What should be on my website?

I'm interested to see the replies you get here, since I'm in the process of building my own website. I intend to put the 'contact me' information on the home page, rather than having a whole page devoted to it.

Not sure what you can do about the buttons and formatting.
Good luck
DL

If you read a lot of advice about this, it's all about marketing yourself so you get known. The problem is that it's kind of hard if you haven't published a book, and even harder if you're a novelist. I used to work with a cowriter who was a marketer, and we tried to get some visibility with articles on various things. I took every last one of mine down because I was getting too many dumb questions (yes, there are dumb questions, especially when the person is too lazy to look it up or wants a different answer).

So watch out for anything that's going to get you questions that are going to suck up your time.

I just put my contact information on the main page. No need for an additional page for an email address. Plus, at one time I read something from an agent who wanted it easy to find. Main page is about as easy as it gets.

The rest is Publications (broken down into different cateogories like Non-fiction, Fiction, and Anthologies) and Projects. I left off a link page because those are really pretty hard to maintain. They get out of date quickly. The website is meant to be more stable, and the more dynamic content is on the blog.

Boobs are always a draw on the web, as is nakedness...

I looked at the link and I am not sure you need things like FAQ's. What I am concerned about is the main page set up and what you are providing. If I am looking for a new author to read and I come across this with your diary entries, (or whatever they are), I would more than likely quickly exit. Why? What does any of that tell me about what you have written?

The authors web page should introduce the author to new readers and advertise their past and current published work. If you want to give established fans more...you provide links to your blogs or social networks, though I would be careful about advertising what social networks you belong too. You can get nuts following you around and causing all kinds of troll trouble in social forums you enjoy.

Right now, no offense, you page is very hard to scroll with the video link over riding the entry links. I would have quickly backed out if not for wanting to see what you have.

I have several pages and do more than write - my website is not perfect, but you are welcome to take a look and see what you can use. And of course, I welcome suggestions.

Link below.

Here is my personal take assuming that your website is for your readers:

The main point is to have a books list. I would suggest calling it "books" as not everyone is familair with the meaning of "bibliography". It should include any information a person might want to locate the books, such as ISBN and distributors.

The blog should be easily accessed but not the front page. I would assume most people going to that page want to buy a book or learn more about a book. The front page should say which book just came out, which is about to come out, and how to join your newsletter, fanpage or whatever.

Consider writing the actual website in the third person.

Do whatever is the exact opposite of mine, which I whipped up in a couple hours and haven't touched much since.

KodyBoye said:

The site itself is written in third person. My blogs, however, are not. I don't call my bibliography 'books' because I only have one book out as of now, though I'll probably change that once the rerelease of my novel comes out.

Click to expand...

I call my bibliography 'Writings' because that can cover short fiction, novels, non-fiction, poetry, etc. Yeah, 'Writings' has a bit of a funny sound to it, but i like it.

Your 'general/FAQ' and 'contact' are in first person. It makes the overall tone more informal which may or may not be what you want.

I can't tell you what to put on your website but here is what I learned from the guy who did mine.
1) Make what you're selling the focus of the page. If it's books then don't put up photos of you, or your house and pets.
2) Stay away from bright colors and fancy wallpapers. If your selling website design that's a different story.
Keep is simple. Book covers, for example pop out from black, dark blue or forest green backgrounds. Make sure your text font is easily read. No purple against blue, for example.
3) In general stay away from video trailers unless your selling video services.
4) No music, unless you're selling music or an audio book.
In general, keep clear of anything that distracts your visitor from looking at anything but what you're promoting. Here is a prime example of what he means. Note your eye is kept on the product. http://www.cavaliersatcopperlee.com/
C

No moving graphics either. I'm still shuddering at the guy who had ten moving lava lamps on his site.

I heard from a book review blogger that most reviewers like to see your contact information without having to search for it much. Right now, I have my contact info. in the upper right corner, and I've kept the first page of my website fairly simple, with the book cover on it. I'm not sure what I'm going to do when book 2 comes out, but I'm pondering that.

Amarie said:

I heard from a book review blogger that most reviewers like to see your contact information without having to search for it much. Right now, I have my contact info. in the upper right corner, and I've kept the first page of my website fairly simple, with the book cover on it. I'm not sure what I'm going to do when book 2 comes out, but I'm pondering that.

Click to expand...

Amarie, I found this. Click on work. My guess is these were not put up at one time but added as they were written. The covers are tabs. http://www.michaelhalfhill.com/
C

KodyBoye said:

That guy's website is pretty

Click to expand...

See how it concentrates your eye? The text is minimal. A picture is worth a thousand words!
C

Looks good to me. Good Luck!
C

That actually looks not too bad. I find it's a bit busy.

The font choice seems to be a bit all-over-the-place; I'd aim for one or two sizes and styles of header, but as it stands you have all-caps sans-serif for menu headers, regular-size serif for upper-left-hand header, bold red serif for "Welcome!", giant serif for "Featured Book" and "Contact", large bold italicized serif for "Amorous Things - A Collection", regular size bold-and-underlined for "Books" on your Bibliography page, and something else entirely for "Thoughts and Opinions" (which is an image that doesn't have alt text, by the way)...

In fact, none of your images have alt text. Trust me, you get points for fixing that.

You have a trailing space after the "HOME" link.

Underlining for regular text for emphasis really makes people think it's a link they should be clicking on. Maybe switch to italics?

(Second para, second question of the FAQ; you have "fifteen,)" instead of "fifteen)," and might wanna fix. Especially if promoting your copy-editing services.)

(Also, YouTube and Twitter accounts, plural.)

(Also, you have only provided one country's suicide hotline, which if you are going to start offering help on the World Wide Web seems a bit thin. I, for one, could not use that number--well, I might be able to, but there are others closer to home. And the advice "Suicide isn’t the way out. The only people you hurt are those you leave behind." comes very close to suggesting that suicides are always committed to hurt oneself. This is inaccurate, somewhat offensive, and frankly likely to put off a lot of people who've dealt with suicidal ideation or friends/loved ones suffering from suicidal ideation or depression. Seriously.)

(Okay, moving away from content advice now.)

The FAQ page is very long and rather annoying to scroll through. You can set up questions to expand with minimal CSS; I've done so at http://theeverythinggirls.com/general/faqs.html (linked so you can see an example).

The FAQ page has two headers--small and red, big black and centred. You really only need one.

ETA: Figure out if you're using periods in "FAQ" or not, and if so, put a period after the Q as well.

You need margins around your Contact information block and between your Amorous Things blurb and the cover.

I would really, really left-justify your contact block in addition to adding margins.

Also, e-mail address. Ideally it should be a link, at the bare minimum it should look like an e-mail address.

The background on the RSS tile makes it look like RS'S at first (and second) glance--might wanna tweak that.

Consider adding a margin below your Meta information.

...why yes, I do work with a friend and do web design. And no, I'm not the one with the head for visual design, but am fairly good with formattting things.

L&c,
F

Although mine needs updating too my Q&A page is blog style so people can ask questions or comment. Most of my readership is from students who read my novel in high school so their questions are mostly the same. They have to do book reports on the novel. For those who have unique questions, they ask them there and I post the answer there. It saves on a lot of repeat questions. My inbox used to be crammed with the same questions that I had to answer over and over again. This solved the problem.
As far as directing other traffic to the website, one of the things I do is to write nonfiction articles for an online magazine. Some of the articles are tailored to the medieval period (my novel is historical and set in that period) and on my magazine profile page I am able to direct readers to my website and the novel. My medieval articles get a lot of traffic so it's well worth the added time and effort it takes to write them.

I found this article over on Smexy Book Reviews hugely helpful. Haven't been able to implement the stuff I noted that I'm guilty of abusing/not having yet, but it was a great resource, particularly to see peoples' reactions in the comments.