Read 'Til You Drop

Thanks for the insights - I like the way you phrase the basic questions.

So much to think about...

I like Jennifer Weiner's site a lot; Jenny's is a bit busy for me (I've never been a fan of three-column design...) Of course, if I could reach out to one tenth of Jenny's readership, I'd go three-column in an instant!

Thanks for the insights (and the compliments!)

My first website (over 10 years ago now...) had auto-loading music. I thought it was the coolest thing in the world - how *could* I have been so deluded?!?

As for reviews - I think that a few key ones are important, but linking to everyone who's ever mentioned the book, anywhere? Not my style... :-)

Heavy use of flash. Or worse, a website composed entirely of flash.

YesyesyesYES! Nothing turns me off faster than having to wait for an all bells and whistles, no content website to load -- especially if loading is required over broadband.

Also unforgivable is not providing any HTML navigation.

Restaurant sites, to me, are the worst. Almost every single one of the upscale restaurants in DC (and NY, and several other US cities) have them - they take forever to load, and they usually come tainted with bad (loud) music...

I want a @*(%& menu and hours of operation - is that so hard to understand? :-)

Yep - that's pretty much it! Weird cocktails R us :-)

Alas, the SACRIFICE segment of my readership is all-too-limited. But I am looking into other content to add, that will tie in my current work with my past fantasy work...

Yep - your comments help a lot. I'll be tweaking the front page, largely in response to what you and others have said here! (As for the page you linked, as a "push beyond" - I agree. I don't think of myself as an impatient person, but I was ready to click away before the guy appeared!)

Yeah, that style of mystery meat navigation is not so hot.

And apparently I fail at HTML in the morning.

Maybe it's my librarian-mind, but I kept trying to get the regions of the map to match up with the topics they connected to! I liked a lot of the content, especially the consistent authorial tone, but I found the navigation frustrating...

Interesting, your thoughts about the ad-like font; I hadn't thought about that before...

Interesting... I'm always intrigued to watch the spectrum of professionalism in authors' pages... Diana's page has great content, but the design looks rough to me - the top block, with her name and picture isn't sized right to the rest of the page (on my screen, anyway...)

Maybe I'm just jealous of Grand Success, and I only *think* I'd hire a professional designer to spice up my page, if I were bestselling :-)

As for the portrait - I've gone back and forth on that. I like having one up there, but don't want it staring out at me from every page :-)

In your book, does linking to a blog count as frequent updates?

There are so many bells and whistles that *seem* like they'll be great in the creation of a site, but turn out to be time- and energy-drags...

Thanks for the compliments - and the excellent sites to browse through!

Hmmm... I'm heading toward your suggestion of bringing the "books" page up as the home page...

With regard to colors - I've been tweaking the yellow bar at the bottom, and it's still not what I want. The other colors, despite being "true" are apparently not mapping correctly on your computer - the "tan" is actually in the same family as the burnt orange (and it all ties into the current book cover colors - although that's about to change, with SORCERY!) Hmmm... Maybe it's time to do some color overhauls, as well...

Thanks, for your HO, of course! :-)

I have a mild disagreement here. Yes, I try to answer every email that isn't abusive or psycho.

No, I don't always manage. I cannot "schedule" enough time, because I get hundreds of emails *a day*, not just from readers. Some are from friends, some from organizations I'm part of, some from editors and agent. If I'm away from the internet (while traveling, which sometimes happens) or on a group of tight deadlines...I can be hit with 200+ emails and 40 or so snail-mails to take care of when I come back, on top of that day's stuff, and I have (in the past) spent days trying to play catch-up and still been behind. "Too busy" is not just an excuse--it is a reality for anyone who has only 24 hours a day and other responsibilities.

There's nothing wrong with writing letters or emails, but there needs to be some recognition that writers are real people with the same 24/hour day limits as anyone else. If the writer (or celeb) spends too much time answering them (more than an hour a day, in my case) other things don't get done, including the work which the letter was written to celebrate. If someone doesn't answer a letter or email, why assume it's because of arrogance?

The whole "you wouldn't have a career without me, so you owe me all the time I care to take..." attitude is, in my opinion, dangerous. It leads to stalking of celebs and writers, and it results in enormous loss of productive time. It's also selfish. It assumes that the fan's desire for a more personal relationship trumps everything else in the writer's (or celeb's) life: never mind that the roof may be leaking, the spouse or child may be sick, a friend may be in the hospital and need help, another friend is getting married and the writer is organizing a shower, the editor may have just demanded a third rewrite by tomorrow night, etc, if the fan wants an answer now, the fan *deserves* an answer now. Why? Because the fan saw the movie or read the book? No. The value a fan gets for paying for a ticket or a book is the enjoyment of the movie or book. The purchase price is not a perpetual license to demand more.

That used to be understood. I don't know when it changed (it was not the common attitude when I grew up which was, admittedly, several generations ago--back then, we were taught not to intrude on the writers, musicians, actors we admired--to leave them free to spend their time on their profession or on whatever else they felt like doing.) I wonder how many of the people who demand immediate replies (or get angry if they don't get them) would feel if they were subject to the same demands...if they had to answer total strangers, dozens to hundreds of them, every day...and were damned for missing one now and then. (Do they really have that much time? The mind boggles.)

I answer nearly all my email and snailmail; I reply to posts in both newsgroup and blog. I do set aside time to do it...but if the time alloted isn't enough...there's not much I can do about it. 24 hours is all I have in a day and I can't spend all of it answering mail. If you think that makes me a rotten uncaring person...tant pis.

Interesting - I agree, in part, with what you say, and I also agree, in part, with Elizabeth. (That's life as a Libra for you!)

I attempt to respond to everyone who writes to me substantively (that is, I don't extend personal responses to contest entries.) And yet, when time gets particularly crunched, I correspondence (with family, friends, and readers) is one of the first things that gets dropped.

As Elizabeth notes, it's a matter of time. If I am going to be working at my day-job for 11 hours a day (by the time commutes and lunch are included) and sleep for seven hours a night (my goal, anyway :-) ), that only leaves me six hours for writing, socializing (including email), erranding, breakfast-and-dinner, and other life necessaries.

I *like* the contact with readers, but the couple of hours that I spent each day keeping up with online communications is a couple of hours that I'm not writing. (And, let's face it, my September 30 deadline really isn't that far away, no matter how much I tell myself stories to the contrary :-) )

I know authors who hire assistants to respond to their fanmail, and I think that can be a valid compromise, provided that the responses are appropriately written...

Hmm... I might pull this topic out for more discussion among the masses!

Thanks for the compliment!

I, too, prefer to read in order - that's probably the number one reason I reach out to new-to-me author sites!