This week I've been angsting about my new blog. It's about a month old at this point, and I'm mainly focusing on building my archives with quality content without taking time away from my revisions to do so. If nothing else, it's giving me something to be responsible for, and I'm enjoying getting into the blogging mindset while I figure out my niche.
My dad has been designing and developing websites for about 20 years now, and giving my blog a makeover is item 5 or 6 on the agenda when I visit home in 2 weeks. I think it makes him cringe inside to know that his daughter doesn't have a custom domain name, custom banner, perfect color coordination, those sort of things. From his perspective, at least I don't have stark white text on a stark black background, you know?
I'm trying to be helpful by giving him a clear idea of what kind of content I will be posting and what kind of image I want to present. But I'm having a few specific issues, and I'm hoping someone here can help me.
I write fairly dark, gritty fantasy. My blog doesn't communicate this, but, with a few exceptions, my current blog audience (mostly extended family) also does not match the eventual target audience for my fiction. The picture of a baby turtle eating a strawberry as big as he is adds a decent splash of color and is totally adorable, but I understand that this does not scream "dark and gritty".
To put it another way, my current readers are people who remember when I was reading Gail Carson Levine and Brian Jacques. My look, if not my content, reflects that Dreity more than the Dreity who spent most of 2012 reading Brent Weeks, Alan Campbell, Glen Cook and Joe Abercrombie.
I know my blog needs to change to more accurately represent myself as an author, but with no real product yet, is this something I need to do ASAP? Or should I redesign with the audience I have NOW in mind?
My dad has been designing and developing websites for about 20 years now, and giving my blog a makeover is item 5 or 6 on the agenda when I visit home in 2 weeks. I think it makes him cringe inside to know that his daughter doesn't have a custom domain name, custom banner, perfect color coordination, those sort of things. From his perspective, at least I don't have stark white text on a stark black background, you know?
I'm trying to be helpful by giving him a clear idea of what kind of content I will be posting and what kind of image I want to present. But I'm having a few specific issues, and I'm hoping someone here can help me.
I write fairly dark, gritty fantasy. My blog doesn't communicate this, but, with a few exceptions, my current blog audience (mostly extended family) also does not match the eventual target audience for my fiction. The picture of a baby turtle eating a strawberry as big as he is adds a decent splash of color and is totally adorable, but I understand that this does not scream "dark and gritty".
To put it another way, my current readers are people who remember when I was reading Gail Carson Levine and Brian Jacques. My look, if not my content, reflects that Dreity more than the Dreity who spent most of 2012 reading Brent Weeks, Alan Campbell, Glen Cook and Joe Abercrombie.
I know my blog needs to change to more accurately represent myself as an author, but with no real product yet, is this something I need to do ASAP? Or should I redesign with the audience I have NOW in mind?