Thursday 20 July 2017

One Website, Finally (Mostly) Finished

I feel like I've been working on my website since approximately the day, more than a decade ago,
when I first started selling fiction.  Back then (and probably today) it was one of those pieces of advice always given out to writers who were just starting out: you've got to have a website or no-one will ever take you seriously!  This turned out to be largely nonsense, of course*, and for a long time, Writing on the Moon - as I called my site for no discernible reason that I can remember - was a horrid, rotting albatross corpse around my neck, as I struggled with shambolic design software to try and produce something that didn't utterly embarrass me.

Things got better when I moved my business from Streamline - may their name live in infamy until the last star burns out in the sky! - to Wix, who are actually pretty great, despite some occasional ups and downs.  Since then I'd like to think that the site's been basically okay.  But I was still hamstrung by some older elements that I couldn't find the time or the energy to redesign, and at the end of the day my graphic design skills aren't exactly the greatest.

Short story long, I've finally managed to get around to the last bits of overhauling.  That mostly means I've fixed the banner to a degree that I'm actually happy with, but there's been a lot of less visible tweaking under the hood too.  And really, there's a fair bit of content up there, if I do so say myself: details on all of my books and short stories, links to anything remotely relevant that can be linked to, samples for all three Easie Damasco books and Level One, a trailer for Giant Thief, a free (albeit ancient!) story and details of every other story that can be read or listened to for free, not to mention a bio that tells you basically nothing except an obvious lie that I'm hoping no-one will pick up on.

Nevertheless, I won't kid myself that it's anywhere near perfect.  And a part of the reason for this post is to ask: What am I missing?  What isn't working?  Should I delete the whole thing and just post kitten pictures?  (I'm not doing that.)  If you have a minute then maybe take a look, and if you have another minute I'd love to hear your thoughts: you can find the site here.**




* After all, it's not like anyone takes me seriously with a website!
** Of course, it's perfectly possible you're reading this on my website, in which case this post must be really confusing!

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