I have to agree on so many points. PLEASE list all your books I know you have OOP books you wish you never wrote but I might need them. Tell me if they are in a series. Give me excerpts.

No blurb and no excerpt = no sell

If I have to hunt for the info, depending on my mood and time it is more than likely I am going to move on to the next thing.

Personally I am one to say as soon as your ink is dry (if not sooner) on your contract you should have a basic site, with title, blurb, excerpt and general time frame of when I should be dying to have your book.

It is up to you to make me want it. And that is really pretty simple to do, seriously I am easy, at least at first it is keeping my attention that is the trick .

Sound is grand fun if you want it fine but DO NOT HAVE IT AUTO START. ALLOW your reader the choice to turn it on or not. Remember more than half of them will be at work and shouldn’t be surfing the web. Getting them in trouble is no way to sell a book.

Julie Garwood did (does?) have one of the worst sites because it take 100000 to find anything. It is a really cute idea but you have to scroll over shit to find anything. Lisa Kleypas use to have the same thing, it sucked when she did it to but I think she at least had a menu as well. Lisa’s site is much better now (but she doesn’t have excerpts for old books and still likes to pretend she didn’t write her first four novels).

I think that is all I can think of right now that bug me the most. And I do agree with gwen I would go with great info and simple over purdy and empty. But honestly I have always thought brockmann could do better. I don’t think it is hurting her sales though .

(Of course now I’m going to have to back and type in Excerpts for my first three books )

And, must say I hate Brockmann’s site. Her books are dynamic and there’s nothing about the site that telegraphs that. But do agree authors can overdo it.

Dude, if I have to click on a text link in a bland list of text linked titles just to see each book cover? Fail. How can I tell from the title alone that I’m going to be interested enough in the book to waste my time looking? Especially if you have ten or twenty books to sift through?

If I have to click to the publisher’s site to read a description? Epic fail.

You’d expect a review site to post the cover and blurb in a review of your book. You’d expect your publisher to put your covers on your author page. Why wouldn’t you post those things in a visible spot on your own website?

I’m constantly tinkering with my website, trying to make it more user-friendly. If anyone spots a bad link or something just plain annoying, please let me know.

Scavenger hunting is frustrating when I’m trying to get something done.

And the naked man pictures are a prob when you innocently go to a site and have to explain what you’re looking at to the friend standing behind you.

One of my personal pet peeves is having to click through a splash page. Not many authors do it, but I want to make the warning just in case.

Thanks for commenting!

A simple website that doesn’t take hours to download is much appreciated.

And you know, I was just thinking that about the author bios a few days ago, when it seemed that I was reading one after the other that said nothing. Hopefully some of your target authors will see this!

One thing I like to see on an author’s site is a series list on the Books page. If you’re an author who has several series, or even just one, give me the reading order, along with any other related books. I’m a series-a-holic and when I finally decide to read one, I want to know where to start and then which direction to take after that. I shouldn’t have to search the internet for that if you’ve got a website.

And on a Bio page, give me some info about YOU, the person as well as the author. Doesn’t have to be your entire history, but something interesting or unusual or whatever. More than just I was daydreamer in elementary school and my teacher told me I could write or some such drivel. It’s a bio, for heaven’s sake, so give me some meat to chew on! (Yes, I know some authors don’t like to give too much info because of their “other” job, but anything is better than that daydreaming stuff!)

Thanks for all the useful info.

I think it’s things like this which is what led to all the rules/regulations that are in contests now. Which is helpful when what is expected is clear. But definitely – if you aren’t willing to have the contest, don’t do it..

Be Proud!!

HAVE PICTURES OF ALL YOUR BOOKS!!!

I was trying to track down a book and I thought it was by a certain author but all she had was a LIST of books. I remember the cover but not the author or title so I was VERY frustrated.
And ditto on the contests. If you aren’t running one – TAKE IT DOWN. I don’t enter that many of them but I don’t like it when I see a contest page and there hasn’t been on in over a year. Also – follow through!! I did win one time and never heard from the author or got the book even though I know she had my info. Do you think I’m going to be trying that author again??? Nope.

And Laurie, you lost me at “put the image into HTML”. Yes, I am a technophobe. LOL

I think I’ll just type in the relevant info under the cover images and put the links on that text, too. Easier than me messing with code, which can only end in disaster if past experience is any indication.

Thanks for stopping by!

It will if you code it right. If you put the image into the HTML, be sure to include an alt tag. The text in the alt tag will appear if the image doesn’t display, or be read by screen readers. An image tag should have:
src=”the file name”
height=”the height of the image”
width=”the width of the image”
alt=”Your alternative text or description here”

If you’re including the image in the CSS as a background image, put the alternate text in the HTML and then ‘hide’ it with a text-indent that shoots it off the page (A technique known as FIRT).

I love reading these kinds of posts… they’re very helpful for those of us who make these author websites.

Heh. I’m scared to ask what site you went to. I think a lot of people don’t… consider text fonts. I know I’ve been guilty of it. In college my friends yelled at me all the time for my blog posts. I also sometimes used fonts only I had, which totally defeated the purpose of using them….

I have to admit I added a part for Lauren (Dane) based on a tweet she posted about a photograph she saw…

Saw yesterday: a site with white text on light pink background (along with many other offenses, including a navigation system that was impossible to figure out) — but the text was the worst. (Although if music had been blasted as soon as I arrived, something else might have been worse.)

As for the colonos…. I can’t even finish it. Ew. Cubed. Ew ew ew. Ewwwww. Ew. My eyes are sad just for reading it. I so hope nobody… ew.

And EXCELLENT point on the charities – I like that very much. Authors, I hope you’re taking notes!

Graphics are good. Graphics can be our friends. But don’t load up the entire site with smiling happy faces if your books are dark and ominous (and if your books are the happy, feel good books, don’t have a dark site), or so many that my Firefox browser freezes (Firefox rules!!!).

No neon pink/orange/green. It burns my eyeballs and makes me squint, which gives me a headache which makes me not so inclined to shell out the $ for your books. And along the lines of what limecello said….no fairy dust crap trailing after the pointer arrow. There is one site that looks like Tinkerbell exploded and when I move the pointer around the fairy dust crap clicks links randomly. ARGH!

And this one is a sticker for me. Don’t have a themed site. Yes your books are restaurant themed. But do not for the love of all that is holy make your site a “menu” that does all of the above!!!!

Newsletters…If I sign up, and don’t get somewhat regular updates (once a year would be nice) please don’t have the link. Also, please don’t make your newsletter page the publisher’s newsletter. I did not sign up to find out what Jane Goody Two Shoes has coming out in two weeks. I signed up for you. Don’t spam me. Don’t send out 4 addendum’s to your weekly update.

Please don’t link on your About Me page your YouTube page that shows you/your loved one/your beloved pet having a colonoscopy without a warning in all caps. Ewwwwwwwwww. (For real-no joke).

Please please please don’t update your site every week with an update that your site will get a new look with the next update…if it doesn’t happen. Repeatedly.

If you have a blog, please do not load it up with 1. valley girl talk (Cuz lyk O MY GOD!), 2. Filler (if you don’t have anything to talk about, stop typing. I don’t want to read a blog that on off days discusses proper punctuation in regards to everyday emails. Just stop.

And finally, I love charities, and I love it more when an author will have a worthy charity link on their links page. But if you are raising money for a charity, person or action, please update on what’s happened. Don’t just let it go leaving all of us that have donated wondering if we just donated to your Paypal account.

Ok…off my soapbox. Deep breath.