Exploring and understanding audience, encouraging communication, announcing excerpts and celebrating book releases. Just basically talking about websites... and the occasional cupcake.

January Wrap-Up

by Emily Cotler
January 31, 2012 – 3:02 pm

wrap-up header

NEW BOOKS:

MAYA BANKS released Whispers in the Dark, book four in the KGI series. AUTHOR WEBSITE BONUS: Character Profiles. Readers love them. Maya’s got them.

RED GARNIER released Legally Hot,  an anthology with Lora Leigh and Cheyenne McCray, featuring Red’s novella “Caught.” AUTHOR WEBSITE BONUS: Who doesn’t love amazon gift cards? The winner Red’s contest gets one. Nice.

JENNIE LUCAS released A Night of Living Dangerously in the United Kingdom (coming to North America in April!) AUTHOR WEBSITE BONUS: Cool snapshots from fun author events.

MIA MARLOWE released Sins of the Highlander with Connie Mason. AUTHOR WEBSITE BONUS: Read Write Love — that’s one active blog.

NICOLA CORNICK rereleased Dauntsey Park: The Last Rake in London, book five of the Bluestocking Brides series, in the UK. AUTHOR WEBSITE BONUS: Downton Abbey fans will enjoy 1) Nicola’s Behind the Book research brings up some interesting bits about the period. And 2) The prize for Nicola’s current contest includes a book of Edwardian paper dolls.

LORI FOSTER reissued two books this month: Bad Boys in Black Tie, an anthology with Erin McCarthy and Morgan  Leigh, part of the Watson brothers series, and Forever Buckhorn, of the Buckhorn Brothers series. AUTHOR WEBSITE BONUS: Read more about the Watson brothers and the Buckhorn brothers in Lori’s connected books sections.

NEW EXCERPTS:

MIA MARLOWE posted a special sneak peek from Touch of a Rogue, due out on February 28.

SOPHIA NASH posted an special sneak peek excerpt from Between the Duke and the Deep Blue Sea, the first book in the Royal Entourage series, due out on February 28.

JACI BURTON posted an excerpt from Taking a Shot, book three in Jaci’s Play-by-Play series, releasing March 6.

MONICA MCCARTY posted a special sneak peek excerpt from The Saint, due out on March 27.

MAYA BANKS posted an excerpt from Sweet Addiction, the sixth installment in the Sweet series, due out on April 3.

GRACE BURROWES posted an excerpt from Lady Maggie’s Secret Scandal, book five in the Windham series, due out  on May 1.

AND COMING VERY, VERY SOON:
February will bring releases from Susan Andersen, Maya Banks, Kate Noble, and Pamela Palmer. Stay tuned!

Posted by Emily Cotler •• Filed in Wrap-ups •• Comments (0)

Sites in Tables. What could be the reason?

by Emily Cotler
January 27, 2012 – 10:10 pm

I have been looking at a lot of sites lately. I am happy to say that no one is building in tables anymore… or so I thought until a few minutes ago.

I will back up here a moment and admit that a significant portion of the sites in our portfolio are in tables, including a few of our busiest. WhyEVER would we do that? I have an easy answer:

They are not new — 2007 or older. Still functional, still serving the client, but older.

Outside of newsletters, which can be a different beast, we employ a table so rarely it’s hard to even come up with an occasion. So imagine my surprise when I stumbled across the site for a new film: The Pursuit of Loneliness. I was stunned at so many things about it: all the text is graphical, the title tags are “menu1024″ and such, and it’s all in tables.

I pulled myself back from the edge of passing judgment, though. Why would they do this? I genuinely wondered. There must be a reason. The design is not bad. It’s minimalist, and it matches the feel of the movie.

I guess that it’s in tables for a few reasons: 1) low budget, 2) quick turnaround, and 3) it’s not going to change. There is no reason to build in CSS if there is not compelling reason to need that flexibility. No changing content… ever.

There are drawbacks, of course. There is no SEO, and it’s in tables. But sometimes the budget and future use simply does not call for elegant code. Sometimes it is valid to just get ‘er up.

Posted by Emily Cotler •• Filed in Web Design, Working on the web •• Comments (0)

Wax to black

by Emily Cotler
January 18, 2012 – 12:45 am

Fighting online piracy is important. PIPA and SOPA are not the way to do it. Tell Congress: Please don’t censor the web!

Posted by Emily Cotler •• Filed in Working on the web •• Comments (0)

O, Powerful Photoshop

by Emily Cotler
January 15, 2012 – 6:11 pm

In an accidental extension of the topic of queens, here is a fantastic Photoshop project to put a face on Eleanor of Aquitaine.

Amazing.

Posted by Emily Cotler •• Filed in Creative •• Comments (0)

Gorgeous Designwork!

by Emily Cotler
January 9, 2012 – 9:28 pm

I wish I could say we did it. We didn’t. But I let out a little gutteral “oh!” when it loaded on my screen.

H.M. herself probably did it, actually. As if she didn’t already have a cool enough job being Queen of Denmark, she’s also an artist. J’adore the use of white (red) space, and the tone on tone is sublime.

I genuflect.

Posted by Emily Cotler •• Filed in Creative •• Comments (1)

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