website shakeup and shake-down

[lagilman]

So, my webmistress the mighty if sleepless alfreda89 has gotten the revamped if not entirely live yet website up and running in time for the new books, all hail alfreda89 and may her naps be long and satisfying.

Your assignment, should you choose to accept it, is to go henceforth to http://www.sff.net/people/lauraanne.gilman and report back on what you like, don't like, etc.

Keep in mind a) that it's still a work in progress, and b) that giving reasons WHY you don't like something is e'er so much more helpful than "god, Gilman, that color's 'orrible!"


And yes, I do plan to get a domain name. Someday. Soon, maybe, even.

Comments

[girasole.livejournal.com]

I do love the sidebar image -- one of Wren's covers, is it not?

I confess the celtic knot blue background pattern makes it hard for me to read the type, even though it's white on dark. But I am, er, older.

I don't have a domain name, either. Maybe someday. Maybe not.

[scarlettina.livejournal.com]

Site looks good. That background blue pattern is very attractive, and the white type stands out well against it. I totally dig the lightning motif; it's a nice way for readers familiar with The Retrievers to know they've found the right site. The site's user-friendly to those with low-bandwidth and/or dial-up connections. I used my dial-up and the site loaded well and quickly.

On your "Book Shelf" page, I wondered why the novels were listed so low down when chances are that they'll contribute most over the long haul to your income. And I'm assuming at some point here will be links to Amazon or Barnes & Noble or some site of that sort? (Or did I miss the "Buy Now" links?) I know that there's a convention amongst authors to put short fiction at the top and lopng fiction at the bottom; while I understand it, I guess I don't really agree with it. But that's me.

I was surprised to see that there's no author bio page or FAQ. Maybe that's coming?

[lagilman]

author bio. right. been avoiding that.

heh. should run contest, see who can come up with the best bio for me...



And there are no links because I don't like to support one bookseller over another, especially if it's at the expense of a good local-to-the-reader store. Yes, M'e, I know, a link to Booksense...

(for those playing along at home -- http://storesearch.booksense.com/booksense/storeSearch.do)

[mt-yvr.livejournal.com]

My favourite bio so far, for myself, has been :

Born in 1972. Not dead yet. Still writing.


(blink)

What?

[merlinpole.livejournal.com]

Laura Anne Gilman, despite the two name first name, is a recently returned New Englander. She departed her former full time wage slave day job as a editor at a New York publishing house for the exciting (as in, "When is that royalty payment getting here? ") live of a freelancer writer and editor, and then left the proximity to New York City publishers for the rigors of New England seaside college city life.

She like Meerkats (she is the Meerkat), fine food and wine, and good conversation. Her dislikes include having her picture taken. Her hair length is susceptible to change.

[lagilman]

Oh, and I'd do a FAQ if I had more than one frequently asked question....

(hint, hint)

Phear teh Scarlettina!

[scarlettina.livejournal.com]

How did you start writing?

Where do you get your ideas?

Will you read my manuscript and critique it for free?

Will you endorse my writing?

Will you come and talk to my class/our club?

What's it like to be a full-time writer?

Are Wren and Sergei based on real people?

How did you come up with the magic system you use in The Retrievers books?

Why is a raven like a writing desk?

Who put the ram in the rama-lama-ding-dong?

Why do fools fall in love?

Will you have my baby?

Re: Phear teh Scarlettina!

[lagilman]

I learned my alphabet.

a PO Box in Ballston Spa, NY

Yes, but you won't like what I have to say.

I'm not a notary public, alas.

My fee is $100/hour, plus travel expenses.

It sucks. Don't do it.

They're base don about 20 real people each.

I made it up.

Having neither, I don't know.

Probably the sheep.

Because they're fools.

How much are you selling it for?

[mt-yvr.livejournal.com]

What's the best form of bribery, you know the kind that WORKS, for you?

[lagilman]

Flowers
Quality chocolate
Cash, in small, unmarked bills.


You figure out if that's ascending or descending order of effectiveness...

[mt-yvr.livejournal.com]

Flowers as I remember work AMAZINGLY. As I remember, white roses by the dozen were considered well worth the investment.

I do, occasionally, remember conversations with you in person.

[mt-yvr.livejournal.com]

See, I'm STILL trying to woo you as a potential editor if I ever (for the love of the GODS) finish anything.

:P

Now the chances are better, than when you were working for other people.

Sorta.

Did I mention flowers?

[ex-fashioni.livejournal.com]

Okay, love: The textured blue background. The use of the blue/gray scale graphics as sidebars. The mythological looking graphic on the front page. I love the cool hues-- all has a very mystical feel.

That said-- the don't loves. As much as I'm all about the purple, that particular shade isn't quite right to be against the blue background-- it actually gave me an instant headache to try to read. I'm not quite sure why that is, perhaps it's a shade too dark or just not in the right hue family. I also think that the mythological graphic would standout better if it had a thin black border around it, just to give it some depth and dimension. For the moment, it just looks as if it's a label that's been slapped onto the screen.

In terms of organization, I'm surious as to why you put the short stories and anthologies ahead of the full-length novels. Seems to me it would be the other way around, but perhaps that's just personal preference.

I think that's it-- is there anything specific you want to know about?

[ex-fashioni.livejournal.com]

Curious even. Sheesh. Brain hurts.

[lagilman]

originally, it was newest stuff, then books. Here, we put the Stuff You Can Buy! up front (aka Fictionwise) and then the books. But there's room for change, if indicated.

[davidlevine]

One minor nit: there's no need for the 9/11 Memories page to have a link to itself ("WTC Portal").

[kalligraphy.livejournal.com]

While I love the celtic knot pattern in the background, I think it is too busy. The end result is that it actually makes it hard to look at and read to the text overlaid on it. The persephone ring thing at the bottom, doesn't seem to connect to anything but the ringsurf website. Are you creating a ring of one? :)

[lagilman]

we're still waiting for the ringmistress to hook us up.

[hilleviw.livejournal.com]

Agree with those who love the sidebar graphic. Agree with those who find the Celtic Knot textured background makes it harder to read. It's fine with larger font sizes, and with standard text, but difficult to read the italicised medium font, or in a large block of text. Also hard to read the lavendar links - there's not enough contrast with the blue. If "author" and "editor" get periods, shouldn't "tired person"? On the Bookshelf page, I agree with those who think the novels should be at the top. For me the images in the sidebar were too small and too washed out to be more than visual white noise. On the pages for the two series the only way I could read the review text was to increase my font display size in Explorer. Nice, crisp graphic images of the books, and I appreciated having links to excerpts.

[christymarx.livejournal.com]

Generally agree with the other comments. Nice, but with some readability issues.

I would also recommend:
* settling down to a more consistent font size rather than having extremes of large and small fonts
* narrow up the table cell in which the text resides to form a more narrow column, rather than going the full width. It will be easier to read and look better with a more compact layout.

Off topic, but I don't care, much

[(Anonymous)]

Hey

There's a Wren and Sergei short!

http://www.fictionwise.com/servlet/mw;jsessionid=9qkbzPoY68Hz+ZKjojKkoRXmv3M?t=book&bi=38752&si=

Thanks!

Re: Off topic, but I don't care, much

[lagilman]

Ooo, it's up! Yay!

Re: Off topic, but I don't care, much

[merlinpole.livejournal.com]

Go Daddy's ad style, particularly their Superbowl advertising, ensures that the only thing I want to sent them, is a Kali statue with the belt of severed phalluses, postage-due.

Re: Off topic, but I don't care, much

[hilleviw.livejournal.com]

Hear hear. I don't care how affordable they are, the advertising is reprehensibly sexist and they will never get a penny from me.

[mt-yvr.livejournal.com]

(...)

As you might know, asking for a break down on things can be brutal or loving. Depends on where your line sits on this.

That said I'll won't do the full on report. Just a mild version not meant to insult.

1] Centering. Love it for a few things. Don't default for it though, it has always looked to my mind as if some one didn't know how to work a layout. Consider where you might ask them to blockquote or even table it so the layout is less spread across a whole page and more selective in placement.

2] Colour (or color). Not bad choices. Author's have a hard time of it, do you go for a design you like, or one that reflects the themes you write or... Colour is ok, not my choice but not "oh GODS WHY, WHY DIDN'T I PLUCK OUT MY EYES". Just, not my flavour. Or flavor. That said something to consider. Headers [A colour], subheaders [B colour, possibly gradient of A colour], Link [A1 colour], visited link [B1 colour, possibly gradient of A1 colour], etc. Right now you've got some variation and it's good, but you can go a little bit further and still not do random rainbow spews. And remember to ask for complimentary colours.

3] Bookshelf. Love that you've got the books and anthologies listed. And ISBN. Now, if you don't want to do covers for anything but the novels, can we have links to spots to buy them? No, really, are you interested in that or not? Some people do it, some don't, there are a lot of reasons in either direction. I ask because I don't know if you considered it or not.

3a] Bookshelf. Please consider doing a mild indent or something when putting up the novels in print. Presently entirely left justified makes it hard to figure out that it's book title, carriage return, book info, carriage return, book title...

Book

Info

Book

Info

****
Book
Info

Book
Info

****
Book

Info

Book

Info

****

Again, variation of colour for headings and subheadings are also methods out of losing the eye and information due to "all looks alike"iteous.


I'll leave it at that. Good start, like it, got a LOT of information (which is a huge huge bonus, thanks from a reader).

(really, you're an editor so I'm betting/hoping you understand it's not an attack on you or the person making the site, it's purely about my own design aesthetic and lesson's learned.)

[lagilman]

Don't worry, many of your comments echo things I've already noted...

[mt-yvr.livejournal.com]

And of course my one point is lost because I forgot to code it in html so you'd see the indent. (lol) I do go on...

Book

Info

[karolluis.livejournal.com]

I personally loathe backgrounds on webpages (they inevitably make the text harder to read, especially on my laptop) and the font comic sans (simply because it doesn't look 'professional' to me)

But otherwise it's well organized and makes it easy to find the two pieces of information I find essential on an author's website: 1.) When's the next book coming out and 2.) What else has she written.

[sfmarty.livejournal.com]

Don't forget that even if you don't want to give one bookseller more of a plug than another, they usually give bits of money for referrals. Someone I know (not sure if you do or not) who is not a writer has an Amazon link on her site. Everything that is bought by someone going thru the link gives her a bit of dosh. She told me that is how she found out that Amazon also sells sex toys.

Site looks good to me. I think a bit more work to line stuff up on some of the pages is in order, but as you said, "in progress".

[sleary.livejournal.com]

The background has just a little too much contrast to work well with type directly on top of it. I suggest a solid-color panel for the text areas -- something narrow to allow the pattern to show on the side(s). Here are a couple (http://squidfingers.com/) of (http://www.designfruit.com/jasongaylor/blog/) examples (http://www.botched.com/index.php/blog). This would work well with christymarx's suggestion of a narrower column. mt_yvr also has a good suggestion about using additional colors -- using something different for, say, the book titles would help those stand out in the list.

On the books page, why not display the book covers next to the publication info? Knowing what the cover looks like makes it a lot easier to spot when I get to the store. Some of the ones I hadn't seen before looked intriguing, and I found myself squinting to make out details in the washed-out versions along the left side.

medievalist is very wise with the domain advice. You can register one now and just point it at the existing site, generally for free. (GoDaddy will do this for free, I know.)

[sleary.livejournal.com]

Ah-ha. The book covers are displayed next to the book info -- on the series pages. They aren't on the bookshelf, and the books in the series aren't linked to the series pages.

[jmward14.livejournal.com]

LOL After I saw the "cover quote", I couldn't see a thing wrong with the site.
Well, not really, but the little things I saw have all been mentioned before. So I'll stick with the one thing I *can* add to the discussion. Thanks for mentioning CRESCENT BLUES. :-)
Cheers,
Jean Marie

[wyldflamingo.livejournal.com]

my .01 cents (after a glass of wine, .02 is touch to coax to life).

Blue background--like the color, but it is difficult to read against
Font. White is generally a good contrast color on web pages,. I agree with whoever else mentioned the varying sizes, and also with whoever mentioned the purple is a little rough. I'll go one step more and say I think it's a somewhat boring font--while I do think it makes the site more "personal", I think it's a little too personal. San serif font on screens is a good thing, but this one is a little too formless for the level at which your writing career/street cred has reached.

Nice clear pics on Grail page! Those really grabbed me!
Glad you included Sightings and Sitings--of course we want to see you!
dymk page: continuity, or lack therof here. I totally grok this is a different page than the rest, but the color/font/approach change is extreme
Links. Two words--thank you! Oh, and if you come to Seattle, free wine tour on me. :-)
9/11 memories: I will actually pass along your thanks to the creators of IM. I work for the group that provides top level product support. They always say there's never been a day where someone's said "thank goodness for IM" (rather than complaining about whatever current issue they're experiencing). It will be my distinct pleasure to correct them. Thank you!

[jennifer-dunne.livejournal.com]

No complaints about the color -- I think it's a very pretty combo of blue, black, gray, and white.

I loved how the covers were photo-edited into the same blue-gray palette as the original sidebar, so it was clearly the same design, even though it was a totally different image. But I'd have preferred them to be wider, or two-abreast if you need to keep them small, so that the overall space taken up by the graphic is the same.

My biggest issue was consistancy across the site -- having established the celtic knotwork background and a sidebar graphic, I expected to see the same thing on all pages. When there was no graphic, I thought there should have been one and it didn't load. On the info about your editing services, with a different background, I wasn't sure if I was on the same site anymore.

I'd also suggest maybe putting a list of different options -- shorts from Fictionwise, other shorts, novels -- at the top of your books page, so people can skip to the bit they want, and so they know it's worth scrolling down to see the rest.

Overall, this design says "Website from 2000" to me, not "Website from 2006". Most modern designs are for a 600-800 pixel column of a solid color, over the background graphic, with floating GIF images or a graphic that blends to the column color, to blur the rectangularity. Navigation is usually on the side or top, rather than at the bottom. Bottom navigation is reserved for the things that need to be there but you don't expect most visitors will use, like linking to an email address to report website problems.

[lagilman]

The dymk page is, in many ways, a speratate site, and so looks a little different intentionally. It's also still under construction -- I'm reconfiguring dymk productions a bit, and so the site will change as well as that develops. It was more important to me to get the fiction side updated first.


As to the 'website from 2000" aspect -- well, it is from 2000. Earlier, in fact. Kathi and I are overhauling it for various reasons, but the basic design has served me well over the years.

I honestly don't care about winning design awards (Kathi may, of course, disagree). I want it to load quickly, cleanly, and get the info to the reader.

And I, personally, hate sidebar navigation, because I've seen it get cut-off on too many smaller monitors.

Not to say that you don't have good points, but there are also reasons for some of the things you're commenting on being there.

[lagilman]

Bah. I sound cranky. I'm not cranky. This is all useful, and thanks.

[jennifer-dunne.livejournal.com]

Nah, you didn't sound cranky. Overwhelmed, yes, but not cranky. :-)

And I totally agree on the non-scalable screen problems. I look at a lot of web pages in tiny windows, and the ones that are fixed size with no ability to scroll left/right or up/down -- especially with the navigation on the right/bottom! -- are just EVIL!

A point -- %^)

[alfreda89.livejournal.com]

We thank folks for looking. I'm finally ready to go back and do some selective tweaking on this site. There are always reasons for things -- some of them are simply "We haven't gotten to it." LAG had a couple reasons for her decision to revamp now. With so many books coming out, going full-time, she's a friend, I charged her a very reasonable price, etc. this seemed like a good time.

Now -- she wants to be able to handle updates on this site herself. I had to strip the remnants of about five different types of web engines out of this site. I am not making this a template site, since she doesn't own any web update generators she likes.

She has no interest in bells and whistles. She wants people to get in, find what they want, and get out. She wants her site interesting, but right now is not trying to lure people back weekly to check on changes (as in, no interest in doing that herself, and no desire to pay someone to do it.) She decided that she occasionally gets a contact about 9/11, so we kept the log up, but made it a supporting member of the site.

She hasn't decided what she wants to do with dymk, but it will be changing.

I wanted to do a simple portal for all aspects of LAG. She liked her royal blue background, but with the spare lines she wanted, I didn't want that to be boring. So, I did the tile w/sidebar from main books. (However, I will freely admit that I chose the tile because of the Grail books, not realizing that they were something she did for a packager. So the reason for its existence now is, it gives some texture and keeps her blue.)

I agree that Comic Sans adds a bit, but as for reading small, uh-uh-- which is why it's not standard. (I send her questions like "I did A HERE and B THERE -- which do you like, if either?")

Suri had very simple wants and I just tried to come up with something clean and fun that would get info across. I decided she needed Retrievers sideboards and bits -- it is, after all, the thing that is her Big Push right now. But they don't look good with the Grail books, so One Grail book was snipped for bars. The montage of anthology covers and novel covers does have a specific reason. She doesn't have every cover, and the quality of the .jpeg or .gif she has varied greatly. So, intriguing is good. (The width is purely because most of the .gifs could be reduced to that width easily, but not the heights. Again-- time and money pressures.)

I confess that I have just enough training in web to be dangerous -- and I haven't taken a class since 2002. I've realized that working for the full-time employers doing this would drive me nuts. But I am much more into Jakob Nielsen than anyone else. I hate sites that don't have more than one kind of navigation. I hate sites wasting my time with pretty pictures, or flashing new graphics constantly. If there isn't a "Skip Flash" line somewhere on the portal, I probably won't bother to wait around, much less buy from the site.

But comfort/ease of use and layout is important to us. Now that I've stripped 98% of the old stuff out, I can tweak and make the samples extremely readable (and I'd vote larger, too, but then my eyes aren't as happy about small type as they used to be, either.)

I asked LAG about Amazon clicks, etc. I don't have an opinion yet for myself, except if you did something with a small press/regional press, you should have a click through to their site. Remember that many -- most? -- small presses make no profit on a sale through Amazon. Has anyone found a book center they like for clicks that does bother to give the writer something for the promo?

Again -- thanks for looking.