Friday, September 09, 2016

Epic To-Dos

I'm very close to the end of this round of editing so I can send the book to the copyeditor today. And then I will tackle the epic to-do list of both business and home tasks. I'll also start work on the next Rebel Mechanics book. I've already got one reference on hold at the library.

One of the to-do tasks is to dig into all that branding work so I can hire a web designer and get a new web site made that will incorporate my blog. The hope then is that when I use social media to drive traffic to my blog, it will be driving traffic to my web site. There are some other things going on that may allow me to get blog pointers spread by others, and I want to have the new thing set up before I set that up so I don't have to re-do links.

As part of the research that goes into that, I have more questions for my readers. First, are there any author web sites you really like, either for looks or content? And second, which authors would you consider to be in the same category as me? Not necessarily by genre, but books that you read to get a similar feeling or experience to mine. Or, if you're recommending my books to others, what other authors might you mention -- "try this, if you like this author, you may like Shanna Swendson"?

Now, off to edit, and then respond to e-mails, develop writing conference speaking proposals, revise a video script, practice choir music, go through the exercises in a branding book, practice the harp, trim the vines on the patio, clean the living room, clean the kitchen, etc., etc. ...

2 comments:

T. said...

I rather like Patricia Briggs’ home page, because it shows both her latest blog post and news about her books (her recently published books and the next books coming up), without me having to scroll down a lot. I also like her books page. I like that all her books are collected on one page, that I don't have to try to navigate through an unfolding menu to reach the right series and book. I find it practical that the books are shown series by series, with some information about the series (genre and what it’s about). I also like that the book covers are shown in reading order (and that it are covers, not only text, since that's what I'm used to as someone who grew up with icons in Windows) and that she also adds the books she wants to write in the future, even if she doesn't have any information on it yet.
I guess that the most important thing, for me, is an up-to-date website, were it's easy to find the information I'm looking for. I like the looks of Tamora Pierce's new website well enough, for example, but I miss the information about future books (which I could easily find in a column on the left of her old website). Now I always have to check her Tumblr and Dreamwidth pages, too.
So I guess I rather like the idea of one website for everything, like you said you want.

(And sorry if this shows up twice or if you don't want them to show up, but to me it seems like my posts don't stick and I just wanted to answer one of your questions.)

T. said...

Sorry for bothering you and not being patient enough. I just saw that my original posts showed up on your other blog. My excuses.