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

Awesome Things from RWA, Orlando (Part 1)

by Emily Cotler
August 2, 2010 – 4:35 pm

Best Accomplishment: Upon winning her third RITA for What Happens in London, Julia Quinn was inducted into the RWA Hall of Fame! She’s only the 12th writer to snag that honor. JQ at first announced that she was the 13th author to be so honored, then corrected it to 11th, but we have finally ascertained that she is indeed the 12th. Why the counting issues? Force-unto-herself Nora Roberts has been inducted three times. But Nora in the mix or not, this Waxblog post is accompanied by significant genuflection and abundant hugs. WTG, JQ! (Photo above: JQ with her awesome editor Lyssa Keusch right after the big moment.)

Best Snark: This year RWA was meant to be in Nashville, but due to flooding it was moved to Orlando, as in Disney World. And as if that Mouse and all his Princesses were not enough, Orlando claims Universal Studios, The Wizarding World of Harry Potter, Sea World, and more. From the conference hotel you could get to Epcot by pink-and-white striped water taxi and there were fireworks every night. Pretty much every person I talked either arrived a few days early, kids in tow, or admitted necessarily and abashedly (as I did): “My kids have no idea where I am.”

Best Fan Behavior: This was Kindle- and Nook-related. And awesome. And not yet downloaded off of my camera. Stay tuned.

Posted by Emily Cotler •• Filed in Events •• Comments (7)

July Wrap-Up

by Emily Cotler
July 27, 2010 – 3:13 pm

wrap-up header

NEW BOOKS:

ELOISA JAMES released A Kiss at Midnight today, July 27. This is the first time in recent memory I have not gotten to read Eloisa’s book early, but I see Eloisa herself today so I plan to be ensconced with this Cinderella tale by dinner. AUTHOR WEBSITE BONUS: Right now, for about another week, Eloisa has a reader contest through which two lucky people are going to win B+N Nooks. What are you waiting for?

On July 1 HOPE TARR released The Tutor, a yummy historical featuring a returning character from Hope’s 2008 book, Untamed. AUTHOR WEBSITE BONUS: For pretty much the first time, animal activist Hope does not cast a rescue kitty in her book. Find out what rescue animal stars in this Tarr tale. And not quite on her own site, but this is special: Hope was mentioned earlier this month in The New York Times (scroll towards bottom of article).

On July 6 KARMA WILSON released The Cow Loves Cookies, a very-young-children’s book about a cow that can’t get enough of cookies! AUTHOR WEBSITE BONUS: Full spreads of a few of the inside pages… adorable!

RED GARNIER released The Secretary’s Bossman Bargain on July 13. AUTHOR WEBSITE BONUS: Free, gorgeous bookmark! (Link will take you to download option or for the actual piece, an address for an SASE).

ELIZABETH BOYLE contributed to The Mammoth Book of Regency Romance which released in the US today, July 27 (Available since June 24 in the United Kingdom). AUTHOR WEBSITE BONUS: Elizabeth’s first comic book / manga versions of her romances have started to arrive. Get the scoop. (And as an extra, scroll down to get the scoop on the sneak peek of her next novel!)

NEW-AGAIN BOOKS:

HOPE TARR’s My Lord Jack, originally published in 2002, was reissued as an e-book on July 12.

MAYA BANKS released Wild, a print anthology featuring two of her eBooks, Amber Eyes and Golden Eyes, on July 6.

NEW EXCERPTS:

HOPE  TARR posted an excerpt from A Rogue’s Pleasure, which was originally published in 2000 but is getting a second life as an e-book in mid-August.

MONICA McCARTY posted an excerpt from The Hawk, also due out in mid-August.

SUSAN ANDERSON posted an excerpt from Burning Up, due out in September.

MAYA BANKS posted a sneak peek excerpt from The Darkest Hour, due out on September 7.

DIANE GASTON posted a sneak peek excerpt from Chivalrous Captain, Rebel Mistress, due out in September.

ELIZABETH BOYLE posted a sneak peek excerpt from Mad About the Duke, due out in late September.

MICHAEL SPRADLIN posted a sneak peek excerpt from The Youngest Templar: Orphan of Destiny, due out in late October.

SUSANNA CARR posted a sneak peek excerpt from Wicked Wonderland, due out in November.

KATHRYN CASKIE posted a sneak peek from The Duke’s Night of Sin, due out in late November.

Posted by Emily Cotler •• Filed in Fun Site Features, The Book Business, Working on the web, Wrap-ups •• Comments (2)

Swag people remember you by

by Emily Cotler
July 21, 2010 – 9:41 am

How heavy is your bookmark? What does your business card feel like? Do they leave a positive impression? Are you sure?

As an author, when you ask a reader to select your book to spend many precious hours with, you are commanding a high price point. Your book may be only $6, or a $10 ebook, or it might even sell for $16 or more, but hours of someone’s time is far more valuable. Obviously if your book fails to enchant the reader they may feel cheated. But what else might be jarring about the experience of reading your book? What else might leave the reader thinking: “Really?”

How about an ugly bookmark? One that clearly says, “I spent as little as possible on this.” That bookmark might actually be a liability, leaving your customer with the feeling that you didn’t think that they were worth anything more than your cheapest effort.

Analogy:

When I bought my house last year I spent a few stressful hours in a title company conference room signing a massive stack of paperwork. For the privilege of doing so, plus the title company’s legwork to ensure that the title to the house was clear (very important), the title company charged a significant 4-digit figure, their regular price point.

At the end of the session I was handed a vinyl envelope as a “gift” — swag, as it were. A takeaway. The envelope was emblazoned with the company’s logo and is the right size to house some paperwork. In it was a heavy, substantial feeling key chain — appropriate for a title company, yes? I instantly saw it as my spare key set chain. Back in the car with the vinyl on my lap I held the key chain in my hand, rolled its weight from one hand to the other as I nervously contemplated the huge purchase I had just made. I then reached into the vinyl envelope and pulled out a couple of unimpressive one-color notepads and an incredibly cheap pen — one of those pens, the ones you never choose.

I sat there holding the pen thinking, “Really?” I expect a cheap pen when I walk out of a Home Depot, or the cash-strapped library. But at the title company’s price point (especially for as little work as I felt that they did), the pen felt wrong. The effort of the key chain was overshadowed by the obvious cheapness of the pens — the company would have been better off leaving the pen out of the mix entirely. And as a brand player, I now associated “cheap” with the that company.

One supposes if I had pulled out the pens before the key chain perhaps the key chain would have made up for the pens, but do you really want to have to make up for anything?

Segue to:

When we recently printed some bookmarks for a client (they are so pretty!) the printer accidentally grabbed the wrong paper and printed the whole stack of them on something far thinner than I had specified. The bookmarks looked beautiful, the color was so vibrant, the cover beautifully displayed, but the piece felt cheap.

They were reprinted.

Go for nice design and substantial paper for your bookmarks and business cards. It matters.

Posted by Emily Cotler •• Filed in Booksigning Tips, Understanding Audience •• Comments (0)

Typing vs. Typography

by Emily Cotler
July 16, 2010 – 12:22 pm

Sometimes spending an extra half hour to an hour to get minute details right is the difference between a design studio and a really good design studio with experienced visual designers.

Look at a bunch of websites… look closely at the space to the sides of the images. Does the content goes too close to a cover graphic? Look at the space between the letters in the main titling. It should read beautifully.

In the site I have up on my screen (and no, I won’t link — I am not into bashing, but this is pretty ubiquitous around the web — I have recreated an example here) the I and the Z of “Elizabeth” are smushed too close together. I am willing to bet that this was not a conscious decision on the part of the designer, it’s just that her name was merely typed out (and yes, colorized with a drop shadow applied). This is not design. This is typing out a name and sifting through various options to make it pretty.

In the top example here, we simply typed out ELIZABETH and OLIVIA in a super fancy font, Aquiline. This is an exaggerated example as this font’s autokerning is way off, but it illustrates the issue well. The top version is merely typed out. The bottom version allocated a bit of designer time to eyeball the space between the letters and make adjustments. And also to drop the baseline of the initial cap on Elizabeth. Doesn’t the O in OLIVIA want to come down, too? These details are all in the name of seamless design.

On the complete other side of the spectrum, with Garamond (the Roman example), a near perfect font out of the box, simply typed out is still not smooth and even (though pretty close!). We adjusted the space between the Z and the A to tighten it, and the O and the L — due to the shape of the letters those spacings need attention. And then, to illustrate where we would take it a step further, we left the gap between the A and the B alone so you can see how that feels bigger now with the Z and the A tightened — we would tighten that, too.

The point is that a good designer will notice and kern text. You might not see the gaps if you are DIY. Or if you are hiring on the cheap, the cheap designer might not have the experience to see it, or she might not have the time in her budget for additional typographical attention, even though it just doesn’t take much extra time. It’s just something to think about, because it’s a little jarring. Even if the rest of the site is okay, it’s important to note that good design is never jarring. Because while the little detail might not be noticed, per se, the feeling of not moving smoothly over the site is, and this feeling is cumulative. Those minor, seemingly jarring experiences add up. You might not be able as a viewer to put your finger on it while you are viewing a site, but it just feels unprofessional.

And that is definitely not the feeling you want to project.

Posted by Emily Cotler •• Filed in Web Aesthetics, Web Design •• Comments (0)

Substance With Style vs. Form Over Function

by Emily Cotler
July 8, 2010 – 1:18 pm

We’ve all seen this author website: You plug in the URL, excuse the loading time (usually just a second or two), and up comes a high-concept, Flash-built homepage. Maybe the author’s name is animated or the navigation dances when rolled over. Or perhaps a little less cartoonish, the homepage is high design, featuring just a cover, author name, and navigation—big, bold graphics with very little, if any, text—in short, an entry page. No examples accompany here; we’re not looking to bash the competition, just discuss a philosophy.

gratuitous-flashIf you are visiting this site for the first time, you might be impressed, even seduced, by the animation, or how it fills the browser window like a big, beautiful postcard.  But over subsequent visits, seeking information about the next book or an author event can become annoying in a “flash.”

As attractive as these Flash-based, high-concept websites might seem at first, we regularly counsel our clients against them. Consider that you’re trying to establish an enduring relationship with your readers, and your homepage needs to function as both a first introduction and an on-going and compelling welcome.

Here’s the problem: If your visitors become bored with the homepage that doesn’t change, or if they become irritated with a gateway/splash page that needs to be skipped over every time, what will bring them back? If confronted with a home page devoid of news and book info, what propels visitors onward?

bells-whistlesAnother factor to consider is that Flash is not good for search engine optimization, nor is it supported by sexy and fun mobile devices like the iPad. Limiting searchability and accessibility in favor of flourishes here will not support your ROI.

Bottom line, your website is a communication tool, not solely a high-concept art piece. Certainly, your web presence should convey a pleasing aesthetic, but rather than sacrifice your business goals in favor of stylish bells and whistles, we strive to build sites that offer substance with style and function beautifully formed.

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

Home ·· Profile ·· Services ·· Web Portfolio ·· Print Portfolio ·· Web Redesign ·· WaxBlog ·· Contact ·· Site ·· Client Login

© 2008-2010 Waxcreative Design, Inc.