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Archive for the '50 Ways Your Website is Not Helping You Sell More Books' Category

35. Animated overlays

Sunday, July 8th, 2007

35. Stuff… falling from the sky… can’t read text… head is hurting… must run away….

Have you seen a site like this? One that thinks it is cool that it is snowing or cats and dogs are raining? The falling objects are distracting to your reader, and the movement can give a person a headache. In extreme cases, flashing animation can even trigger migraines or seizures in some viewers. Animate responsibly!

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34. Moving targets

Monday, April 2nd, 2007

34. I’m interested in your new release, but you’ve put the title and release date in this scrolling marquee that sort of stutters across my screen… then stops… then picks up again. All I get to see is the last word of the title!

Essential information shouldn’t be a moving target! Don’t make your readers chase it down; place it front and center in plain, unmoving, easy-to-read type.

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33. Shifting landscape

Monday, March 26th, 2007

33. “Whoa. A second ago I was looking at this starscape, and now I’m on a notebook-looking page. Am I still on the same site?”

Playing with different designs is fun, but a professional site should look consistent throughout all the pages.

That’s not to say each page look exactly the same. For example, we admire Cory Doctorow’s site, which uses a consistent layout with varying color schemes that match each of his book covers. Some authors take it too far, though, by changing the layout to such an extent that each book appears to have its own distinct site. Readers need to know that they haven’t accidentally wandered into some unknown web destination, and they’re still on the right site. Keep the look consistent, with subtle shifts in color or images to distinguish parts of the site devoted to different books.

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32. mystery meat navigation

Monday, March 19th, 2007

32. There’s nothing here but a bunch of images…?

Links that don’t appear until the visitor rolls over something are known as mystery meat navigation and they’re about as appealing as the public school lunch entree. They hide the site’s content from the visitor and turn browsing into a game of Memory: “What was that link I saw over there…?” Links’ labels should be visible at all times.

Yes, this does mean that drop-down menus are also — generally! — a bad idea.

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31. Follow the bouncing ball

Monday, March 12th, 2007

31. Clicking your menu options is like following the bouncing ball. I can’t keep up!

There’s a place for games on the web. Your navigation menu isn’t one of them! Don’t make your visitors chase links.

If you’re using drop-down menus, test them in lots of browsers on different operating systems to make sure they aren’t shifting around in strange ways.

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30. Clicky clicky

Monday, March 5th, 2007

30. I’m clicking the book cover images, but I’m not going anywhere and I can’t find any other links on this page. I’m stuck!

Always link your book covers, either to your own page about the book or to the booksellers of your choice.

Every page of your site should link somewhere else, even if it’s just back to the home page.

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29. Guessing games

Monday, February 26th, 2007

29. Your home page is blank except for phrases like “step beyond,” “into the mists,” and “above the clouds.” I don’t have time to play guessing games…

Your website is not the place to play hard to get. You should be very clear about who you are, what you do, and what people can find on this site. Lnks to other areas of the site should be clearly labeled and should not require context not given on the site — for example, if you use menu labels that only readers of your books can decipher, new readers will be lost.

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28. Mouse droppings

Monday, February 19th, 2007

28. I’m too distracted by the text following my mouse cursor to look at your home page…

Mouse droppings don’t belong in your home or on your home page. Exterminate them.

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27. Unpublished

Monday, February 12th, 2007

27. Your Quest of the Protagonist series sounds fabulous! But, wait… I can’t find them anywhere… And no one has heard of them. I look on your website again… only to find in some small print on a random page that you have yet to sell this series to a publisher.

If you aren’t published, be up front about it. It is okay to be an aspiring author!

Posting excerpts, especially long ones, might make your life difficult once a publisher becomes interested. Stick with a description of the project instead.

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26. Who are you?

Monday, February 5th, 2007

26. The only place your name is on the site is the cover of your book. Where am I again?

Make sure that your name is provided in text (not just an image!) on your site. It should be in the page title and the copyright notice. Make sure it’s spelled correctly in both places.

...no, really; we’ve seen NYT bestsellers whose names were misspelled in their page titles.

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