What about your website?

Posted on June 17, 2007
Filed Under General, Writing |

I’ve been thinking about re-designing my website for quite a while now. The current one that you’re looking at is because I didn’t like the one I had before, but never had time to completely revise it and do it right. The itch is becoming stronger of late. There’s things that I realized never got added to this website during the quick redesign - like the newsletter signup. The site feels cluttered, and like a huge mass of links that don’t have a great organization to them. I’d like to switch over to using Drupal to run the site off of, because it opens a lot of doors for the future - whatever that may hold.

I’ve started browsing around at a lot of different author’s sites, especially fantasy and sci-fi authors, and I have found that I’m really not impressed. Now, I do freelance web design, so I may be a bit pickier than the next person, especially since I’ve been working with a very talented graphic designer, but the majority of websites out there do not express a really good feel for the author or book. Many are very old-style web and, generally, not very pretty.

It has also gotten me to thinking a lot about what a writer’s website should be. And I’ve come to the same conclusion that many other types of “celebrities” are realizing: it’s about building a community around your self, or your brand. If you are a band, you can include them in a fan group, and a street team that makes people feel a part of it all. TV shows like Lost are starting to create rabid fan-bases by online, immersive story lines. And I think that is awesome. That is something I would love to be able to do, but they have lots of people working for them that can help with this. I don’t have that luxury, and I don’t do writing full-time, so it’s a challenge just to find time to get the writing done, let alone create that type of community.

Which leaves me stuck. What is the best way to create a community with limited financial and time resources? I don’t know. I do know that I need to get better at posting on both more interesting topics, and much more frequently. Outside of that, though, I want to hear your thoughts. What makes you return to an author’s (or band, tv show, etc) site and become a part of the community?

I’m very much looking forward to hearing your thoughts.

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Comments

One Response to “What about your website?”

  1. imworlds on July 7th, 2007 3:59 pm

    Collectives. Something I learned from the webcomics community. The top guys right now have formed collectives of anywhere from nine to twenty like-minded artists and individuals who create a hub site, share marketing and promotion of the collective site, revenue from advertising, and other duties. I’ve seen solo artists in Blank Label Comics, for instance, go from a no name to having a quarter of a million visitors a day.

    I share your frustration of having to do everything myself and not having enough time. Having a team to pool resources seems to me to exponentiate everyone’s efficiency. You may want to look at Lunchboxfunnies.com, blanklablecomics.com, and flightcomics.com to see what this looks like in the comics field. Why couldn’t this work for a writers of fantasy, adventure and scifi as well?

    I truly believe this model could work for a group of independents forming their own publishing company, or collective. Just a thought. Love your work here, as well as on Dragons Landing.

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