Thanks to jennreese, I have a new website. It's at sarah-prineas.comIf you've got a minute, would you mind looking it over and telling me what you think
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I'm dealing with the same questions. I set one up (here) but I'm not sure what to do with it. In addition I'm waffling a bit between my well-established and more customizable Blogger blog and my easier-to-use LJ. I need to figure out something before the book buzz starts building.
I was going to say, before you deleted your post: Your new icon kills me.
I like your site! Nice and clean. And a good use: posting out-of-print fiction.
Did you make the site yourself? What software did you use? Was it easy to use, or did you have to futz with it?
I'm sorta hoping that HC will make a site for the books. I don't know what they usually do, but I do know that some of their authors have gorgeous sites linked from the HC site, and the pages were evidently made by HC. We'll see.
I didn't make it myself; a friend who wishes to remain anonymous did. When I do updates (which isn't often) I pretty much just do the real basic HTML editing that's available on my school site (which is where it's hosted at the moment). I do a lot of cutting and pasting to keep the format consistent.
Yeah, that's a good point about the publisher maybe doing a book site--or at least paying for one. I should ask about that.
Visually clean, readable, not too cluttered, and I like the sidebar navigation--it's responsive when you roll over, and it's text-based. This makes the Web Standards geek in me very happy. But please, please don't center all of your text--it makes it hard to read, and looks unprofessional. Left-justify is generally the best option. Courier/monospace fonts are very readable, but bolding everything is also a web-design no-no; if everything is bold, then nothing is, and bolding actually decreases readability. On the non-main pages, it'd be nice to keep the full menu to the side; that way people aren't forced to return to the home page every time they want to see a new page. it may be my monitor, but the short stories page has incredily small text; this is especially odd because the Home and About pages have unusually large (though not garishly so) text. Organization on the short stories page would also be nice; if you have PHP/MySQL on your new hosting site, I could totally whip up a "
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Thanks for the comments! One thing about Safari that I don't much like, or maybe it's the Mac, is that sites come up with VERY small font, and I'm constantly going control/+ to enlarge it (also because my glasses prescription is out of date). So the font size and bold (except on the stories page, obv) is an artifact of that. But I will go change.
On thing I like lots about the google page is, it's really easy to change and update, because it's already on line. But I have a feeling it's a short-term thing, that a page with any really interesting visuals and/or content is going to be a little more complicated than google site builder can accomodate.
Yep! I now have nine free critique points on OWW. So now I have to whip somethign else into HTML-y shape so I can post it up.
I've never really had much of a problem with Safari, really, but I prefer a fairly small font size anyway. How are you defining the fonts? CSS, tags...? (I guess I could just go look at the source code.) (...except that the CSS here gives me beanbirds. are they really loading every style for every page? Ack!) ...looks like you have some HTML font tags in there, which are deprecated. (And the b tags, too.) Which are probably what's messing things up. CSS fonts defined in ems don't generally have so many problems
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Hee! Thanks, Vera! I made the page, actually, using the google page creator and a pre-set format and colors. It only took a couple of hours. Jenn set up the forwarding and got the domain, so it goes from google to sarah-prineas.com.
I like it; nice and clean. My only problem is the text that is centered, which someone else mentioned already. I'd left justify it. May I ask why you don't want to use your photo? It helps people to remember you. But I'm sure you have a reason.
I also would have made the blog link to directly to my blog in a different window, which I did on my own page:
So that people don't have to click twice. I wish I could make mine more dynamic, too; all I can do, now, is update my column archive and update my blog. If you have any brilliant ideas, let me know!
Oh, I see, having the blog go right to the blog itself, not the user info. Got it. Will make that change. Thanks!
Really, centering text is such a no-no? The lines just break so much more nicely when it's centered. But if it's a bad thing, I'll change it.
If I have any brilliant ideas, they'll be coming from someone else, that's for sure! As draegonhawke up there knows, I'm in charge of the website at work, and I'm completely hopeless at it (which my 'boss' has finally realized, after me telling him for six months that I'm hopeless, so he's passing it on to someone else...
I find it much harder to read, centered, and I suspect I'm not the only one. Having to jump my eyes to a slightly different place on each line is really difficult, after a while. FWIW.
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Yours looks good, BTW!
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I like your site! Nice and clean. And a good use: posting out-of-print fiction.
Did you make the site yourself? What software did you use? Was it easy to use, or did you have to futz with it?
I'm sorta hoping that HC will make a site for the books. I don't know what they usually do, but I do know that some of their authors have gorgeous sites linked from the HC site, and the pages were evidently made by HC. We'll see.
Reply
I didn't make it myself; a friend who wishes to remain anonymous did. When I do updates (which isn't often) I pretty much just do the real basic HTML editing that's available on my school site (which is where it's hosted at the moment). I do a lot of cutting and pasting to keep the format consistent.
Yeah, that's a good point about the publisher maybe doing a book site--or at least paying for one. I should ask about that.
Reply
Visually clean, readable, not too cluttered, and I like the sidebar navigation--it's responsive when you roll over, and it's text-based. This makes the Web Standards geek in me very happy. But please, please don't center all of your text--it makes it hard to read, and looks unprofessional. Left-justify is generally the best option. Courier/monospace fonts are very readable, but bolding everything is also a web-design no-no; if everything is bold, then nothing is, and bolding actually decreases readability. On the non-main pages, it'd be nice to keep the full menu to the side; that way people aren't forced to return to the home page every time they want to see a new page. it may be my monitor, but the short stories page has incredily small text; this is especially odd because the Home and About pages have unusually large (though not garishly so) text. Organization on the short stories page would also be nice; if you have PHP/MySQL on your new hosting site, I could totally whip up a " ( ... )
Reply
Thanks for the comments! One thing about Safari that I don't much like, or maybe it's the Mac, is that sites come up with VERY small font, and I'm constantly going control/+ to enlarge it (also because my glasses prescription is out of date). So the font size and bold (except on the stories page, obv) is an artifact of that. But I will go change.
On thing I like lots about the google page is, it's really easy to change and update, because it's already on line. But I have a feeling it's a short-term thing, that a page with any really interesting visuals and/or content is going to be a little more complicated than google site builder can accomodate.
Reply
I've never really had much of a problem with Safari, really, but I prefer a fairly small font size anyway. How are you defining the fonts? CSS, tags...? (I guess I could just go look at the source code.) (...except that the CSS here gives me beanbirds. are they really loading every style for every page? Ack!) ...looks like you have some HTML font tags in there, which are deprecated. (And the b tags, too.) Which are probably what's messing things up. CSS fonts defined in ems don't generally have so many problems ( ... )
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(most of what you just said, I have no idea what you're talking about...!)
Wikis, though! So what's their purpose, on a website? I can see, maybe, worldbuilding? Or maybe keeping track of a magic system?
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Explosions!
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I also would have made the blog link to directly to my blog in a different window, which I did on my own page:
http://www.haddayr.com
So that people don't have to click twice. I wish I could make mine more dynamic, too; all I can do, now, is update my column archive and update my blog. If you have any brilliant ideas, let me know!
Reply
Really, centering text is such a no-no? The lines just break so much more nicely when it's centered. But if it's a bad thing, I'll change it.
If I have any brilliant ideas, they'll be coming from someone else, that's for sure! As draegonhawke up there knows, I'm in charge of the website at work, and I'm completely hopeless at it (which my 'boss' has finally realized, after me telling him for six months that I'm hopeless, so he's passing it on to someone else...
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