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

Server cognizance

by Emily Cotler
August 25, 2008 – 7:11 am

Server maintenanceOn Valentine’s Day our server went down.

You might think, one ought to be smooching one’s honey on Valentine’s Day, not tooling on the computer. But we host a significant number of romance novelists. And whether it’s fair or true to associate Valentine’s Day with romance or if that’s just a hyped up Hallmark manufacture, the fact remains that romance novelists by and large update their sites for Valentine’s Day and run various promotions. So, for our server to go down precisely then was an ulcer-worthy disaster.

But this post isn’t about ironic timing. It’s about the fact that servers are actually hardware: machines with fans and plugs and circuits and components that don’t do well in floods or massive power outages or someone’s failure to dust. We tend to consider the internet to be this amorphous, yet dependable “out there”, often forgetting that it is comprised of machines with moveable parts and people monitoring said parts… People who hopefully speak the same language as you.

So imagine for a moment that on the day you advertise a big promotion on your site, with media tie-in and audience expectation, there is an electrical storm in the city where your server is. Your site goes down. What do you do? What can you do?

I read somewhere that Martha Stewart has a server in her basement. I once mentioned that to Abi, and without missing a beat she said, “No way are we sticking the Wax server in my basement.” What she was really saying was: “No way am I going to be the only person in charge of our server.” What did I want to do, make her a walking basket case?

Caring for a server must be a really nerve-wracking job. The only time anyone notices you is when something goes wrong. Our server is three thousand miles away. Sometimes that gives me hives. But it is monitored 24/7 by people who do nothing but servers, and that is some comfort. We talk to them often. Even when nothing is broken.

Where is your server? Do you know?

Posted by Emily Cotler •• Filed in Working on the web •• Comments (8)

How old is your browser?

by Emily Cotler
August 14, 2008 – 5:23 pm

I found myself at my printer’s this morning waiting for a press check. If you have ever done a press check you know it is both incredibly worth while and a sometimes frustrating waste of time. You need to be there to make sure the job is printing the way you want. It’s your last chance to make adjustments. “Can I go a little deeper on the magenta?” I asked. “To warm up her face?” Sure, but I have to wait a bit while they do that.

That waiting kills me. And I knew I would have it, so I brought something I was supposed to read on my thumbdrive. But the only available-to-me mac in the shop was the dinosaur on OS9 and my thumbdrive was incompatible. I know, all your jaws dropped, but if you think about it, it makes sense for them to have a workstation on OS9 if even only one of their long time clients is still sending them legacy files. So instead of work, I thought I would check our blog and see if I could do some blog hopping and commenting.

Our home page, on I.E. 5.0 for the mac. Yikes!

Our home page, on I.E. 5.0 for the mac. Yikes!

But this is what I found when I went to our site! This is what our site looks like on an old version of Internet Explorer. Yikes. And the choose your mood feature didn’t work.

Our designers upgrade their browsers immediately. (I always stay one step behind them so we can test on both versions in the studio.) If you don’t upgrade your browsers you will eventually start having a lot of problems, especially as all new sites are launching in CSS and so many sites are converting their old design to CSS or at least a hybrid. And at first you won’t even know you are having problems. Things will load slower and with gaps. You may not know… until it looks like this.

To be fair, this is an egregious example. This is a browser so old I can’t imagine that anyone is still on it. I couldn’t even access my webmail on it. But sometimes with examples you have to be hyperbolic.

Staying updated is important. As a rule I never jump in on the first upgrade of any system software. I let the gotta-have-it-first-bunch work their way through the bugs. I prefer to wait a few months until whatever needs to be patched is patched. Plus, with system upgrades, invariably some of my essential software chokes and suddenly half my fonts go missing or my accounting software freezes — things I have to stop everything to deal with.

And stopping everything to deal with crashes makes me really, really cranky.

So for some things I say, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. My studio is still on OSX 10.4. I know, I know. 10.5 is the coolest and Oh, the features! But our essential time tracking software would require an upgrade and I hate the new version. LOATHE it. Every time they upgrade it it gets worse for us. I still miss the version that ran on system 9.

So we are waiters. But not with browsers. Never with browsers. Except for me (see above).

Anyone else wait to upgrade? Or do you jump right in?

Posted by Emily Cotler •• Filed in Web Aesthetics, Web Design •• Comments (11)

Quinn wins! Extra kudos for the sticker…

by Emily Cotler
August 8, 2008 – 4:04 pm

New York Times bestselling author Julia Quinn won her second-in-a-row RITA award last Saturday night. She had just finished her acceptance speech when she jumped back to the mic and said, “Oh, and big thanks to my sister for saving my dress with an Autographed by the Author sticker.”

Julia Quinn with her RITA in her MacGyvered-with-stickers dress. Editor Lyssa Keusch in background left.

Julia Quinn with her RITA in her MacGyvered-with-stickers dress. Morrow/Avon Editor Lyssa Keusch in background left (in the pretty mint-colored sweater). Photo: Morgan Doremus

Said sister is me.

Here’s what happened: it was a few minutes before she was set to meet her editor (the fabulous Lyssa Keusch) for dinner. JQ was in a lovely dress that fit perfectly, provided (we discovered at the last minute) she didn’t move in one particular direction. Make that move and the snap (which was weak, we discovered at the last minute) unsnapped and part of the dress flapped. It wasn’t a wardrobe malfunction of the indecent sort, but clearly some adhesive was required.

The winning book with the winning sticker.

The winning book with the winning sticker. Photo: Deborah Sherman

I grabbed a roll of Autographed by the Author stickers, appropriated two for the cause, and stuck a couple more in her purse to prevent later-in-the-evening emergencies.

So note one more good use for these must-have stickers: they double nicely as in-a-pinch fashion tape, and you are always assured of a makeshift wardrobe repair for your author event, whether it be black tie with awesome shoes and a gold statuette, or jeans at a neighborhood signing.

Every author should always have these stickers on hand.

QED.

Posted by Emily Cotler •• Filed in Booksigning Tips, Events, The Book Business •• Comments (3)

The RWA Conference - My first time (Part One)

by Abi Bowling
August 5, 2008 – 1:43 pm

Last week Emily and I were at the annual Romance Writers of America Conference national conference — this year in San Francisco. As Emily mentioned in her pre-Conference post, our conference days were to be filled to the brim with client meetings. And filled they were.

Emily meeting with Candice Hern

It was very exciting for me to meet — finally — face-to-face with many of our clients. Some I had met previously, but none — with one exception — have I really had a chance to have an extended conversation in person (but oh! there have been many a phone call and email conversation). Emily and I could not have scheduled anything more into our days, but I sure wish we could have had more time with our clients.

One of the reasons I love working at Wax is the connection we have with our clients. We are not just a “here’s-your-pretty-site-now see-ya-later” kind of design firm. We maintain a close relationship with our clients and closely monitor their sites to make sure they stay current and relevant. There are clients who do not want to dip more than a toe into the world of technology, so we swim in full force for them. Then there are clients who are surfing mavens and can blog circles around the rest of us. I adore ALL of these clients, but it gives me a chance to flex such a variety of tech muscles, from providing the most basic of technical help, to geeking out about new internet technologies.

So how could I, after a day full of meeting after meeting and scheduled events that only energized me, go up to my room and just sit there? I could not! So I hung out downstairs in the wireless area thinking I would get work done. Heh! As if! My first night at the hotel I ended up hanging out with some pretty awesome authors, and the inimitable Kim Castillo of Author’s Best Friend (who snapped the picture below).

Look at these wonderful authors (and me)!

Look at these wonderful authors (and me)!

Who are these talented women? I’ll tell ya: Laura Lee Guhrke, Kathryn Smith, Candice Hern, me, and Elizabeth Boyle (sorry Elizbo, none of the shots had you with open eyes!)).

Keira taking a picture of Emily taking a picture of Keira

The rest of my “free” time was filled with meeting fantastic authors and other conference attendees (including Morgan Doremus, - freelance video producer for Romantic Times online, “SB Sarah“, Keira Soleore, and others).

I walked around the Literacy Signing with a video camera in the hopes that in my “copious free time” I will get a chance to cull together a little video of some of our clients signing away. Stay tuned for that video in Part Two of my RWA National post, coming, um, soon…

Emily and Leah Vale at the Literacy Signing

A quick P.S. — As I am booked up with post-meetings tasks to do, my video may not make it to this screen for a little bit. In the meantime, please check out the fabulous posts about RWA written by some of our equally fabulous clients: Jane Porter wrote a quick note with links to photos; Elizabeth Boyle talked about how fun the conference was for her; Pam Rosenthal blogged about a workshop she moderated; Susanna Carr met with her twin’s favorite author; Hope Tarr gave a good recap of her conference activities; and this post, written by my Dad, who came to the Literacy Signing so he could see his three daughters all wearing dresses at the same time!

Posted by Abi Bowling •• Filed in Events •• Comments (6)

The Conference, a perspective

by Emily Cotler
July 28, 2008 – 10:12 am

I tried to describe The Conference to someone the other day. The size (over 2000 attendees), the handful of mini-conferences attached, several awards ceremonies, fancy dinners, and a massive booksigning. Booksellers, librarians, editors, publishers, agents, publicists, web designers and more — it’s a networking extravaganza. In an industry where an overwhelming percentage of the players work in a solitary home-office environment and communicate almost exclusively over email and through blogs, the face-to-face component is huge.

1996 was my first RWA National Conference. I was up for a Golden Heart in long historical (I didn’t win). The conference was in Dallas and I had enough time between workshops to field trip to The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza. This was before almost any authors had websites, and I hadn’t yet joined a local RWA group. I knew very few other attendees.

A finalist again for the GH with my second manuscript (I didn’t win again), I went back to conference in 1998. I knew many more people; I had joined my local RWA group and I was much more active (for the time) on email with other authors. Nevertheless, I still had plenty of time during the conference to catch rays by the pool.

1999 was the last conference I missed. By 2000 I had shelved fiction writing for technical writing and designing websites, and I even gave a workshop on the topic. By 2002 (Denver) my conference days were filled with client meetings. It was my once-a-year chance to reconnect face-to-face with “my” authors and find out about their new exciting projects and brainstorm together. I could share en masse, albeit individually, new strategies I had developed to self-promote and keep up with the rapidly evolving web. Together we would plan their year. Except for 2003 in New York City where I scheduled additional days on either side to do some museuming, I have barely left the hotels in the years since then.

And I look forward to doing it again this year — meeting with over two dozen authors, this year for the first time with Abi alongside. I look forward to seeing friends, and meeting people in person whom I only know over email. Busy as all get out or with time to sightsee, I love the reconnect.

See you all in San Francisco!

Posted by Emily Cotler •• Filed in Events •• Comments (4)

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