Vibeke was very patient with me as I redesigned my website. I tried very hard to make sure I had everything a reader would ever want. From series FAQs to articles for aspiring authors, to a NOVELS page that included blurbs, excerpts and reviews, I thought it was pretty much where it should be. Then I realized I needed to arrange my books in series order instead of genre order. Spent a half a day on that and now I think my website is finally where it needs to be. Whew!

I’ll bookmark this page to share with others. Thanks.

And yeah, draw the line at music. I hate it when a website starts blaring music. Makes me jump. Although I think websites with lots of pretty graphics are nice to look at, I sometimes find it a real pain to open the page. Graphics can be troublesome for those of us with slooooow connections.

One of my favourite author websites is HollyLisle.com. Holly has lots of useful info in there for both writers and readers. There’s a huge amount of stuff in there, but it’s pretty easy to navigate.

Michelle, thank you so much for the compliment! Elizabeth’s site came together very well. I can’t take credit for the peacock, though. It was Elizabeth herself who found it!

There are lots of great comments, tips, and suggestions here! Another good point about Flash and other special effects is that they do often require special programs to be installed, which can turn visitors away from your website.

There’s also the issue that while a Flash movie can look impressive on the first visit, on repeat visits it just slows the visitor down. And it’s incredibly important to encourage people to visit your site as often as possible.

As a reader and netizen, I wholeheartedly agree with today’s post. In fact, I would go one further and say, avoid the fancy stuff and opt for content. Music, flash, blinking gifs–all of that stuff may seem cool the first time you see it, but after the second or third go round of waiting for shit to load, or being told I don’t have the right version of the Flash player, or getting startled by the too-loud crapass midi song you set to load automatically with your homepage, it gets old. And annoying.

Also, I know your stories are deep and dark and full of pain and angst, but red (or any other color) text on a black background? That fills my eyes with pain and angst. Please remember that not every visitor to your site has the best vision.

If you want repeat visitors, keep your site simple. Invest in some great static graphics, if you like, and put up plenty of content. You may have heard this saying a time or two in reference to the web, “Content is King.” Content will keep me coming back. Content will make me love you. That flash video book trailer set to a Casio-keyboard rendition of My Heart Will Go On? Not so much.

Sincerely,
bettie

I love those little details, like “I wrote this on a train to Austria and had to keep looking at a photo of the California desert to keep grounding myself in the story” or whatever. I don’t want to know *too* much about the *behind the curtain* stuff (because that might ruin the story!), but one or two lines is usually fun. And, since I’ve probably just finished reading the book, I probably can’t get enough of it and would like to read/”talk” about the book with her other fans, or ask questions, or read others’ questions about it, or whatever. I’m usually immersed in the world/characters and would like to know a few more details if possible.

I also will probably read all the exerpts of other books and will use them to decide what to buy next.

I remember being quite satisfied with Susan Elizabeth Phillips’ site — it’s not flashy or anything, but what I remember appreciating is the way she listed her books. She had them in the order she wrote them, PLUS the order the series books went, PLUS she mentioned which characters crossed over, etc. I just remember that being ultra-helpful.

Same with Suzanne Brockmann — again, not a super-attractive site, but the info is all there, and she gives tons of detail about the SEALS, the order of the books, etc.

And J.R. Ward gives a few “extra reads” that make you feel like you can enjoy the characters just a little bit more.

For me, as a reader, I guess, it’s all about finding more info on the books/characters. I can do without the flash, music, recipes, etc. …

Whenever I visit a site with a flash opening I skip past it if I possibly can, and if I can’t, I do something else while it’s running. But really, ‘less is more’ is the best piece of advice for almost everything, don’t you think? Less flash, more substance.:wink: