Email spam. We all get it. We all hate it. What might be surprising is how many in the industry of book publishing are not just receiving spam but also sending it.

But what exactly constitutes email spam? Wikipedia says,

E-mail spam, also known as unsolicited bulk email (UBE) or unsolicited commercial email (UCE), is the practice of sending unwanted e-mail messages, frequently with commercial content, in large quantities to an indiscriminate set of recipients.

The two keywords there are “unsolicited” and “indiscriminate.” Lately, I’ve been getting quite a few emails that I think qualify as both, from unexpected sources. Some are promotional emails for a service or website concerning books in general or romance novels specifically, but most are advertisements for new book releases. I’m not talking about author newsletters that I’ve subscribed to or done anything that would have given my permission to be subscribed. No, these emails are arriving at our business contact emails (i.e. various “contact@” emails), addresses that we list on our sites but have never subscribed to any kind of mailing list. I’ve never been spammed by an author directly, but I have gotten such messages from publicists and directly from publishers themselves—big NYC publishers who, in my opinion, really ought to know better than to send unsolicited emails. So authors, be careful who you hire and make it clear to those who do promotions for you that you don’t want them to send unsolicited emails on your behalf.

Now, I’m not saying that no one should ever send an unsolicited email of a commercial nature. I’ve received commercial/advertisement emails that I didn’t feel was spam, and before writing this column, I had to figure out exactly what I would consider spam and what I wouldn’t. Here’s where the “indiscriminate” part comes into play. First of all, if the email doesn’t address us, our business, or our website title by (the correct!) name, then it’s an indiscriminate advertisement. If it does use the correct salutation but has no relevance to us or the services we offer, it’s indiscriminate advertisement. One example of this is an unsolicited new book release announcement to the contact address at AccessRomance, a community site that only promotes the books of its own authors (the ones listed on the sidebar). We don’t do reviews. We don’t create buzz on books that we personally liked on this site. We promote our authors, and that’s it. So when our contact address somehow ends up on a publicist or publisher’s mailing list, that means said publisher or publicist took it upon themselves to decide that we might be interested in spreading the word on this product product (they were wrong), and so they went to our site, found our contact email, and added it to their list.

Folks, this is called spamming. I’m not going to name names, but within the time span of a couple of weeks, I got three such emails from the same person at a NYC publisher. After the first one, I informed him that it was unsolicited and asked to be removed from his list. I had to reply to two more of his messages with the same request before the emails finally stopped arriving in my inbox. I’ll admit I was probably a bit rude to him, but the subject of spam does seem to get people unreasonably riled up, doesn’t it?

And it’s that excessive anger on the part of spam recipients that can easily get authors in trouble when they send out newsletters. As a company that runs hosting on our own server and also sends out newsletters for a huge number of authors, we get hit by the spam deluge threefold. Firstly, we’re in a constant struggle to prevent spam from being sent to our hosted clients, including ourselves. Secondly, the spam attacks on our mail system, contact forms, message boards, and blogs use up resources and cost us money. And thirdly, we have to make sure that the newsletters we send out don’t get marked as spam, the end result of which could be blacklisting by email service providers such as Yahoo! and AOL, preventing all of our authors’ newsletters from being delivered to those subscribers.

To stop that from happening, you have to play by the rules. Email service providers are under tremendous pressure to block spam, and because of that, they can be merciless on anyone that their customers tell them are spammers. If you have a website hosted by a big company, you most likely agreed to Terms of Service that stated you can’t send out newsletters to a list without a double opt-in. (You did read the Terms of Service, right? Yeah, I didn’t think so. No one does. But trust me, it’s there, and it’s something you should be concerned about if you send out newsletters.) So, what’s a double opt-in? It’s where subscribers, after submitting the form to join the mailing list, get an email asking for confirmation, and only after they’ve clicked the link in that email are they actually subscribed to the list.

This method generally doesn’t work for authors that want to build up a mailing list by running a traditional type of contest, where the entries are collected either manually or automatically in some sort of database, and the emails are then manually added to the author’s newsletter list. We currently do have the ability to ask all those email recipients to confirm their subscription, but this is an ineffective way to build a list, because very few actually click on that link.

There are ways around all of this, however. Here’s what we’ve done to make sure we play it safe and are still able to help our authors grow their list numbers:

(more…)

I get this question every once in a while from unpublished writers inquiring about our services. It’s always been tough for me to answer it, since from my side of the table as the developer of websites, it’s hard to judge the real value of taking this plunge. The question behind the question is, of course: Can a website or a blog help an aspiring author make that first sale? I figured it was time to do some research on the topic by getting answers out of agents and of published authors who had a web presence before they sold.

Can a website or blog help you get an agent?

The short answer is: Yes. Agents (and to some extent, probably also editors) do visit your blogs and websites, and what they find there can impact their decision to request materials from you. All of the agents I surveyed said that if they find your query or partial interesting, then they’ll most likely visit any URL you’ve included in your query or cover letter. Agent Kristin Nelson said that in cases where she’s unsure about requesting more material, what she finds on a blog or website is more likely to sway her one way or another. While the agent’s decision to offer representation will depend on the manuscript itself, your web presence can help motivate the agent to take a closer look at it in the first place. For an even more encouraging example, agent Lori Perkins said, “I read about a book published by a small press, Googled the author, went to her blog, where I found an excerpt from the book. After reading it, I knew she could write, so I emailed her about representation.”

Can a website or blog hurt you in your search for an agent?

Definitely! When an agent visits your home on the web, she is looking for more info about your writing and info about you, the writer. The importance of professionalism can’t be stressed enough. Kristin Nelson points out that a site that’s obviously homegrown leaves a bad impression and can actually do more damage than good. Content that the agent finds off-putting can make her decide you’re not someone she’d like to work with or that you’re not serious about your career.

Keep in mind that your URL in a query or cover letter is not the only way an agent can find you on the web. They visit many of the same sites that you do and could follow any link you leave behind. They might be pointed to your website by an acquaintance. Or they might actually Google your name to see what they can find about you. Several agents admit to Googling writers they’re curious about, so consider that not only when you add content to your own site or blog but also when you post anything on other people’s blogs and message boards. If you come off as unprofessional or say something that rubs the agent the wrong way, you could get a “no thanks” instead of a request.

Do’s and Don’ts

So what are agents looking for on your blog or website, and what do they not want to see?

Samples of your writing are probably the most important. If your query or partial interests them, they might visit your site looking for more excerpts. Information about your other projects could be helpful, too. You could talk about your research and writing process. Mention anything positive as relates to your pursuit of a career as an author—conferences and workshops you’ve attended, contests you’ve won, and critique groups you’re a member of.

The number one thing to avoid is adding too much personal information. A “this is what I did today” blog generally won’t impress an agent, unless you write it in a way that shows off your voice and writing skills. Agent Marlene Stringer of the Barbara Bova Literary Agency said, “This is a great venue to show off your writing chops, and I can get a better feel for your writing style overall if you’re writing about other topics. This is especially useful if you’re writing in a genre that is hot at the moment, but might not be next year. Lets me see you can write other things.”

Marlene adds a warning that unpublished authors should be careful about dispensing advice on the publishing business when it’s clear they have very little actual experience to back it up. Agent Jessica Faust of BookEnds similarly cautions against talking about sensitive issues such as politics. It’d be very unfortunate if you got a rejection because the agent felt offended by your personal beliefs.

Finally, be careful about talking too much about your submissions. Agents prefer not to know that you’ve received X number of rejections for the manuscript they’re considering—they tend to find that discouraging.

Advice from published authors

(more…)

I’ll be blunt: I don’t get book videos.

As a reader, they generally do nothing for me. And as a web designer involved with author promotion, I’ve been struggling to understand the value vs. the cost of them. So in an effort to educate myself and perhaps shed some light on the situation, I’d like to take a closer look at this promotional tool, from my perspectives as a reader and as an industry professional. (And I want to note that I don’t offer book videos as part of my services, never have and probably never will, so these are my unbiased observations.)

AS A READER

The reader in me agrees with author Brenda Coulter’s opinions on book videos, as written in her July 2006 blog entry Those boring book trailers:

Lately I’ve been seeing an awful lot of book trailers, which means I’ve seen a lot of awful book trailers. What’s a book trailer? Nothing more than a 30-second hyped-up slide show with a soundtrack.

[…]

Listen, I’m no marketing expert, but I am a bookbuyer, and one who uses the internet daily. That means book trailers are aimed at me. So when I say they aren’t impressing me, maybe some of the authors and publishers who are so excited about the things ought to pay some attention.

[…]

Frankly, the trailers just aren’t clever enough to induce anyone to link to them and make them go “viral.” As I mentioned earlier, they’re just slide shows. They suggest movement by jiggling the photos and spinning them and zooming in and out, but those of us with broadband are used to watching real video clips on the internet, so we’re a hard bunch to impress.

Most of the videos I’ve seen contain still photos, so the “slide show with a soundtrack” bit sums up pretty well why those don’t interest the reader in me. There’s nothing that grabs my attention about the zooming in and sliding back and forth on stock photos, set to what I’m assuming is a stock audio track, and text that amounts to just a slow, agonizing presentation of the cover blurb of the book.

The next tier of videos, those containing stock footage (i.e. video clips instead of still photos) aren’t much better. It’s basically just a slight upgrade, and their ability to hold my attention is just slightly higher. The final and most advanced kind of video is the one using live actors and original footage. One example of this is L.A. Banks’ trailer for her Vampire Huntress series. If I were into vampire books, this one might piqué my interest, but I have one major problem with it: it’s way too long.

Here’s the deal. I have a short attention span. And I don’t think I’m the only one. Authors are advised that they have to hook their readers’ attention with the first paragraphs of a book. If you apply that mentality to a book video, then it has to do some major attention grabbing in the first scene. And then with each second that passes, keeping the viewer’s attention just becomes exponentially more difficult. IMHO, a great book video is only 30 seconds long. If it goes on for more than 60 seconds, you’ve lost me. It takes me 30-60 seconds to read a cover blurb, so if a video drags on for longer than that and doesn’t offer me anything the blurb doesn’t, then it’s a waste of my time.

Besides length, my other beef is with the cover blurb aspect I just mentioned, the “slide show with a soundtrack.” In most videos, there’s just too much text. And the pace of the text is much slower than the pace at which I read, so half of the time I’m just watching the zooming and fading effects of the photos and said text while I’m waiting for something new to appear. What I liked the most about the Vampire Huntress trailer I linked to above was the narration by the protagonist. It gave a fresh perspective, and it wasn’t just an abbreviated version of the cover blurb. Another good example is Sandra Hill’s Pearl Jinx. This one is way too long as well, but the banter between the hero and heroine is fun and unique. It didn’t make me want to read the book, but it came very, very close. Bottom line is, I don’t want to read the blurb in the form of a slow book video. I’d be surprised if there are any readers who do.

(more…)

I’ve yet to meet anyone who doesn’t like free stuff. The great thing about anything that’s free is that if it disappoints you, you’ve essentially lost nothing except the time it took you to check it out. Today I’m going one step further to save you that time and give you a list of online freebies that are not only really, really cool but also useful and definitely worth taking a closer look at.

Let me start with what has been one of the most helpful tools for me business wise and personally as well: www.MemoToMe.com If you’re like me and have a gazillion things that you need to remember to do, this site’s services will be a godsend. Schedule a reminder for yourself, and you’ll get an email at the time that you specify. If it’s a weekly or monthly event, you can schedule it as such, and you’ll only have to do it once. There’s even the equivalent of a snooze button—you can get emails about the same event, say, three days in a row, just in case you’re one of those, you know, procrastinators… You can also upgrade to their platinum membership, where you have more control over the way your reminders look, you can send to more than one email address, and you can even send reminders to your cell phone. This is not free, but—and this is a big “but”—you set your own annual price. That’s right. You decide how much you think the service is worth, and that’s how much you pay. It doesn’t get much cooler than that.

I’m sure most of you have at least heard of the blogging/publishing platform Wordpress, but I couldn’t very well do a post on great free stuff without mentioning it, especially since it’s safe to say that even RTB wouldn’t be what it is without Wordpress. Outside of sites such as Blogger and Livejournal, it seems to be the most popular choice of bloggers, and for good reasons. Set-up is a breeze, and it can be customized to your heart’s content. Everything is absolutely free, including the tons and tons of plugins and add-ons that make Wordpress so much fun to play with. And you don’t even need to have a web space of your own to enjoy many of the advantages of this blogging tool—for anyone who wants to use Wordpress without paying a single dime, there’s Wordpress.com where you can get your own WP blog even more quickly and easily. Oh, and if you do decide to go with your own website and set it all up yourself, check out the Wordpress Basic workshop on AccessRomance that was hosted by the fabulous Frauke of Croco Designs along with some other WP experts. The workshop is now open to the public for reading with no forum registration needed. Easy peasy!

On a related topic, if you have your own website, be it a Wordpress site or a regular ol’ site with HTML pages, you’re most likely using some sort of FTP program to upload and download your files. I’ve been using FTP programs for close to 10 years, and until recently, I hadn’t found one that made me 100% happy. With as much uploading of files as I do, I need a smart FTP program with all the bells and whistles that’s at the same time easy to use. When my tech guy Walt (incidentally also the tech wiz who handles any issues on RTB—let’s give him a round of applause for all his hard work!) mentioned the open source project FileZilla, I was skeptical. Could a freebie do everything I needed from an FTP program? Short answer: Yes. Slightly longer answer: Yes, and then some. This is a program that’s so powerful and yet so simple that it’ll work just as well for a beginner as it would a professional. I’m in love!

Moving on to another open source project, this one of particular use for authors: phplist. A while back we were struggling with finding the best way to manage our clients’ mailing lists. The software we were using was a behemoth, an old and outdated kind of program that incidentally was also a terrible resource hog. Oh, and did I mention that the professional version with all the advanced features was not free? We eventually moved on to phplist and haven’t looked back. Now, installing, setting up, and using this program is not for beginners, unless you’re an adventurous amateur. But if you have the savvy or have an unsuspecting relative or friend who does, consider phplist for managing your mailing list and sending out professional newsletters. One word of caution, though: Make sure you know your web host’s policy on newsletter mailings. Because of spam problems, there are often limitations on what ways you’re allowed to build a mailing list and what ways you’re allowed to send out newsletters. When it comes to respecting your host’s terms of service, better be safe than sorry!

And speaking of nuisances like spam… Did you know there are free ways to protect your computer and your privacy? I’ve never been a fan of the most common for-purchase virus/spam/spyware protection. They always seem to be big programs that, seeing as they need to run in the background at all times, take up resources and slow down your computer. The free stuff is generally so much simpler and equally effective. For a great, free virus protection program, try AVG Anti-Virus Free. 9 out of 10 geeks swear by it—or at least, that seems to be the case. To detect and destroy of spyware and other kinds of malware that could slow down or even crash your computer as well as endanger your privacy, you have options such as Ad-Aware, Spybot – Search & Destroy, and Spysweeper. It’s always a good idea to routinely clean up your computer with at least two different spyware protection programs, since one might find stuff the other program didn’t, and that way you’ll cover the most ground.

These are my personal recommendations. I also asked some friends with know-how if they had anything to add, so here are a few more.

Author Alison Kent recommends Open Office (free equivalent of Microsoft Office)

Author Lydia Joyce recommends:

-Zone Alarm (a firewall, for even more protection)

-Windows Defender (spyware protection)

-McAfee Site Advisor (even more protection!)

-IRFAN View (open source image/photo editor)

-Google Docs (free online word processor and spreadsheet)

-KompoZer (open source HTML editor)

And finally, Lydia also mentioned Ubuntu, the open source Linux based operating system. If you decide to install this, however, you’re braver than me!

Now, bring on the freebies. If you have anything to add, feel free (pun intended) to do so!

–

This article was originally posted on Romancing the Blog.

One of our clients recently was looking for a redesign, and because of a limited budget, she went to a different designer who could cheaply do a fresh design and set up a Wordpress website for her. Unfortunately, things didn’t work out between her and that designer, who couldn’t come up with a design she was happy with. But the worst part about this was that the designer required full payment upfront with no refunds, meaning this author lost nearly $500 and has no new website.

If you hire a designer that requires full payment upfront, this could happen to you, too. We recommend you avoid these businesses altogether, but if you decide their work is good enough to take such a risk, make sure that you will be entitled to at least a partial refund if things don’t work out. There should be an official agreement of this, and you should have it in writing.

At DreamForge, we don’t require any kind of deposits–our clients only pay us when they have a finished product that they’re happy with. This might be considered risky on our part, because we take the chance that we’ll do hours and hours of work that we might never get paid for. However, after being in business for four years and creating websites for more than 50 clients, this has only happened to us once. We think of the way we conduct our business as an act of faith, on our part and on the part of the client. We do everything we possibly can to make our clients happy, and our clients work with us until they have a product they think is worth paying us for.

So, before you hand over your money, be careful and know what you’re entitled to get in return. A designer that requires a partial non-refundable deposit might make you hesitate but could still be worth it. One that requires a full non-refundable payment upfront should make you run in the opposite direction.

Until recently, I’d been laboring under the impression that once a client paid for a design, it was legally theirs to do with as they pleased. Then I heard of a client of ours whose site was designed by another company, who wants to switch to host with us, but her designer won’t allow her to take her current site with her when she moves.

Aside from being a horrible and nasty thing to do (and don’t tell me the designer is doing this because it would hurt her business otherwise–it’s sheer pettiness, period), I thought there was no way this could be legal. Surely the designer can’t hold the design hostage like that?

Well, according to this Business Week article, the designer can, indeed, do just that. Just like a publisher owns the copyright to a book’s cover art, a web designer owns the copyright to the design unless there’s a contract stating otherwise.

DreamForge Media would never dream of holding a design hostage. If a client wants to leave, no matter the reason and whether it’s a friendly break-up or not, what would keeping the design accomplish except sow resentment between designer and client? The client would only leave if she could afford a new design by someone else, and if she stays, you have an awkward business relationship on your hands.

Do I understand why a designer might want to keep control of her work? Yes. I’ve seen it happen where clients leave and their new webmistresses ruin the design with horrible (and usually pointless) changes. But this could easily be prevented. DreamForge Media’s terms state that a client can take the site elsewhere as long as it’s only updated and maintained with no major changes to the design. And if they do leave, the statement of who designed the site must remain with a link back to our company’s Web site.

So what’s to be done? Well, when choosing a designer of your Web site, make sure you ask about the copyright and whether you’d be able to move the site to a different host. If the designer balks at this, take your business elsewhere. Seriously. There are enough choices out there that you don’t have to settle for someone who’ll take your money and then keep you hostage so that they can keep taking your money. You don’t have to put up with that, and you shouldn’t.

Consider this: You could lose your webmistress/master. It could happen any number of ways. The two of you could have a falling out. Or your webmistress could out of the blue announce that she’s pursuing a different career path and doesn’t have time to maintain your site anymore. Or she could simply disappear off the face of the earth.

What do you do when this happens? Clearly, you need to find someone to take over the job. This is where I make a confession that’s not a big secret, but you still might not be aware of it. Taking over maintenance of a site created by someone else is not in the least bit appealing to a Web site designer.

Why? Well, it has to do with the technical aspects of how your site is put together. If it’s created in a way that makes it unwieldy to update, especially for someone who didn’t create that site, you might have a very hard time finding anyone to take over management of it. Design no-nos include:

- A site created entirely in Flash. These may look fancier, but trust me, you don’t need it! Visitors want information when they go to your Web site. They don’t go there to oooh and aaah at how neat it looks. As a designer, I’d never agree to take over a site built in Flash. It would be way too much of a headache.

- A site that consists entirely of images. This could also look nicer than the average Web site, but it would be a major pain to update. Instead of just entering text onto the page, I’d have to turn it into images with my graphics program. Again, a job I’d never agree to do.

- A site that is hand coded. This doesn’t have to be a disaster, but be wary of it. Most professional designers use professional software to create web sites, such as Macromedia Dreamweaver. Please note that we don’t do this because we don’t know how to write code manually. For years, I created all my sites with a plain text editor. Knowing HTML (the primary programming language used to create Web sites) is a must. If you don’t, you won’t know how to troubleshoot (and you always have to troubleshoot). But when I switched over to using Dreamweaver, I found that it had tons of shortcuts, and the time it has saved me is immeasurable. The problem that can arise with hand coded sites is pages with sloppy HTML that a professional grade program doesn’t understand, which makes updating such a site a huge pain for those who use those tools to edit sites (and trust me, most professionals do use them). I’d be very, very hesitant to agree if asked to manage a hand coded site, and I’d make sure to let the client know the possible extra cost due to the extra time and work involved.

- Messy organization. Do you have looong pages with tons of information? Vaguely titled links? Lots of content without logical placement? If the organization of your site is a mess, it makes updating it a lot of work, especially for someone who didn’t create it in the first place. If I can’t at first glance make sense of how your site is organized, I’d say “no, thanks” to taking over maintenance of it. And need I mention how visitors respond to such sites?

If you don’t think any of this applies to you because you’re perfectly happy with your current designer and don’t think you’ll ever switch to someone else, think again. It could happen, and if you’re not prepared, you could be in for some serious headaches. So, make sure your site is user friendly not only for your visitors but also for possible future webmistresses.

The message here is short and sweet. If you’re setting up a Web site, no matter who you’re hosting with, make sure you have control over your domain name. This is Very Important! If you sign up for a deal where your host registers your domain for you and you ever decide to leave that host, you could get stuck in a transfer battle with that host for a very long time, and if it’s a particularly nasty dispute, you could be facing legal action as your only recourse.

Even if you already have a Web site, this should be a concern. Take control now. Set up an account with a domain registrar (I recommend GoDaddy.com) and transfer the domain. You’ll need to know your host’s nameservers, but this information you can easily find by doing a WHOIS search of your domain name.

Don’t let someone else have control over your Web site name. Be the master of your domain.

There seems to be quite a bit of confusion and, yes, outright deception going around about Web site statistics. So, here’s a quick breakdown for you. I’m going to use as an example the stats program AWStats. It’s a very common feature offered by hosts as a way of tracking your traffic.

Here’s an example of a general overview of a full month’s traffic.

The number under the orange header reflects the amount of unique visitors. This is the number of unique IPs that have accessed the site, which means it’s a pretty accurate count of the number of different people who have visited your site. This is the most important number! For an idea of what kind of numbers are realistic in this area, a NYT bestselling author might have 5,000-10,000 unique visitors a month.

The number under the yellow header reflects the amount of visits. The second most important number, this will show you how many times your site has been viewed. Divided by the unique visitors, it’ll tell you the average number of visits per person (shown in parenthesis). Obviously, you want your visitors to return to your site, so a high number here is a good thing. But it’s important to keep in mind that if this says 5,000, that does not mean 5,000 people have viewed the Web site. Only the number of unique visitors will be an accurate tally of that.

The number under the blue header reflects the number of pages that have been loaded. Each time a single visitor goes to any one of your pages, it counts as one page load. In parenthesis, again, you’ll see the average number of pages viewed per visitor. This statistic is interesting enough but not very useful. And again, it does not tell you how many people have visited your site!

The number under the turquoise header tells you the number of hits. This is the most misunderstood statistic ever. A “hit” means that one file has been loaded. So, let’s say that you have a page with a total of 20 images. Including the page file itself, when one visitor loads this page, it results in 21 hits. When five people load it, that’s 105 hits. And so on and so forth. Basically, this number is useless. It’s huge, and it tells you nothing. And it is not–I repeat, not–the number of people who have visited your Web site. I can’t emphasize this point strongly enough.

There are a lot of statistics programs out there, a lot of different ways for a program to read the traffic information it collects from the server. I’ve come across way too many that are very confusing, which is why I love AWStats and prefer hosts that offer it. But despite the difficulty sometimes in understanding these numbers, one part remains a fact: If someone tells you they had 50,000 hits last month/last week/whatever, then they’re talking about the number of files accessed–not the number of visitors. Because very, very few Web sites get that kind of traffic.

This is a comprehensive guide to websites for authors. It was originally written by a partner of our company who is no longer with us and has requested that her name be withheld.

Introduction: Your Purpose

No author would dream of scrawling out messages on index cards and cutting them up to use as promotional bookmarks or even getting the neighbor’s kid who is “so good at drawing” to whip something up and send it to Kinko’s. Yet when it comes to websites, that’s exactly what the majority of writers do!

Unlike print media, it is possible to develop a professional-looking, effective website yourself, but it takes time, effort, and trial and error. It also takes the right software, a good eye, and a working knowledge of HTML and graphic design.

This series of articles lays out the purpose of owning a website as well as going into the nitty-gritty details of good website design for authors.

These guidelines have been compiled by visiting hundreds of author sites, reading hundreds of articles on usability and good web design, and through work as professional web designers. Statistically, chances are that if you already have a website, it will violate these guidelines in half a dozen places or more. Please keep in mind that the articles are not intended to offend or embarrass but to educate–and that many good sites do exist that don’t follow every single suggestion exactly as listed here.

If these articles make you realize that your site isn’t giving you what you need, don’t despair. When they first learn website design, most people violate a lot of these guidelines—including some of the worst! It can often take several redesigns of your website to create something that will achieve all the goals you set out.

Professional and Promotional

Always remember that an author’s website is a promotional tool. It’s like paper advertisements, booksignings, and mailings. Authors should use it to connect with their fans, cultivate loyalty, and generate interest in their books. If it fails in these things, it is a waste of time and money. Even worse, it can actually make you look amateurish, which is the last thing you want when creating an image.

Use your website to influence how your readers view your professional image. Authors often spend $300 or more on bookmarks alone, which is enough to either buy design software or pay for a simple, two-page website and cover hosting for a year. But if you are not willing to devote the time or money to establishing a minimal, professional web presence, it’s recommended that you simply register your domain name (www.yourname.com) and camp on it in case you change your mind. This step prevents site hijackers. Don’t think it would happen to you? It happened to Jennifer Crusie, Jo Beverley, and Susan Johnson, among many lesser lights. It’s illegal, but who has the money for a legal battle?

Article 1: Four Targets of an Author’s Website

The first article addresses the goals of an author’s website, explaining the four targets and how they apply to you. The later articles, which deal more heavily with specifics, apply many of the concepts in more practical detail.

Branding and Emotional Appeal

How does it feel?

First of all, your web presence is a branding tool: a way of creating an image, atmosphere, and tone to be associated with your name. No matter what genre, you want that image to be professional. You might write every night on a laptop on the kitchen table while four screaming kids run around you, but that doesn’t mean that you’d go to a booksigning in your sweats! Your website should be your most collected face.

Not only should your web presence project a professional image, it should project a unique and appropriate image. That’s part of branding.

Your website should have a look and feel that belongs to no other site and that compliments the tone and genre of your books. Be careful to avoid tackiness and clichés, however. A crumpled satin background or the theme song to “Love Story” playing in the background does nothing to set you apart and does not appear—there’s that word again!—professional.

To be emotionally appealing, the site should be attractive and harmonious, and it should make the user feel good to be visiting the site. Following some web usability guides would lead to black text on a white page with no graphics and a big fat menu on the first page, but this is a hostile environment for a visitor who is seeking anything but cold, hard facts. Branding is a high-aesthetic goal, so the designer must pay attention to the attractiveness of the site.

Content

What information is there?

A great-looking site isn’t enough—you have to have content. Fortunately, an author’s content is pretty much built-in: the books that she writes!

The emphasis of an author’s site should always be on the writing. This seems obvious, but in practice, many authors devote more than half their site to themselves. Having information about the author is an important part of a site because it establishes the reader-author relationship on a more intimate footing, but when the author loses focus and puts herself before her books, the website fails. Yes, the author is important and is critical to fan loyalty and branding, but an author really is a name (representative of a thing—her writing) before a face (representative of a person with three kids and a cat). Give the reader a glimpse at the face, but do not try to usurp the name’s importance!

Most authors include a few standard pages on their site. Generally, there is a front page promoting the newest release with links called bookshelf/the books; work-in-progress/coming soon; contest, newsletter, and/or other promotional goodies; and about the author/biography. This is good, solid, basic content, and there’s no reason to try to get creative by doing something else! An author can add to that list by having writing-related extras or even unrelated content to keep visitors coming back, but the basics should come first.

Functionality

What does it do?

The dispersion of information—that is, the content itself—often seems the function for author websites, but the author should look beyond information to the final goal.

More than just generally talking about the author’s books, a website should inform the reader of new releases in a timely manner through announcements on the website and probably a mailing list. This should increase sales overall and also make her sales look stronger to the publisher by encouraging a well-informed fan base to seek out her books within the first two critical weeks.

A website should also increase sales by guiding the reader to order them through a “buy now” link.

It should generate enthusiasm about the books by functioning as a teaser through excerpts, reviews, contests, character pages, and/or a newsletter.

It should attract new readers through the author’s presence on message boards and mailing lists, through link exchanges and mutual promotions, and through engaging content.

It should create loyalty by encouraging regular visits through changing contests, free goodies, newsletter teasers, and regular updates.

If you forget functionality, the content will slide off topic without you even noticing.

Usability

How easy is it to use?

All the content and functionality in the world and even the greatest, most appropriate, and fantastically unique look are not a substitute for ease of use. If your readers can’t get information quickly and easily, they will go elsewhere.

On an author site, messy organization is the prime culprit when a website is difficult to use. Bad organization is pervasive enough that an entire article will be devoted to improving it later. If your reader can’t find what she wants or gets lost in a mess of links, you have a problem.

Even if the organization is fundamentally okay, a confusing navigation system makes the site pointless.

Poor layout of individual pages is another difficulty.

Dense text and wordiness are especially off-putting on the web unless you are posting an excerpt or writing an article.

Trying to be too slick or clever is another problem. This includes using catchy, non-intuitive phrases for your menu; neat graphics that you have to mouse over or “mine-sweep” with a cursor to find the links; slow, splashy intro pages; using lots of Flash; using frames; having moving, blinking things all over the page; and much more.

Usability does not mean plaintext and blue underlined links, but it does mean intuitive interaction and a pleasing, comprehensible layout.

Article 2: Getting Started

Many authors decide they want a website, but they don’t know where to begin. This article should guide you on your way!

Web Host and Domain Registration

Unless you’re going to pay a designer to handle this, your very first step is to decide on a web host and register your domain name. Your web host is the company that has your web pages on its servers so it can be accessed by typing in your web address, or domain name. Decide on a host first because you may not have to register your domain separately, depending upon your contract.

Some authors choose free sites with ads. Don’t. Others have their sites hosted by The Literary Times or SFF.net with their pages basically in a folder of the main site. Don’t. The first doesn’t look professional, and the second leaves you with a long, nasty domain name that will make you lose visitors.

Hosts vary widely in price and service. Full hosting starts at $5 a month, but many of these cheaper companies offer poor support. Search ranking sites to research hosts before deciding on yours, and think about the services you’ll need. I would recommend a host that uses Unix or Linux servers over Microsoft if you plan to use and .cgi or perl (like blogs or HTML forms).

Once you choose your host, you need to select your domain name. The domain name should be the name you write under. Not www.romanticbooklover.com, not www.hotreadsnow.com, not www.merciville.com, but your name. No dashes, no underscores, no subdomains. Nothing! The only exception is if your own name has already been taken. Then you have no choice but to select a different one or pursue legal action if it’s obviously their intent to get traffic using your name. Still, if you decide to use a different domain name, use some variation of your name or your name with an underscore rather than a less obvious choice.

If your name is regularly misspelled, you might want to register the misspelling of your name as well and pay for an inexpensive redirect service to funnel those visitors into your site.

If you want, you can make secondary sites that link to your series separately and provide a more immersive environment. Check out Alison Kent’s website for her www.girl-gear… series as one example (www.girl-gear.com). Kinley MacGregor/Sherrilyn Kenyon has also done this for most of her series (www.dream-hunter.com , among others).

Make sure your registration is either anonymous or that you list a P.O. box and a secondary email address if the information will be available to the public. The last thing you want is a crazed stalker spamming you on your private email or showing up at your house.

Making Your Site

The site itself should be designed using HTML. This is a mark-up language that is fast to learn and requires no plug-ins. Do not design the core of your site in Flash. Really. I’ll explain later why this is such a bad idea, but for now, trust me.

I would recommend that you invest in a good HTML editor to help you create your site. “What You See Is What You Get” programs are the easiest to use. They let you preview pages and change them interactively. The most common of these are Microsoft FrontPage and Macromedia Dreamweaver. FrontPage is $169 new and is a very capable program, especially when coupled with the Image Slicer feature of Paint Shop Pro to create more complicated pages. Professionals generally use Dreamweaver, which retails for $399. You can buy both of these for less than half the retail price on eBay.

No matter what program you use, though, you’ll need a working knowledge of HTML. HTML Goodies is the best site on the net for tutorials (www.htmlgoodies.com). There is absolutely no reason to waste your money on a book.

If you can learn to use cascading style sheets, they will make your life much easier! Again, HTML Goodies is the bet place on the web to learn

The next important element you need for your site after text content is images. First, scan the pictures of yourself and your book covers. For a minimal site, that might be all that that you do, but a site that restricted will not be an effective promotional tool. To create a themed, unique site, you will need a high quality graphics program such as Jasc’s Paint Shop Pro ($99), Adobe Photoshop ($149), or Macromedia Fireworks ($299). Photoshop is generally what professionals use; together with Dreamweaver, its capabilities are unmatched. However, Paint Shop Pro is a perfectly capable program and can replicate most of the features of Photoshop. Again, you can get them for half the price on eBay.

Once the site is up, never, ever take it down for any reason for more than half an hour. Test redesigns in a private directory and then post the finished product. Downtime chases away potential visitors.

Email

Make sure you can have at least one email address with automatic forwarding. That way, your fans will send email to Susie@SusieAuthor.com instead of Suesouthseas23@AOL.com. Much more professional, and that way, you can separate or forward the email to a main account, as necessary.

Post your email on the site either using a concealing JavaScript or as an image file so spambots cannot collect your address. Here’s an example of such a script. All that has to be done is substitute the parts that are bold with your own information.

Don’t make your contact link only in mailto: form. Make sure the visitor can see the email address, too. Having Outlook pop up whenever the reader is expecting to just get to your address or a contact form is bad design, especially since many users only use web-based email such as Hotmail or Yahoo!, so clicking on the link will only create an error message.

Article 3: DIY or Go Pro?

Having decided on a website, many writers debate whether they should make it themselves or hire someone. This article should guide that decision.

Doing it Yourself

If you don’t want to spend the money on software (about $125 used) and the cost of web hosting (about $100/year), then honestly, a web presence probably is not a good promotional investment for you, professional or DIY. Considering the size of your audience, the web is one of the cheapest ways to influence a large number of people, but it does take some time and some continuing effort, so it’s not for everyone.

But if you know you do want to have a website, how do you decide whether to attempt it yourself or hire a professional? The following questions will help lead you in the right direction.

Can you find your way around your computer pretty well? Do you dream about interior decorating, and/or does your home look like it came out of a magazine? If the answers to both of these are yes, you can probably design your own site if you are willing to work on the design and if you don’t want anything too complicated. But if you know you’ll never have the eye to be a Martha Stewart or if the idea of changing your screen resolution gives you a headache, don’t try it. It will only frustrate you, and the results won’t be professional. (That word again!)

Web design is a lot like writing would be if anyone could get her books shoved on the same shelf as authors who have actually gone through publication. There would still be a good amount of solid books with professional covers that have been published by major houses. There would be even more gems that were either published by small presses or self-published by the authors and written and packaged well despite the lack of a huge industry machine behind them. And then there would be piles and piles and piles of dreck, each of which the author is convinced is the next Great American Novel.

Why would the dreck exist? There are five major reasons:

1. Equality to the extreme. Because they actually took the time to move the story from their heads to a piece of paper, these writers believe that somehow it must have an innate value. Deleting one word they took the time to write would be tantamount to ripping their hearts out because their act of writing it gives it worth—and, since it came from the heart, that somehow validates its existence. In websites, this attitude leads to poorly written, pointless, disorganized, maudlin, and crowded pages.

2. Striving for mediocrity. The writers know it might not be as good as some stuff out there, but they think it’s plenty “good enough” for publication. These lead to extremely basic-looking pages that could have been put together by a ten-year-old.

3. Lack of “ear.” These writers really are completely deaf to everything that makes their writing so bad. Clunky prose, atrocious mechanics, derivative plot, cloying clichés—they cannot see any of it. The same thing happens with painful frequency in web design but is graphical as well as textual.

4. Lack of content. These writers have absolutely nothing to say, yet they want to say it anyway, often very volubly. In internet terms, this means that the site has no purpose. “Telling people about myself” isn’t enough, nor is “making a place in the world for love and happiness.” Even if the purpose is, say, letting your long-distance friends know what’s happening in your life through a blog or letting your family see pictures of you, the site must have more of a purpose than merely existing. In terms of an author’s website, this is the functionality I mentioned in the first article.

5. Self-conscious, awkward attempts to be artistic. These writers use purple prose, avant-garde formats, or bizarre conceits and tricks that make their work annoying to read if not impossible to get into. In web design, these are the sites that are so “neat” they’re ridiculous to use. Flash splash pages (or “skip intros,” as some people jokingly call them) almost invariably fall into this category. So does having way too much animation or navigation that tries to be cool rather than usable.

***

Designing websites takes the same kind of effort that writing does. You need talent, experience, and hard work to be successful. There’s nothing wrong with deciding that you can’t do it or don’t have enough time to learn. But if you do decide to do it yourself, make it good!

Hiring Someone

Now, if you hire someone to design your site for you, make sure they are actually good at web development. Just like you want to make sure your publisher is on the up-and-up, you don’t want to end up paying good money for a train wreck of a site.

Forget about “being able to program” and “knowing computers.” Writing HTML is not programming, and knowing how to program will not help a designer in the least. I’m not saying this out of ignorance; it is a plain fact. The only place a programming background will help is in writing perl scripts for newsletter list management and the like, but you can download freeware that does that for you and takes a lot less time to set up. Basic competence at script hacking is all that’s really needed.

In fact, not only is programming not helpful, but most computer scientists and programmers actually create sites that are worse than average. Most do not know about and have never thought about the aesthetics of design, which is critical for an author’s website. Besides ugly, many are crowded, and many more are a pain to use.

Not what an author wants. In fact, it is easy for a total beginner to create a website better than what you’d get from most of the people who are “good at computers!” Yet you will often hear an author has declare that her husband/son/neighbor’s kid was going to design her website and it will be great because he knows all about computers, and when you go look at the site, it is, quite frankly, terrible.

Hiring a graphic designer of print media who also does web design is usually better, but not always. Often, their sites are confusing, their organization is bad, they use too many fancy plug-ins, and their sites take ages to download. Unless they are also good at usability, you could end up getting a gorgeous site that no one wants to visit.

Instead, look for a designer who delivers both a great look and easy, intuitive organization. Browse their websites and judge them on look, feel, and navigation. Never decide without seeing a portfolio and actually browsing the sites! Sites that look wildly different is a huge bonus. That’s a really good clue that the designer is actually listening to her clients’ desires and is keeping their budgets in mind.

Remember, even if you’re going to hire someone, you should know what good design is so you can effectively guide the creation of your site.

Article 4: Web Architecture

The Basics

Before you start writing HTML or even decide what the site will look like, you need to determine your web architecture for the site. In simpler terms, you need organization.

No matter how good the info or snazzy the design, nothing matters unless the viewer can find what she wants quickly and easily. Use an intuitive navigation system with a clear hierarchy and obvious links to guide your viewers. This is all about Usability, the last of the four targets of an author website. Forget this one, and you might as well not waste your time making a website at all! If readers can’t use it, they won’t stay.

Start your web design process by making a list of content and deciding on the organization. Make a web, make an outline, draw pictures of the pages, whatever! Just make it work.

The most minimal website might have a front page (called the index page) promoting the current release, a page that lists all the author’s other works, and an author’s biography. However, this generally wouldn’t be worth the effort unless you also use the site to develop a mailing list to announce new releases. If you can’t manage perl scripts but still want to do you site yourself, you can simply set up a group with Yahoo! Groups and list the address on all the pages of your site—that would be the very easiest way.

A more standard website would have a contest, printable booklist, and excerpts in addition to everything listed above.

A full-featured site might include bells and whistles like a family tree for your series or special facts about the book as well as recipes, articles, and other goodies.

Do not plan to cram everything onto a single page that scrolls on forever. If you have only one page, then you should have no more info than your picture, your current release, an excerpt for it below, and a link to order the books. If you want anything more involved, learn to make multiple pages.

Four Types of Organization

The kind of organization depends upon how complicated the site is. There are basically four choices: a top bar navigation system (with or without breadcrumbs), a bottom bar navigation system, a sidebar or collapsible side bar navigation system, or a combination of a top bar and a side bar.

Top-only navigation systems are good only for small and standard sites. It might be a good idea for a standard site to also employ breadcrumbs, which are links like “Bookshelf > Backlist > Blame it on Larry” across the top to let you know where you are on the site. If you have multiple pages under one main navigation link, you probably need to employ a system similar to this so your readers always know where they are.

Drop-down menus are a pain for the reader and hide information out of plain sight, so don’t use them to make a top-menu system work with a larger site. You can have a second bar appear below the first navigation bar with sub-choices, but if that won’t fit, choose a side or top-and-side system instead.

Bottom-only navigation systems are much like top-only except that you must ensure that they are visible when the readers first reach the page. That means that for this design, you could not have a scrolling page. Inline frames could handle excerpts and the like, but this is not the ideal organization for anything larger than the most perfunctory site. (See the Nitty Gritty section for a discussion on frames.)

Side-only navigation systems are good for sites of any size, but beware of overwhelming your reader with choices. Some web usability guidelines say you should have no more than seven items on a menu, but that number is from misinterpreting research done on memory. Just choose a number of headings that seems reasonable and aesthetically pleasing to you, and try to keep them all “above the fold” (more on that later). Small sites can use a static navigation system, and standard to large sites can employ a collapsible system of hierarchical links—for example, causing submenu to appear when any main heading is clicked. You can have this bar on the left or right, but left is standard.

Top-and-side navigation systems are good for standard to large sites, but you should keep a static main heading along the top and generate dynamic submenus down the side to keep your hierarchy clean—or, less often, have the side static and the top changing. If you arbitrarily place your links—some on top, some down the side, regardless of hierarchy—you will confuse your visitors!

Nitty Gritty

Frames vs. Tables

Do not use traditional frames. Many scroll bars are unsightly, and even non-scrolling frames keep your fans from making internal bookmarks—very frustrating! (Inline frames, which are embedded, do not have this problem, but they will restrict your viewership slightly.)

Remember that anything displayed within a frame often will not be seen correctly by a search engine, either.

Learn tables instead! They are the best method to creating menu systems. They can do everything traditional frames can do, but they are much cleaner.

If you dislike the idea of your navigation system scrolling out of sight, you can use JavaScript to keep it “glued” to the edge of the screen while the reader scrolls.

Do not give it a delayed or bouncy movement since that can be distracting.

Sitemap

If you are tempted to use a site map to clarify where everything is, your navigation system is bad. No author site is large enough to warrant it.

Linking with Menus

Pages of links that lead to other pages so that the reader forgets where she is are very frustrating. All your pages should be reached from your main hierarchy! The only exception would be if including it would make the entire menu system too large—for example, it would be unfeasible to have the “Bookshelf” menu link expand with thirty books when the reader clicks on it, so you should have links for book pages inside the main bookshelf page itself.Under “Bookshelf,” the choices could be “The Books” (the default page, leading to a page that features all the books), “Printable Booklist,” and whatever other features you wish to have. Then, if the reader clicked on a book listed on “The Books” page, it the menu would expand to include the title of the book (so the reader knows where she is) and the submenu that’s available for all the individual books. But unless it’s a situation (like Bookshelf) where the sheer quantity of links makes it impossible, try to make all pages easy to get to through your menu system. Deep links are good, but not if that’s the only way to reach a page! On the subject of deep links—use them! That is, on your first page, use links that go directly to the excerpt of your newest release or to your contest page. If the first page does nothing more than look pretty and funnel the reader to another single page, it’s designed wrong. But again, do make sure these pages can also be easily reached through your navigation hierarchy!

Use Browser Standards, Don’t Fight Them

Don’t freeze the address bar! That way, the reader can always look in the address bar to see where she is on your site and can bookmark any page.

Do not have scrolling text or any other message cover up the space in the browser frame usually preserved to displaying link destinations and loading progress (the status bar). Many surfers want to know where they’ll be taken—offsite to order a book, for example—so they mouseover links first.

Never deactivate the back button. This is a good reason not to use Flash for your entire site! Readers should always be able to hit “Back” and get to the last page they viewed, not get taken all the way back to the beginning.

Title all your pages with your name and a description of the page to make bookmarking easier.

Don’t use page transitions. They are distracting, they slow the reader’s surfing, and they’re amateur and dated.

Don’t use popups. An exception is a printable booklist that does not contain the rest of the navigation system (since some users still can’t figure out how to print just the part of the page they want) or, if you choose, links to exterior pages. If you want to have a single extra window to, say, show a larger version of the book covers of your bookshelf page, that would be fine, too. But remember, sites that constantly spawn windows are highly annoying, so do not have an automatic popup spawn for any reason other than displaying a completely new page. These are too much like ad popups and will generally be ignored—or worse, hated.

Do not open links when readers simply mouse over them. It is obnoxious for a viewer not to be able to mouse across a screen without leaving the page or having popup windows appear everywhere.

Following all of these standards will improve the navigation on your site.

No Dead Ends

Don’t make your reader return to the index every time she wants to visit a new page by having your navigation only on the index page. This creates dead-end pages—that is, pages that have no link system to tell the reader where she is and how to get to other pages. It’s irritating enough that reader might spend less time on your site.

Instead, always provide a menu system, and every directory should have its own index.html file. The only exception to this is for a popup window.