Want to Build a Great Website?

A funny thing happened when I started promoting Every Secret Crime. Everyone started complimenting me on my website. Hardly a book signing goes by that someone doesn't stop by to say they looked at the site and were impressed.

I had absolutely nothing to do with it.

My site is entirely the creation of Beth Tindall, web maven to the stars, at Cincinnati Media.
I asked Beth to stop by the blog and answer some basic questions about website creation. Herewith...her thoughts:

Beth Tindall (http://www.cincinnatimedia.com/) started building websites in 1996 while still working in her longtime non-profit career. She started to specialize in author websites as part of her plot to get free books. Now she gets enough free books to keep her to-be-read stack huge, but she no longer has enough time to read them all! She's happy to talk to potential new clients provided that they do not have a pub date between July 15 and August 15, or they plan so far ahead that they won't need to talk to her during those times. She's kidding about that pub date thing. Kinda.

1.What are the advantages to having a professionally designed website?

I do have one author client who is very fond of saying "I didn't design my own book cover, so why should I design my own website?" I've seen her sketches and it's probably a good thing she leaves the designs to the professionals!

There's a lot of good reasons to turn your website over to a pro:

A professional webmaster will design a website for viewing by all internet visitors. We are aware of the different website browsers, platforms, size restrictions, fonts, etc. that are standard internet protocols. Many amateurs make the mistake of designing websites which look good on THEIR computer, but don't work for people on Mozilla or on a Mac or on dial-up internet connection, for example.

Also, we'll help you match up your website to your marketing goals -- do you want to interact with your fans? do you want to build an e-mail list? should you have a coordinating blog? How can you get traffic to your website from individuals who have not yet heard of you? These are all topics which should be discussed before building your website.

Another reason is that we can help you get your website noticed on search engines, and help analyze statistics to refine your website content, let you know what contests have worked for other clients, and so forth.

Your website is your online calling card. It should represent you and your writing. Authors spend hours and weeks and months writing and re-writing their books. Spending more hours and weeks building your website is time taken away from your primary craft -- writing. Spend your time writing your content for the website, and find a good website designer to help represent you online.


2. How do I choose a good website designer? What criteria should I use?

Find websites you like. Visit a lot of author sites especially. Write down what you like, what you don't like… see who does the websites that you like. Don't just look at the pretty pictures, but read the content as well. You might like BigNameAuthor.com but really only have a FirstTimer.com budget -- does the designer have a variety of sites in his or her portfolio? Do you visit the author's site and get an immediate sense of who that author is, or what he/she writes about? Can you find your way around the site easily? Does the page load quickly?

Ask other authors which website designers they have used, and what do they like about their designer? What is their weakness? Does the author love his or her webmaster? Is he or she responsive? Are deadlines met? Is the price structure adequately explained? Does the designer offer you options, involve you in the process as much or as little as you want?

3. Should I insist on a contract? Why?

Business is business -- you should have, in writing, an agreement of what services are covered, what services are not covered, what the charges are, who pays for the domain names, who owns the website content, where is the hosting, who initiates content changes, how is payment to be made -- these topics should at least be discussed via e-mail, if not spelled out specifically in a proposal or contract.

And, please be sure to keep a copy of your website log in and password, your domain name purchase location (if you bought it) and log in and password, your hosting account info, etc. That information should be printed out and in your business files.

4. What are the elements of a well-designed site?

First and foremost, you should love it. It should be something that you look at and say "(the designer) got it."

Visitors to the website should learn something more about you than they get from reading the book flap. Maybe it's a different photo of you, or a personal essay you've written, or more information about your characters or book location… but there should be some reason for a visitor to come to your site. Moreover, there should be some reason for the visitor to come back. Do you put up photo galleries? When is the next one? Do you have a book tour coming up? When is the next free short story going to be posted?

Visitors should be able to easily find information about you and your books, including the publication order and a brief description of each. I'm not a fan of using the same exact info as is on Amazon or Barnes & Noble websites -- I prefer authors write something new and brief about the books if time allows. It's the kind of thing I would want to know as a reader checking out a new or favorite author.

5. What unrealistic expectations do people have of their websites and their web designers?

The days of "if you build it, they will come" are over. Websites have moved from a novelty to a necessity. People are busy and want to get information online, at their own convenience. That being said, you can't just put a website out there and expect people to come to it. Your website has to be on the search engines for people to find it, unless you have ReallyUniqueName.com and people guess the right spelling of it.

Publishers market books, webmasters market websites, authors should market both. At the same time. Make sure you put your website address on your business cards, on the book jacket copy, if you do bookmarks, have the website address there. I can't tell you the number of times I see marketing materials without that basic information on there.

I suppose the only unrealistic expectations I run into are that I'm up on every client's publication date and should just automatically put the new book on his or her website. It's just not possible for me to do that. The author has to provide me with the information that he or she wants on the site.

I have run into situations where people have said they've contacted me with updates or inquiries into me building a site for them, and I've never received the e-mail. It's the internet -- servers burp, spam filters take on a mind of their own, I get delete-key-happy -- it happens that sometimes e-mails just aren't seen. I respond to every serious inquiry within 48 hours. I make updates as quickly as I can, hopefully within 48 hours.

A website designer who specializes in authors should be able to let you know if your website traffic is on track with similar authors. I wouldn't reveal specific numbers of any client, but I have tools to help me get traffic info on a variety of websites, including those not my own. If you're spending 3 hours a year on your website, your traffic isn't likely to grow very much. If you're spending 3 hours a week marketing online, you better be seeing a lot of increased traffic each week. If not, you should ask your webmaster to help you figure out why.

6. How much should I expect to pay for a professionally designed website?

I love this question. It's like asking, "How much does a car cost?" Well….. do you want new, used, full-sized, economy, leased, buy-a-beater, luxury, sunroof and spoilers?

Seriously, a website can cost as little or as much as you want to spend. The best option is to look at your goals, what content you want to put out there, how you want it to look, how often you want it updated, and so on. I've done websites for $300 and for $10,000, and everything in between. If you only have $500 to spend right now, but if you get a new contract and you can put in another $700 next year, tell your designer upfront. Or, ask what you can get for the low end of your budget and what you can get for the high end of your budget, and then make up your mind. I don't have any stock websites that I sell, and I don't have any stock prices that I charge. It's all based on what the client and I discuss on our initial consultation, what services are needed, and then it's all spelled out in the proposal.

Thanks for joining us, Beth. I suspect you may have some questions to answer over the next few days!

Heading North

If you happen to be in the beautiful Wisconsin North Woods this coming Weds, Aug 27th, head on over to Cottage at Cardinal's on Trout Lake north of Woodruff. I'll be signing books there from 1-3. Please join me and my host, Joanna Cardinal!

Emphatic Denial

I categorically deny that Senator John Edwards was the inspiration for my senator in Deader by the Lake and further deny that my senator's hooker mistress was based on Edwards' mistress.

Gosh, I hope some reporter somewhere will pick up on that first paragraph and blow it out of proportion, thus garnering me the same sort of publicity, albeit in reverse, that Jay McInerny won on CNN online this morning. (http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/).

I deny it because, with my luck, if I claim to have based my characters on Edwards and his mistress they'll sue me. Although, since the book was published in '03 and Edwards' dalliance apparently didn't occur until '06, could I get some Oprah-couch time if I claimed prescience? Hmmm. The psychic angle. Have to talk to my publicist about that.

Whether I deny or admit, I'm afraid nothing at all is going to come of this, darn it.

A couple months back, after Barbara Walters published her tell-all and confessed to an affair with a black senator, I denied that I was her break-up lover but no one picked up on that. I even denied it loudly and vehemently in a downtown Chicago restaurant ("I never had sex with Barbara Walters! How could you say such a thing!"). I was hoping someone in the vicinity might dime me out to a sleazy newspaper columnist or maybe even Matt Drudge but . . . nothing.

I can't even get my publicist to issue a written denial. Come on, Carol, jeez! Used to be, in the old days in Hollywood, publicists issued denials all the time. When I asked her to do it she just smiled the way people do when their stomach is bothering them.

Wait a second. As I write this I'm remembering another CNN headline today about George Clooney denying he's been texting back and forth with future President Obama. I didn't read the article because it seemed pretty lame but maybe I can use this to my advantage. Maybe I can claim I designed Obama's entire approach to gun legislation (always a scathingly hot topic), sent it to him via text but never got the credit!

Author Claims He Laid Out Obama's Anti-Gun Stance! "He never acknowledged me," Doug M. Cummings says, "And I texted him every talking point!"

It needs polish but it might work.

Kansas City/Topeka Tour Pics

Upper left: my college buddies Bill and Randy, who I later covered when

they became prosecutors and started putting away bad guys.

Upper right: The KLO Computer Center and his lovely wife who, if it hadn't been for me and a certain drinking establishment, he would have never met.

Lower left: Rebecca Hale, author of How to Wash a Cat. Come to think of it, I forgot to ask her for any tips. Socks is probably better off.

Book Tour Update

It's been a whirlwind couple of weeks here in book tour land. But never better than in Kansas City and Topeka over the last weekend.

Many thanks to my friend Joe Zima for standing nearly two hours at the front of the Barnes and Noble store in Zona Rosa handing out bookmarks and talking people into stopping by the signing table. I'm not sure how many books I sold as a result but he sure did a great job. It was delightful to meet a fellow mystery author, too. Rebecca Hale has written How to Wash a Cat and started her own publishing house to bring it out. It was fun to have a dual signing. I also got a chance to visit with my longtime broadcasting mentor, and the best radio reporter I've ever known, Dan Verbeck and his lovely wife Sylvia.

In Topeka on Sunday, oh my gosh. It was like old home week. Friends I haven't even talked to in more than twenty years turned out and, at one point, I was surrounded by probably a dozen people. Joe was again on duty and ushered at least half a dozen people over to buy books.

There are few better reasons to go on a book tour than to renew friendships. Thanks to everyone who stopped by. I'm just sorry I couldn't spend more time visiting. Two and a half hours really speed along when you're having a great time.