Tuesday, July 26, 2005

Website Mania

Addendum to yesterday's post. Regency House Party was produced by the same people who did Manor House, 1900's House, and 1940's House in the UK, and Frontier House and Colonial House in the US. They've just finished casting for a new show, Texas Ranch House. I'm waiting for them to come up with Tenement House! What would be lovely is if they could do a show in Newport to show what it was like during the Gilded Age, that would be awesome.

I've been trolling the web looking at author websites, both published and unpublished to get an idea of what I want my website to look like. Yes, I'm thinking of putting up a website, folks.

Why put up a website when I'm unpublished? Well, because I intend to be published, and why not use the web as a way of promoting my work? Put up original stories, link the site to the blog I created for my character Julia in Nearly Famous.

It's been an interesting experience looking at the various websites. There are some authors who really need to do an overhaul on their websites, because (in my opinion) they're horrible and outdated. Alot of websites I've looked at are created by Waxcreative which is the company run by Julia Quinn's sister. Now, I don't have the money right now for a Waxcreative site although they are lovely. An author friend of mine told me that she used up her entire advance for her first novel on her website. I don't have that kind of cash.

Some sites are incredible, with flash, and mini-movies. Other's are more simple. Suzanne Brockmann and Nora Roberts have sites that are very simple for authors who are selling millions of books. I think Suzanne created her own site. Wow, but when you sell as many books as these ladies, you probably don't need a flashy website.

I've thought of doing the website myself, with Microsoft Front page, buying a simple template, but considering how difficult I found it to load the new template for my blog, I think I'll pass!

I want something that reflects what I write, multicultural contemporary urban comedies aka chick lit, and paranormal romantic comedies. I want something modern yet retro to complement the design of my blog. I love art deco, and the look of the forties and the fifties, yet at the same time, I'm a modern woman. Confusing no?

Anyway, I've narrowed it down to two companies, Moxie designs and Ciao Bella and I've emailed them for an estimate. In the meantime, I plan on registering my domain names.

Question of the day: to website or not to website. What's your opinion?

6 comments:

Kelly (Lynn) Parra said...

To website. =) I created mine before I even started querying agents. One of my CPs told me it was never too soon, getting your name out there was important. I'm an unprofessional, (did some illustration on the side, never hired by a company,) illustrator. The coding was hard to learn, and I still don't know javascript, but just the basics, so I did hire someone to do a template, and then eventually made it my own. Good luck!

Bearette said...

Get a website by all means, but please make the font dark enough for people to read :)

Elizabeth Kerri Mahon said...

Bearette, I'll work on making the font darker!

Pam Jarnagin said...

To make the font darker, go into the template and change it in the style sheet where the code is as follows:

#main
{
position:static;
left:0px;
width:270px;
margin-top:20px;
margin-left:20px;
margin-bottom:10px;
padding-left:0px;
font-family:"Courier New", Courier, mono;
color:#666633;
font-size:11px;
text-align:justify;
top:0px;
z-index:4;
}

The part you want to change is the color. If you wanted to change it to black, for instance, you would change it to:

color:#000000;

I know last week was frustrating for you, but I'm happy to help with any questions or problems you're having with the template.

Pam Jarnagin
Aspixiated

Elizabeth Kerri Mahon said...

Thanks Pam for the tip. Let me know if you ever decide to do website design!

Gabrielle said...

Website, of course. I've had mine for 4 years and gained a lot through it. People contacting me, etc. Of course, 1 of those who contacted me turned out to be a complete loser, whom I'm still trying to shake off but apart from that. it's been all good! (Don't look at it now, though--I'm in the middle of getting a new design and it's a mess.)