We Are Living In The Future…

[ursulav]

…and it’s not always a good thing for sales.

I was at the book store t’other day-the real brick-and-mortar one, to sign a couple of my books, and I was browsing through the SF/Fantasy section, and I tripped over a trilogy.*

It was a big set of books. It would be a substantial cash investment for yours truly. And reading the back, the premise was…

Comments

[terrykun]

Interesting discussion.

If you still need some whimsy, I cannot reccomend "Kirby's Epic Yarn" strongly enough. It is MADE OF DELIGHT AND WHIMSY.

[derakon]

It does bug me a bit that this basically means that if you want to sell anything, you can't take an overtly controversial stance on anything. There's something wrong with having to self-censor just to make a living, even if everyone does it. It smacks of intolerance.

(Which isn't to say you don't have the right to refuse to buy something from someone because you disagree with them in other areas. It still bugs me though.)

[mizkit]

This is largely why I have a personal site and a professional one. I figure if someone opts in to my personal site, that's their decision, but the bare bones news only version is available for those who don't want that.

[pghbekka]

It's not that you can't take an overtly controversial stance. It's just that you have to take ownership of it, and accept and expect the consequences. Also what mizkit said. Social media has really blurred the lines between personal and public. If, like ursulav, or many other authors and artists who have personal blogs, you know and invite your customers to read, you have to make a conscious choice about what you post. Doesn't mean that you HAVE to censor yourself, just that you have to understand you're telling 5,000 of your closest internet friends, many of them your customers, who you are.

[ryokomusouka]

Agree, agree, agree.

Unfortunately, so many Christians feel they're being persecuted (despite still holding the majority in the US) and feel the need to Proclaim to the World. I suppose it's a sort of badge of honor, and they figure if they lose some readers for doing it, so much the better. (People of other faiths do it, too, it just seems more prevalent among Christian evangelicals.)

For examples of excellent author sites, see Neil Gaiman's or JK Rowling's. Silver RavenWolf's is nice, too, and shows what a person who writes about religion can do without being creepy. I suppose my advice to any person trying to develop a web presence is to be authentic and don't hide behind gimmicky, trendy stuff. If the purpose is to sell something, keep unrelated stuff in a separate section. Tell me why I should want to read your stuff. Don't use sales jargon. Please, for the love of little green apples, include a list of your works and the order in which they should be read.

[scumpi]

Is there somewhere a nice photo of you? I`d like to see one!

[ursulav]

Unfortunately, no. I photograph very very badly, and I'm sort of tempted to actually plunk down money to a decent photographer to get an author photo that doesn't make me and my editor cry.

[krin_o_o_]

I don't know, the "Boots Photo" was pretty damn awesome!

[timprov]

If you're back in the Twin Cities at some point, I'd be happy to take a shot at doing it for free. At risk of getting what you pay for.

[derakon]

Step 1 for optimizing websites for phones: remove all images and complicated styles.

Step 2 for optimizing websites for phones: remove any content that isn't immediately pertinent to the page's purpose.

That's basically it (though I grant I'm painting with very broad strokes here). Make pages short, simple, and to the point. However, given that you said it's an art site, things could be trickier. In that case I'd recommend making heavy use of thumbnails that link to the full-size version. Remember that your target user has a display resolution of maybe 640x400, probably less (the iPhone has a bigger resolution, but it's also much denser with smaller pixels).

Incidentally, my own cell phone is a five-year-old clamshell dealybopper, has a few cracks in the case, and still works just fine for its intended purpose: making phonecalls. I'm waiting to get a smartphone until there's a remotely reasonable data plan option.

[derakon]

It's not just the up-front cost; it's the cost of the extra service plans each month. An iPhone doesn't cost $99, even though that's what they charge you at the store. They make up the extra with the two-year contract.

Most big websites have a separate mobile site that they direct you to if they detect you're using a mobile device. If you're a sufficiently crotchety geek, you might actually prefer using the mobile site even when you're using a normal computer (since, being crotchety, you would argue that everything not shown in the mobile version is wasted bandwidth anyway). Most of us don't want to bother maintaining two websites though.