Welcome to a new year (we’re a month into it already, oh-la-la!) … and a new opportunity to reach out to the world via the Internet! If you haven’t updated your website in a year or more, now is definitely the time. Old websites look like just that, and nobody is going to spend time on a site where one feels a need to brush the dust away. Having an updated site shows potential clients or customers that you care, that you’re there for them, and that you’re aware of web trends and changes.
If you don’t do anything else this year, try this resolution on for size: in 2009 I will make sure that my website has changing content.
Why is changing content important? It’s essential from a search engine optimization standpoint: the webcrawlers that spider the web and report back to the search engines love new content, and the more you provide new content, the more they’ll visit your site. Frequent visits nudge your rankings up. So it’s a good place to start—and it’s as easy as adding a blog and updating it regularly. Or start a column, a series of articles, updates in your area of expertise. Anything that is up to your standard and that can make your website a destination for spiders and people alike will work.
I’m once again celebrating the new year by bringing back my (updated!) advice piece: Website Design 101. In a time when we’re going back to the basics, these basics are very pertinent indeed:
Website Design 101
by Jeannette Cézanne
Compared to other forms of communication––magazines, books, films, broadcast media––a website is very limited. A website needs to have one function, and then be designed around that function. For example, if your website is meant to sell shoes, then you don’t also want to include photos from your last anniversary party, an article about your beekeeping hobby, or even an American flag to announce your political beliefs.
Long before any language, hosting company, or design is anticipated, you need to articulate the function––or goal––of your website. It might be any of the following:
* Business site: a place to sell your product and/or services
* Information site: a place to provide data, links, etc.
* Entertainment site: a place to have fun
Once you have your goal, keep it in mind every step of the way. Doing flash graphics might be fun, but does it meet your site’s goal? Does everything that you want to place on your site work toward the site’s goal?
If it doesn’t, don’t even think of putting it there!
Here are a few suggestions for you to bear in mind when thinking about your website design:
*Ease of Use: Find out what most people accessing your site are coming there for, and make that the easiest thing to do. Alternately, think about what you want them to do, and make that the easiest thing to do. Use a big, bright button to get them to work toward your goal.
*Speed: If you use a lot of graphics, your site will load slowly. If you use a lot of flash animation, your site will load slowly. If you think that people are so fascinated by what you have to say that they will wait patiently for the site to load, then go for it. Personally, I think that this isn’t a chance that you want to take.
*Colors: Use it for emphasis. Never use blue text, because readers will think it is a link. Do not play with colored text against a colored background. It might look good to you, but it may disappear for those with color blindness.
*Background: You will probably want to make yours white. Trust me on this one. Don’t use any other background color unless it’s absolutely necessary––there are too many variables out there you cannot control (different browser, different video hardware, etc.) that might make it look different than you want it to … and you’ll never know! If you are using graphics, and you probably are, using a white background will make your graphic designer’s job much easier, and the end product better. Navigating a site with a dark or black background may look chic, but it’s like driving a car at night. Visibility is reduced, and you won’t see the road signs as well.
*Consistency: A button should do the same thing on every page of your site. So should tabs, links, etc.
*Clarity: Don’t put too many different elements on the same page. It can be confusing to a visitor, and many will give up if they cannot immediately do what they want to do, or if they do not understand the layout of your site. If the appearance of your website is more important than the content, it’s a sure sign of a beginner at work.
*Complexity: Map out your site ahead of time. A site that’s difficult to navigate will be hard to maintain. Think about locating information easily. In general, the simpler it is, the better.
All of this information is important to bear in mind whether you are creating and maintaining your own website, or hiring a professional to do it for you.
So there it is. Remember all this advice, and decide now what kind of changing content will best suit your website. Remember that Customline Wordware stands ready to help you with all your website design, content, and search engine optimization needs. Contact us, and you’ll be … beyond the elements of style!
Posted in Uncategorized on January 30th, 2009
Since I wrote my post a couple of days ago, I’ve been pointed to some interesting articles and helpful resources on the subject, a couple of which I’d like to share with you here.
Yesterday’s New York Times carried this article, Self-Publishers Flourish as Writers Pay The Tab. (Misusing in the process several terms as author Motoko Rich refers to “self-publishers”—in fact, the article is referring to subsidy presses—and speaking of iUniverse as a “print-on-demand” company. One sees the writing on the wall: once the Times has misused a term, it’s hard to regain accuracy!)
An older article that appeared in Information Week in 1999 spoke to the hopes and plans surrounding the print-on-demand technology. In Barnes and Noble, IBM to Develop Electronic Books, analyst Tischelle George discusses another use of the technology: a kiosk in every bookshop that will in fact print a book immediately and on-demand so that every book on the planet is available, all the time. This is a truly breathtaking use of the technology that, sadly, has not come to pass; and now we’re stuck with the term referring to authors willing to pay to have their books (at best) enter into public discourse or (at worse) gather dust on Aunt Edna’s bookshelf.
This past weekend I was sitting in the green room of a theatre, waiting for a play I’d written to go onstage, and was reading to pass the time. One of the actors looked at me in surprise and asked, “What’s that?
“A Kindle,” I responded. He continued to look baffled, so I expanded: “It’s an ebook reader.”
The actor shook his head. “I have no idea,” he said, “what any of that means!”
Soon he will; soon just about everybody will, as electronic books are the literary technology most likely to survive hard economic times and downturns in reading rates. I’m probably a lone voice crying in the wilderness here, but I believe that the way we name and communicate about these various ways of making books available to the public matters.
Think about what you want to communicate, and how you want to communicate it, so that you too can be … beyond the lements of style!
Posted in Books, Doing the Right Thing, Publishers, Publishing, Usage, Words on January 28th, 2009
Every so often I need to go through explaining what is what in publishing, as a new crop of writers and would-be writers starts slinging terms around without thinking about what those terms actually mean.
So let’s look at some definitions:
1) POD: this stands for print-on-demand. It is not a kind of publishing, it’s a publishing technology. Subsidy presses, self-publishers, and traditional publishers alike all use POD technology. It’s used most extensively in the subsidy press arena, causing many to confuse the terms. Resist that temptation. It’s a printing technology that developed after the advent of digital printing, enabling the company or individual to print a copy of a book when it is ordered, as opposed to accumulating expensive inventory. As Wikipedia says: “Many traditional small presses have replaced their traditional printing equipment with POD equipment or contract their printing out to POD service providers. Many academic publishers, including university presses, use POD services to maintain a large backlist; some even use POD for all of their publications. Larger publishers may use POD in special circumstances, such as reprinting older titles that had been out of print or doing test marketing.”
2) Subsidy presses: they used to be called vanity presses; they take your money and in return publish your book for you. Anything can and is published (few require editing;some offer it at additional expense), meaning that the books published by subsidy presses vary wildly in quality. Leading subsidy presses include iUniverse, Authorhouse, Booksurge, XLibris, and Trafford. Contracts vary: some provide all necessary services for a set fee, others are more a la carte in their offerings; some copyright your book in their name, others allow the author to retain copyright.
3) Self-publishing: Here you set up your own publishing company, and contract with printers, distributors, editors, graphics and design folks, cover artists, marketing professionals, and so on, to perform the tasks associated with publishing. Many self-publishers only publish their own books; others go on to take on other authors and eventually may become small independent presses.
If we as writers can’t get our terms right, what can we expect of the rest of the world, those who (theoretically at least!) follow our lead. So don’t use these terms interchangeably: use them properly. And then you’ll be … beyond the elements of style!
Posted in Books, Publishers, Publishing, Usage, Words on January 27th, 2009
Along with most of the world, I spent a fair amount of time yesterday mesmerized by the inaugural ceremony in Washington, rejoicing in the fact that the United States has a new president and that a new day is dawning here.
And just as many people helped President Obama on his way to Washington, so too did many ideas, ideas he encountered through … books. His speeches are brilliant and, in many way, erudite. This is a man who has read much and often, and has pondered what he has read.
In a day when publishers are cutting back and even closing their doors, when bestsellers are often vacuous repetitions of the same message or story in different packaging, it’s worth our while to pause and ponder what we do read. Everyone is talking about format (ebooks! print on demand! whither are we drifting?) without considering content.
What’s on your to-be-read pile? Are there new ideas there? Books that will challenge your thinking and help you grow? Where are you going this year, and what books will take you there?
Why not add one to that pile now, just one, that will make you think, and even perhaps think differently about something? And then you’ll be … beyond the elements of style!
Posted in Books, Ideas, Reading, Words on January 21st, 2009
As the new year begins and people in publishing begin to take stock of the fallout from last month’s Black Wednesday, a few scenarios are beginning to emerge. There are, of course, the doomsayers who argue that publishing as we know it is over—and that, in fact, it may be over altogether, in any shape or form. Others press on.
A Salon article from the end of December posits one of the (unexpected) benefits of the crash: the reemergence of the small publisher.
At the Frankfurt Book Fair this year, Open Letter Books, a small press based at the University of Rochester, illustrated how a more nimble firm can benefit from the freeze. The publisher bid on the English translation of Mathias Enard’s novel, “Zone” — a single sentence that stretches for 500 pages. An influential translator had called the work the “book of the decade,” and Open Letter director Chad Post expected tight competition for the rights. But no one topped his offer, and he hopes to publish the translation in 2010.
“There’s not much to cut at smaller presses, so they are going to stay the same — they will have an identity coming into the recession, and they will be the same when they come out,” Post says. “It will open up opportunities for the smaller, more stable presses. The bigger houses like Knopf and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt are going through an identity shift. It will become very murky what kinds of books they produce.”
(for the full story, click here)
Years ago in this column I wrote that, in essence, the mills are closing. When the economy forced the closure of New England’s textile mills, there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth, and a lot of people—a whole lot of people—found themselves without work, without help, without hope. An entire industry had changed. Those who survived were those able to take their skill sets and refashion them for other opportunities.
Sound familiar?
The mills are closing—most of the big ones are having fire sales as we speak—and the production of literature is changing, too. We too need to refashion our skill sets as well as our expectations of how we will continue to read. Reading isn’t going away any more than the wearing of textiles has. You’ll still be buying (and, some of you, writing) books ten years from now. Will they be different? Probably. But isn’t the essence of literature—communicating ideas, enabling readers to fly away on a magic carpet of fantasy—more important than how it’s delivered?
Just trying to keep things in perspective, which keeps me … beyond the elements of style!
Posted in About Writing, Books, Creativity, Frustration, Getting Published, Ideas, Process Matters, Publishers, Publishing, Reading, The Writing Life, Words on January 6th, 2009
I have to admit, I’m filled with a great deal of hope as I write this column today. All yesterday and last night it snowed here on Cape Cod, but the new year came in brilliantly bright, and one’s spirits can’t help but rise along with the sun: it felt prophetic.
I also need to stay home today, as my volunteer job of staffing the hotline for Independence House for the holidays keeps me attached to my landline; but that’s not a bad thing, either: it forces introspection.
2008 was an important year for me and my company, Customline Wordware, as we moved to our permanent home in an old sea captain’s house on the tip of Cape Cod, Massachusetts. It’s also been an — what’s the word that I want here? — interesting year, as my teenaged stepson came to live with us; those of you with children will understand how adding a person to a household changes one’s life around altogether. Despite the poor economy, my company is managing to move ahead and even do well, so I have much for which I am grateful.
Still, the changing of years this time around does feel momentous. After spending the past eight years (as have many Americans) feeling disenfranchised, angry, and often even physically sick because of the actions of my government, I feel that I’m entering a time of hope, a time when I can be working toward something instead of always against something. No, I don’t believe that the new administration will wave a magic wand and make everything good again; but I do believe that there is hope that, if the people choose it, we can actually do some good: end the U.S. invasion/occupation of other sovereign nations, work toward equity in healthcare, education, housing, and opportunity, and feel that … well, yes, we can!
My wish for all of my readers is for a healthy, peaceful, and prosperous 2009 filled with the magic of hope. Thanks for being here with me … beyond the elements of style!
Posted in Words on January 1st, 2009
