Smart Bitches Trashy Books | All of the romance, none of the bullshit.

I’m always looking for the optimum author web site to crib for set up and organization, so thanks for all the examples!

Making a good website is hard, even if you want to spend a lot of money on it.

Sycophant that I am, I like the ease of navigation and the simplicity of style of jennycrusie.com and crusiemayer.com. I like barbaraferrer.com for those reasons as well as how easy it is to switch to her caridadferrer.com alter ego and how the two sites differ in style for their respective audiences.

I’ve actually always been intrigued by JK Rowling’s site, although I agree that it doesn’t work well from a reader interface standpoint.  I think she must have been going for something that would engage the reader in another world visually and, in a way, duplicate the Harry Potter reading experience.  (I don’t happen to read Harry Potter, but I do check out a lot of author websites and was curious to see what a heapload of money would buy.) A similar attempt to engage the reader visually is Libba Bray’s website, which is very fun in concept, but again quite dysfunctional to use and seems very incongruous with her books (YA historical).

http://www.libbabray.com/

I think Susan Scott’s website does a fantastic job of visually recreating her “voice.” Candice Hern and Elizabeth Hoyt’s websites are similarly effective this way:

http://www.candicehern.com/

http://www.elizabethhoyt.com/

These websites are laid out along more traditional lines in terms of site organization, though.  I’d be curious to know if anyone has come across an author website that employs a visual interface but is also effective from a reader perspective.

You know, an author website is tough to do. I still haven’t gotten mine quite right, although it’s better than it used to be. Of course, I do it for myself, so there you go.

I agree with Holly on all her suggestions of good sites. I think the problem is that we’ve all got so much information we want out there and it’s hard to organize. For all authors who can afford it, I highly recommend Wax Creative, or Electric Webs (OMG gorgeous work, try bethkendrick.com and rllafevers.com, I’m in lurrrrrve) if you can afford them. If you’re broke like me, remember that simple is best, and use a template for blog software, like Wordpress or Movable Type. Wordpress I think is the best for creating a site with flexibility re: static pages and dynamic content, but that could just be me.

Anyway, hallelujah sister on this post. But I also sympathize with the authors. It’s very hard; watch the good sites and take cues from that. Then save your pennies and hire someone who knows what they’re doing - it’ll be worth it. Trust me.

One author website I came across recently is Ami Mckay’s (The Birth House) http://www.amimckay.com/

She has a calendar of where to find her in person, info on her book, contact info and a novelty section. (Some might enjoy the “Am I Hysterical?” Quiz http://www.thebirthhouse.com/hysteriaquiz.htm , to find out how often to use a vibrator ;) )

I thought it was one of the best I’ve seen.

I hate a slow page and too much Flash.

See, the Ami McKay site lost me at the splash page. I don’t want to click to enter. Just take me straight to the damn site.

Hallelujah on splash pages. I hate them.

I also hate a site that never, never updates.  Sigh.  I have some favorite authors out there from whom I’d love to get some news, but their websites are ages behind their publications.  WTF, people?  Why bother to have the site at all if you aren’t going to maintain it?

Because I’m one of those authors who is broke, and therefore does the whole kit and caboodle for her website, I’m limited by my poor graphic design skills.  I take a point of pride, though, in being fairly clear with my organization.  My question/comment is for those of us who write erotic romance/erotica.  I’ve always been told we need a “splash"/click through page for legal reasons (acknowledgement someone is at least claiming to be of legal age) as we may have adult content on our website, like in excerpts.  What are the general populace’s thought on that?

And yes, once I can afford a real graphic designer, I am so purchasing a cool template for my site.  I do like getting my hands dirty with HTML and CSS, though.

Is a bad website better than no website at all?

It’s frustrating to me as a reader to not be able to access a website and get information about books, backlists and upcoming books. Maybe it’s because I practically live on the internet, but I think that every career-minded author should have a website. This is the age of technology, after all, and after the initial investment of setup/design, it’s a minimal upkeep, to keep it updated. But it provides a central resource for fans and new readers to get the information they need to buy more books. What’s not to love about that?

I live on the web too, and ALL my author info I get via web pages.....either review sites or the authors own sites.

And I agree, the simpler the better.  Nothing worse than a confusing site when you just want a little bit of information.

Oh yeah, and if there are books that need to be read in order, it’s nice to have a list of the order (for some reason, that is very hard to find with certain authors)....or at least “This book has characters from THAT book.”

I have a ‘splash’ page on my dance website....really, I have two....but they are very simple and quick (at least I think they are).  I did it mostly to frustrate the pervs trolling for ‘sexy goyls’ pictures. 

I don’t mind clicking to enter.

I do have a passion for dancing balogna, so I usually put it on pages that are way, way, WAY in the back of everything.

Regarding adult content and the click through page for legal reasons…

I wonder if authors could put some minimum, “safe” content in the splash page along with the age requirement warning or whatever?

As far as “bad” better than “none” goes… I’m not sure how a new reader of that author would react, but I’ve been disconcerted by obviously out of date websites of authors I already read.

It’s good to have the book order (even for a loosely connected series), but when I’ve gleaned more about the current news, upcoming release, whatever, from amazon than I can get from their website..? Well, I am not inclined to keep going back month after month to see the same old news. After a couple of tries, I stop checking that website, even if I’m still reading that author. Makes sense?

When I used to fact-check for a movie magazine, the splash pages and Flash on movie official websites would drive me effing bananas. Here I was trying to get a simple plot summary or the correct spellings of character names and the site wanted to DANCE. Such a waste of time.

I really like Elizabeth Lowell’s site because she has a complete book list and a guide to sequels (and I can never keep the “Only” series straight in my head). The quote section is also endlessly amusing. The whole site is very straightforward, and I appreciate that, even on a high-speed connection.

What really turns me off? When an author’s picture is front and center on that first page...and it’s not very flattering.

We aren’t all Cindy Crawford, but nothing turns me off more than to see a really bad author photo next to some beautiful cover art (usually with perfect models on them). Why do you want yourself compared to the people on your covers?

I say, put the author photo on the ‘about’ page. And don’t make it frickin’ huge. Your picture does not sell your book...in fact, sometimes it can turn people off.

Sounds terrible, but it is true. Not everyone photographs well.

To be fair to Rowling’s site, I think it’s probably aimed more at kids than at adults, and kids tend to have different priorities: see for example http://www.useit.com/alertbox/children.html

Aside from that I agree 100%. I am somewhat usability-crazy and I really prefer sites that make it easy to find what I’m looking for. In the case of an author site, that’s primarily info on each book, including upcoming releases. Biographical information is nice, and any extras (in which I include blogs) are good too. But I need to know it’s there.

I like Crusie’s site very much—clean navigation, everything easy to find, some nice extras—but I disagree with her choice to spawn new websites for practically every book. I sort of see the point when it’s a collaboration, but in general I think it makes for too much content to police and keep up to date. But hey, her choice.

I agree about author photos, and kind that makes me howl in horror are the writer-as-sex-symbol photos. I really don’t want to see anyone’s big ol boobies on their site. A sexy drawing is fine for erotic romance writers, but the cleavage shots--not good.

Off to update my site…

Its such a tough call… bad website being better than no website? I think so but damn, I’ve seen some bad ones.

Its a tool I couldn’t do without. The number of visitors my website gets each week/month is great and I do try to give them things they ask for. Like… separate genres, grouping books according to series, print book page, all books page. I’ve even started adding character details and extras. Its time consuming and I can’t get it all done right away… more of a work in progress but as it grows, so do the number of visitors.

I would say Nora Robert’s web page is quite good and well organized. You can see what she is working on, get her backlist, or click on over to her hubby’s bookstore to order books. Through her website I found Adwoff, her fan forum, and through that I found the Smart Bitches. Good things all around.

I too hate websites that are confusing and have unorgainzed links. The point of a website is to bring the most current info into the light for your potential fan/consumer as Kerry and others have already stated.

The JK site is a great way to find little extra things--for example, punch ‘MAGIC’ into the phone and press the green button--but for info it’s totally useless. It’s more like Where’s Wally? than What’s JK Up To? But then I guess she isn’t exactly crying out for new readers…

Mandy, “work in progress” is good. It keeps them coming back to see what you’ve added since their last visit.

Some readers aren’t interested in all that extra “stuff,” which is fine, but they always have the option not to look at said “stuff,” and it’s nice to have it available for readers who think it’s fun.

Neil Gaiman’s site does and excellent job of presenting a lot of information well with some fun design elements,and a separate page for kids. Content is labeled well,you can find things,and it’s regularly updated.

I don’t update my website unless I have news that makes it worth updating.  I have a blog where I do the day-to-day natter, and it links to my website and vice versa.  But I think part of the reason I don’t tweak my website more is that I’m not the webmaster, I’ve got someone who’s paid to design my site and update it when necessary.  If I felt more comfortable fooling with it, I’d do it myself, but I’d just as soon leave it to the pros.

And for whatever it’s worth, nothing drives me away from a blog or website faster than music.  I cannot stand clicking on something and have noise start blaring at me.

“nothing drives me away from a blog or website faster than music”

Can I hear an AMEN out there!

Can I hear an AMEN out there!

Figuratively hear, not literally, I’m assuming?

Sorry, couldn’t resist.

Picture this…

Two in the morning I am sleepless in San Francisco and at my eMac and I click the link to loveyoudivine main page and the volume just happened to be up high.

You best believe me, my used to be sleeping other half was not happy at all.

What I want to know is what Sarah was doing at Melanie Griffith’s site. :-)

Is Mel usurping your dear Hoff?

And...I love my site (which was redesigned in January) and have to pimp my Web designer too (AustinDesignWorks.com)--who is very reasonable, very quick, and very good. Take a look-see.

My pet peeve about sites...is when they have a “gate keeper” page (that’s my term, I don’t know what else other people call it).  It may have only a graphic that you click on to go to the “real content.” Now I understand if this is an adult only site that this is necessary, but really otherwise it’s just annoying.

I hate when authors use a blog or blog like template for their author site. Few things send me running faster than screenfulls of non-book info or book info buried in posts.

Even worse is the trend of creating one’s sole webpresence at membership sites like MySpace.  I stopped visiting one author’s blog when she moved it from Blogger to MyS. even though I have a MyS account. I don’t cache passwords at work and her blog wasn’t worth the extra typing to log in.

I can understand wanting to be trendy, but why place any barriers between visitors and content?!?

Music. Hate the music.

Music: another hater here. (And that goes for any sound effects whatsoever!)

MySpace and the like? Never go there. There’s plenty easily accessible elsewhere online for me to bother with secret handshakes.

I was browsing around a bit earlier, for authors whose websites I visit, and realized that the simpler the better as far as I’m concerned.

Great article and thanks for the help! I mean, duh, product product product but before this afternoon (when I furiously plugged my product on my index page), I had some fluffy welcome note instead of a product plug. Thanks!

I linked to your article from http://www.promo-ho.com since I think a lot of people will find it useful.

All of you who have websites (or are thinking of it) should really go to Web Pages that Suck.

The worst crimes to me are:

*Unnecessary splash pages - the bane of bad websites. Splash pages are only necessary if you have adult content and need to warn off minors. Otherwise they’re always annoying.
*Unclear navigation. No unlabelled buttons please.
*Shockwave Flash. Nobody wants to see how good you are with Flash.
*Music. I have music playing; don’t want yours on top.
*Compulsory video or animation. DO NOT WANT. Put things on YouTube and let people click on them if they want to watch.
*Anything that could trigger a seizure. You wouldn’t think anyone over 12 would need to be told this, but honestly: some animations, especially those that flash colours, trigger seizures. Don’t use them.
*Most importantly of all, designing your website to suit you and not your customers.

I’m happier with a website that’s short, easy to read, and all text as compared to something with a thousand images that take forever to load and incomprehensible navigation. It doesn’t make you look up-to-date or cool; it makes your website annoying to use.

Not to be a total HP dork, but Rowling’s website does have all those easter eggs.  They’re just hidden.  So when you punch in “magic” or “peeves” into the phone, you get her drawing of characters or an early draft from her 1st book.  She also sets up a treasure hunt to find the other stuff. & that just goes to show how much time I spent on her site. Ha
But to be honest, it isn’t a visitor friendly site for straight forward info.  She makes you dig for the stuff, but that’s 1/2 the fun for me

I really don’t care what the site looks like graphics wise. If it’s well organized and easy to move around, then the graphics don’t bother me one way or the other.

As far as the splash pages~if it’s for a site with content for adults only I have no problem with it. Otherwise they are annoying.

The thing I LOVE on author sites is “what’s next”. Nothing annoys me more than to find a new author (new to me anyway). Find a book that is part of a series and go to the site to see if another book in the series is coming out and Nothing. I love to know what is “next” or coming soon.

A well organized backlist is a must. That way when people “find” you after you’ve had a bunch of books out they can find out what the books to track down :)

Music~annoying unless it’s easily turned off. If I click on a site with annoying music that I cannot get rid of, I will NOT stay.

Amen on unnecessary splash pages!  Having to click to enter a site is just plain annoying.  It’s forgivable when a site might have adult content and it’s a necessary step but other than that, skip it.

One of the reasons I go to author sites is to find listings of their books.  In order.  If things are part of a series or have interrelated characters, *tell* me.  And tell me plainly (without having to look at copyright dates) where each falls within the series.  I like to read things in order. 

I’m also one of those who likes to know what’s coming next.  When is the next book coming out?  What is it?  If you don’t know yet when it’s coming out, what are you working on?  I need something to look forward to if I’ve added you to my list. 

I also like authors who have an email subscription service, so that I can sign up for either newsletters or email notification when something new is coming out or there’s info.  I typically buy somewhere between 20 - 50 books a month and trying to keep track of all the authors I like is a job in and of itself.  Until I can find someone to pay me to do so, I like being able to sign up at an author’s site and get that info mailed to me.

Sites that I like:  Janet Evanovich, Katie MacAlister, Nora Roberts, Jenny Crusie, Lynsay Sands.

If your blog exists somewhere outside of your website, provide a link to your website prominently on your blog and vice versa.  If it’s there, trying to find Lynsay Sand’s webpage from her blog is nigh onto impossible.  I’ve certainly never accomplished it. 

Also, if you have a blog, make it subscribable.  I’m much more likely to check in on your blog every day if I can subscribe to it via an RSS feed so it shows up with all my other feeds in one place.  Of course, this is also how I know that Lani hasn’t updated hers in *forever* now (much to my dismay as I adore her blog).

And that’s probably enough opinions out of me.  Especially as I’m supposed to be working.  But isn’t that what the first two hours of work are for?  Drinking your Starbucks and catching up on email and blogs?

After reviewing my August tbb list, I must call out authors that constantly tweak their sites. I don’t want to see white text on a black background today, lavender on white next week, then a page with hardly anything because of bad html. I’m all for refining skills, but test that stuff offline.

My aging eyes are also getting more sensitive to small font sizes that aren’t easily overrided by browser controls.

I’ve recently seen increased criticism of free hosting sites because the ads and other features scream “amateur” to some people. Does the Bitchery have recommendations for better free sites or low cost hosts?

Actually, you can get an easter egg by clicking on the phone (and several other things).  You get pages of doodles and early versions of the book and things like that, which are saved to your scrapbook.  But like several other aspects of the series, it’s the megageeks who get the most use out of it.

Me? I’m a semi-geek.  I have my scrapbook mostly filled, but haven’t taken any of the W.O.M.B.A.T. exams.

And the ‘?’ page has awesome bonus stuff, like getting a chance to read chapter titles or book titles before word is officially out.

Claudia,

I looked at a few low cost sites here

http://mandyroth.com/blog/2007/03/17/marketing-with-mandy-websites-getting-started/

one of my favorite author sites is loretta chase’s:  http://www.lorettachase.com

it’s easy to navigate, i can find the information i want, and there’s not too many extras but what there are are fun and easy to find.  and i love the quotes she has on each page!

usually when i go to an author’s site i am looking for the following information:

their newest book
their backlist
their upcoming book(s) and when it/they are coming out
whether the author has any booktours planned, and if so, a list of dates/places/times
how to contact the author

other fun stuff is a bonus, but if any of those things are missing i will probably be annoyed.

as other people have mentioned, i really don’t like it when sites automatically start playing music.

I have a question: what is Myspace best used for? I surfed through it the other day and got a lot of useful information on a low-budget movie coming out but that was a first. I wonder if I need a myspace account. May be just another thing for me to ignore.

I second the no-music. I hate clicking on a site and getting music. And no talking on the site either! Freaks me out. Neil Gaiman’s site is excellent, you can lose all kinds of time going thru it. I haven’t clicked on MaryJanice Davidson’s in several months because my dialup (I’ve since upgraded) couldn’t handle it. So if possible make the site easy to access otherwise I’m gone.

And no splash pages or shockwave. Don’t need it. Don’t want it.

Christine Feehan’s site (the last time I was there) was kind of fun. Lots of info easily organized. I gotta go check it out…

I built my website with a template from Apple. I love it because it was ‘point and click’ easy. I didn’t want to have to call (and pay) someone else everytime I wanted to make a change. The template is clean and easy to read with lots of white space. I can add as many pages as I need.

I tried to keep photos to a reasonable amount because I know a lot of people don’t have high-speed internet. I’ve had fans email me in appreciation of how quickly my page loads.

An avid reader, I visit author websites for information...so make it CURRENT & EASY to find.  Not necessary to be huge, complicated, or cutsie.  I enjoy “what’s next”, “work in progress”, excerpts, etc. Including these features almost guarantees I will check back often, and I’ll be excited about your next book release.

Call me easy, because usually check out Katie MacAlister’s “Dishy Guy Monday”.  But pass on cutsie games, puzzles, and hunts.

I’ve removed authors from my “favs” because I’m tired of looking at outdated info.  I love Laura Kinsale, but her website hasn’t been updated since Spring 2006.  Karin Lowachee has been Under Construction for almost 2 years. There were others, but they are off my radar.

Simple works great; Sherrilyn Kenyon, Carrie Vaughn, Kim Harrison, & Charlaine Harris.

Recently visited JK Rowling hunting for series reading order...couldn’t find it on that silly desktop.  Guess how impressed I’m not.

Claudia..."Even worse is the trend of creating one’s sole webpresence at membership sites like MySpace...” Ditto...I don’t, I just pass onto a different author.

Mandy...don’t think I’ve seen your website, think I’ll go visit…

Desertwillow asked:

I have a question: what is Myspace best used for?

MySpace, like LiveJournal, was intended to be a social networking site; once you’ve established your MySpace or LiveJournal account, you add other people to your reading lists, and then readers add your blog to *their* reading lists, and there’s lots of interaction and community-forming. From what I know, MySpace became a marketing tool because *users* started using it that way: bands and other performers established MySpaces as a way to interact with fans, and now *everyone* uses MySpace that way. Even libraries: the Hennepin County Library System has a MySpace!

As for how romance writers can use it… I’m not sure it’s the right venue, honestly, unless you’re targeting younger readers (teens and twentysomethings), because that’s where those kids go. (For now, anyway—other social networking sites are gaining users, like Facebook, so MySpace may become uncool relatively soon.) I know lots of folks in other (read: “older") demographics have MySpaces, but I don’t know how effective it would be in reaching *current* romance readers.

Obviously, anyone with experience counter to my ill-informed guessing should chime in right about now. *g*

I got sidetracked rambling about MySpace, so now I get to ramble about web sites.

In a few weeks, I’ll finish my Master’s in Library and Information Science, so I’m all about the organization of information. I can’t stress enough that your web site must be well-organized, and maintained consistently, in order to be successful.

Sometimes, content is great, but the navigation is not; take Suzanne Brockmann’s site. The home page doesn’t have navigation buttons, which means there’s no real categorization of the information on her site. If you scroll down to the author’s note, there are tons of links to other pages in the site, but the whole effect seems haphazard. On the upside, however, the links all seem to work (not as common as it should be), and the content behind those links is good—I went looking for Brockmann’s backlist so I could be sure to read the Troubleshooters series in order, and not only does she list *all* of her books in order of publication, she also has lists by publisher and by series. AWESOME. She also seems to update frequently, which is always a plus. Also, while the style is very bare-bones, she makes sure to have most of the text be black on a white background, which tends to be much easier to read than other color combinations. A sans serif font might be more readable, but I’m not going to complain too loudly, since Brockmann’s taken the trouble to avoid color schemes that give readers headaches.

However, I’ll take Brockmann’s lack of navigation buttons over Dara Joy’s cutesy-named navigation buttons. Good Lord, talk about *preventing* anyone from finding what they’re looking for. Is her backlist in the Gate House? Dara’s Chamber? Is it maybe in The Library? Who the hell knows?

(My sincere apologies for exposing you all to the toxic radiation that is the Wildcat Arrows cover; an adult beverage should get you fixed up right away.)

I’m INCREDIBLY picky about websites. If you are advertising yourself on the webernets, you damn well better have a quality site if you want my business. I base my choices on everything from hotels to books to new jobs on how professional the website is. Suz Brockmann’s earlier site, for example...I shudder just to think about that site with the big yellow buttons. Throw some more money or training into it. This is a portrayal of what you sell and it should be professional!!!!! (rant, rant, rant)

I’ve always believed one of the wonderful things about the internet is the ability for people in certain industries to get out there and promote themselves to their customers.  That’s why it excels as a marketing tool for authors.  They can control the site themselves, have as little or as much content as they want and can reach those most likely to buy their books.  Let’s face it, if someone takes the time to go in search of your website you are halfway there to selling them a book.  Why the heck wouldn’t you take advantage of it?  I don’t care what kind of a technofobe you are, it’s a tool that every author should use. 

I maintain a calendar of upcoming releases for a group of readers with similar tastes, and I’m always astonished at how difficult it sometimes is to find out future release information for some authors.  Release information should be maintained and kept up-to-date, there is nothing worse than visiting an author’s website and finding that the future releases mention titles coming out in 2005 or earlier.  If you don’t want to pay someone to do this, have someone teach you how to do it.  It is that important.

As for the comments about author photos, I myself don’t care for them and don’t look at them.  I really don’t care what you look like, what your dogs or kids look like (And BTW why are you posting those?  Are you nuts?), or what your house looks like.  I’m also on the no music bandwagon.

Please don’t use your website to showcase your attempts at computer art, because it’s ugly and vaguely creepy.  There is a well-known author with this stuff on her site and it gives me the shivers everytime I see it.  Ick! 

I agree with most of the suggestions here.  Although I don’t agree that some of the suggested websites are good, but some of that is personal taste. 

One thing I’ve enjoyed on a couple of the websites I frequent is the deleted scene.  JR Ward has posted one or two of these and I enjoy them.  Most of the time it provides a bit of insight into one of the characters from the book, although in her case I could see why the scene was deleted.  It’s a fun thing to keep a fan happy between releases.  That’s a nice touch and we appreciate it.

My favourite author website is most definitely megcabot.com. All the information about her books, tours, series she’s written (divided by kids books, teens and adults) is right there for the taking on the first page.
I mostly stick to her blog though, since I like her banter about her books and tours, and the non-book related stuff.

I just moved my blog to Wordpress (separate host), so I’m hardly an expert, but here’s my tuppence:

I believe Wordpress will host your blog for free, and you can create static pages as well as blog entry pages, so theoretically, you could build an entire site with it.

On the other hand, in the past week I have edited more code than I ever wanted to see in my lifetime, trying to get rid of little kinks in template files, and when you check out the support forum to get an inkling what you need to do, if you don’t have an inkling to begin with, you’re pretty much screwed.

Yes, some of the plugins are cool. Yes, the posting interface is vastly superior to Blogger (scheduled posts! yay!). But I, at least, have found the tweaking time consuming and fairly technical.

But that’s just me.

Congratulations on your upcoming degree, Chicklet!  20 years ago today, I graduated with my Master’s in LIS as well.  And the past 20 years have been fabu.  I love my career.

Congratulations on your upcoming degree, Chicklet!

Thanks, Deb! Although I can’t say I’m looking forward to the job search. *g*

I forgot to mention before that one thing I consider indispensable for anyone looking to design and/or maintain their own web sites is the book Head First HTML. This was the textbook for my web-design course AND IT IS GENIUS. It walks you through all of the vocabulary and steps for coding a web site, and best of all, it has practices and projects built in along the way, so as you read the book and perform the exercises, you learn how to do the coding for your “real” site. It also has excellent chapters explaining the importance of your site’s organization and graphics. It’s $26.00 at Amazon and worth every penny. Actually, it’s worth every penny of the list price of $39.99.

Even if you have someone else design and/or run your site, reading this book to get the vocabulary and to understand the way HTML and CSS work would be valuable, so you know what you’re asking of your webmaster (or webmistress) when you ask for a change in text or style.

I once had a fancy site with drop down menus, pretty pictures, you name it.
I did an informal survey with my reader group, and their responses were great.
As a result, I cut out the java, the flash and the fancy graphics. Nobody wanted them, they only complicated things and took the emphasis off the books.
The only thing I’m not too keen on is the first page. I write in two genres, and so I give the visitor the choice of which genre to visit - the historicals or the paranormals. I still don’t know how to get rid of this, and still make the distinction.
Sigh.
Music? Never liked it. I have my computer put through my stereo, so I can play music from my desk without messing about with remotes. Works well until I surf by a site with music on it. Yuk.

I maintain the website for work and know that it can get a bit behind- one of the easiest free things I’ve done is add the calendar from http://www.master.com to the site- I can update it from any computer- have control over it’s appearance (and would have more control if my HTML was more advanced) and can put a variety of things on it from special events and gallery openings to board meetings-

I don’t really like microsoft, but I adore FrontPage- it’s very intuitive- if you can do basic wordprocessing you can put together a simple site- and if you code it’s helpful because it allows you to view the site as code, finished, or split screen

and all this has me thinking, what is my product at work- one of my pet peeves is a business site that doesn’t clearly have name, address, and phone number where I can find it- so that is currently my main page, but I’m thinking that events and public programming is a better choice, or is it permanent exhibits, or is it… maybe I’ll stick with the name and address after all

Chicklit...dittos on Suz Brockman, her website makes me a little dizzy and it’s only updated semi-regular.  But, she does the important stuff and that counts for alot so I check in every so often.  Yesterday, I see she had a new excerpt from her upcoming release & some background short stories...fun stuff.

Qadesh...thanks for the validation about not enjoying the author computer art.  Some of her fans gush about it, felt like I was alone being creeped out.

PPS...another entry for the out-of-date and annoying, Amy Fetzer.  Her frontpage lists her new release date as March 07 (4 months ago), with a countdown beeper that sounds like the backup alarm on construction vehicles, ouch.

I believe Wordpress will host your blog for free, and you can create static pages as well as blog entry pages, so theoretically, you could build an entire site with it.

But that’s just me.
And me. I like Wordpress but working out the code has been very difficult. My site is not what it should be but it’s kind of getting there.

I’m another who hates the computer art, too . . . some have managed to do it decently, but by and large these people do it professionally and use software that your average author wouldn’t bother blowing the money on.  The 3D stuff is especially creepy.  It’s like . . . well, like a picture of a Real Doll.  They never get the skin right.

I love the style and the content of Lydia Joyce’s website but it’s a giant pile of disorganization.  I find something cool, an excerpt or a page-by-page list of what the author was thinking when she made a variety of references, and then two weeks later I go back to the site and it takes me 10 minutes to find that section again.  It’s pretty, interesting, and frustrating.

Kleypas used to have one of the cutesy Rowling-type animated sites, but then she changed and *still* her page was annoying.  Now the entire look of the site is geared toward her *one* and only one contemporary, Sugar Daddy or whatever, and the historicals now look out of place on the site.  Silly when historicals are still the meat and potatoes of what she’s got going on.

Balogh’s website is nothing special visually speaking, but it is beautifully organized and I can always find out what’s up instantly.

Lisa Valdez’s site was rather nice, if a bit lush looking, with extra-long excerpts.  Unfortunately she has not updated in a couple months, which is driving her Patience-hungry fans up a wall because they all want to know what’s up.  Instead they cluster nervously at blogs and on amazon asking, when is the book coming out?

DL and Molly, glad I’m not the only one on the no computer art bandwagon.  I can’t really imagine anyone telling them it looks good, because that is just fibbing.  Author’s trust us, it doesn’t look good, it’s ugly, creepy and you shouldn’t have it on your site.  It truly makes it look amateurish.  If your fans tell you it looks good they aren’t being truthful and you shouldn’t listen to them.  Who do you want as a friend, someone who will let you walk around with lipstick on your teeth, or someone who will tell you you’ve got big spot of ‘crimson rouge’ across your pearly whites?  Just sayin’.

I tried to make mine me-proof. I figured if I could find stuff on it, anyone could. And yes, when you read the word ‘me’ you can substitute the word idiot. I’m getting old and blind.  Websites with too much stuff happening on them make me squint and twitch.