design magazines, books etc.
My only other feedback is that sometime I am overwhelmed by the sheer volume of posts on the site. I just can't get to them all or keep up with them. Maybe I'm alone on this but I would love to see less posts every day so that I can really delve into them.
The only problem with this party is the "bring your own FOOD aspect"! Now if somebody from the Kitchn wants to stop by with samples, I will gladly pass on my contact info! ;^)
I really love the photos that didn't get put in the book. It's always interesting to see the people who made their homes into something so vibrantly personal.
I love AT, but the Community feeling would be even stronger if it were a more Facebook-like posting interface.
It would enable more realistic conversations and we would be able to follow them easier.
If someone asked me a question, the system would send me an email so I would know to respond. My ego isn't so big that I post a comment and then go back at the end of the day to see if someone responded to it. (but I'll be checking this one!)
I do have a comment. I would like to see more age diversity. After all, people are working longer and a lot of us love to do and redo our living space. My husband is 72 and I am 69 and we totally enjoy adding subtracting and doing everything we can to make our condo space livable for the two of us and and our family. Let's see how WE live.
Refreshing. I like this post.
Thanks all! I put in a few more links that were missing, but the pics at the bottom are not posts - they were taken for the book, but didn't get in in big bold color. They got in as black and whites at the end, so you can only see them like this here.
Best, M
Timothy and Laura, I am going to bribe some aliens to raid your backyard in the middle of the night and steal the big honking Ficus lyrata (I am addicted to them).
I love Apartment Therapy because it gives me a sense of belonging to very creative people who, for the most part, cannot afford to have their apartments or houses done by interior designers - not that I have anything against interior designers - but I think it's wonderful to see all those mismatched pieces that AT members hunted down in charity stores, found at the curb or a flea market but that somehow fit together and tell so much about the homeowners.
Thank you, Apartment Therapy, for something to look forward to every single day.
Thanks, Maxwell and the AT posse. This site is a fun read, gives inspiration, and is a good resource. Keep up the good work.
Keep hosting this great Party - I find inspiration every time I visit!!
JOSE A, I totally agree!
Maybe this site needs a new moniker? Apartment Therapy just doesn't seem appropriate anymore since a lot of the spaces shown are single family residences. Maybe it should evolve to Home Therapy instead.
I wish you'd listen to everyone saying that they want ALL posts on the main page... or, at the least, the style/diy/homekeeping ones. The others sort of have their own niche, but I'd at least like to see traditional Apartment Therapy posts in one place WITHOUT having to click four different pages... (Most of which have the exact same content, with the exception of two or three new posts!)
Ditto on the age diversity!
How have you listened to all the critiques of the new website design? Have the editors posted any response?
When I got the email today with the email today with the subject line "Apartment Therapy is a Community" I had to chuckle. Apartment Therapy is a community in the sense that it's a group of people with similar interests who like to discuss those interests, but the moderators make it as difficult as possible for us to actually communicate with one another. The fact that there has been no response to the requests for a system by which updates on topic posts are sent by email and where we can reply directly to one another's comments for about 3 years now is laughable.
@ apointe - Agree. I keep checking back for responses or updates, and am rapidly losing faith that any will be made. A community leader who doesn't listen to his community is a poor one, even in the world of the internets.
I just want to give a shout out to the AT RSS feed. I follow AT via Google Reader, where:
- you get just the right number of posts
- you read them when you want to
- it's easy to save some for later
- it's easy to delete others right away
- you don't seem to miss much
- you don't have to keep going to the site to keep up
So, I highly recommend using Google Reader to follow AT. AT, keep up the good work with your RSS feed ~ it's appreciated!
point 2: I do think it would be great to have the reply-to-comment option with a notify option that others have mentioned.
Thank goodness other people want the same thing! I was starting to feel like a broken record!
The sitemeter stats sadly seem to answer many of the qualms those of us less happy with the redesign have brought up: Jan2012 is showing the most hits/views/etc. ever this pas 12 months, thus new design is "working" and stays.
The relative silence of the staff and removal of a central place to discuss the change (the redesign post) seals the deal. I've found the info vacuum to be more off putting than the sometimes antagonistic responses some gawker newtork editors offered during their redesign debacle.
AT might as well have been my homepage for all the time I spent on it before, but no longer. AT has clearly moved on and the sitemeter finally made me realize I'll have to as well.
For today:
Style had just shy of two pages, had one new article.
DIY had under one page, had two new articles.
Homekeeping had only three new articles, none of which were new.
Seriously, guys. I think I saw the article on brass three times, and I had to load four pages (for the two under Style) to see three articles that weren't on Main. What's the big problem with keeping all the traditional AT stuff on Main?
I'm not even complaining about all the random kid or tech stuff cropping up there too! I can live with that! But three articles, THREE, that come under AT's traditional content, that I had to load FOUR pages for? It's ridiculous!
Everyone is asking you to just put everything on Main. Please. It's THREE extra articles. It's not that hard!
Don't ever change the name from Apartment Therapy. Even though huge houses are shown here, I want the focus to always go back to the roots of AT--small space, urban living,
I'm just glad they stopped doing the royal "we" finally. That was so annoying.