Forum / What should a writer's website look like?

Mike Lynch
Mar 09, 04:56pm

Hi All. My website is getting a bit old from a design/technology perspective, so I'm thinking a refresh might be in order. I just want to create a cozy and easy-to-navigate (and maintain) little home for my stories, my paintings, and my bio. Nothing fancy -- short and sweet! However, I'm having a difficult time visualizing how I want it all to look.

My question to you is: What shold a writer's website look like? As a read, what are your expectations? What websites -- other than this one of course ;) -- do you like? I'm specifically interested in writer's websites, but other sites are cool to.

Thanks!
Mike

Mike Lynch
Mar 09, 04:59pm

Sorry -- forgot to spell check first. Ugh! Second para should read:

My question to you is: what should a writer's website look like? As a reader, what are your expectations? What websites -- other than this one of course ;) -- do you like? I'm specifically interested in writer's websites, but other sites are cool too.

W.F. Lantry
Mar 09, 08:15pm

Mine's not all that gorgeous, but you're welcome to steal any ideas you want: http://wflantry.com

One word of advice: make sure you have a good content management system. Mine runs on a variation of wordpress...

Thanks,

Bill

Mike Lynch
Mar 09, 08:26pm

I like your site Bill -- nice and clean. I think I landed there the other day after checking out one of your stories (I think it was Chrome). I've worked with WordPress a bit, and I like it. A CMS is definitely a must. I created my current site in Dreamweaver, and updating that puppy can be a total DRAG. I'm leaning toward either WordPress or a CMS called Drupal -- a co-worker of mine sings its praises so regularly you'd think he had a stake in the company. Heh. Thanks!

W.F. Lantry
Mar 09, 09:19pm

Drupal is cool, and so is Joomla. http://demo.joomla.org/

Likely all three are available free from your hosting provider. Best advice? Try all three before picking one.

I went with wordpress because it's so widely distributed I wouldn't have to worry about it going away. It *does* take a little extra knowledge to turn a blog program into a website program: the differences are subtle but real. But the way I've got it set up, it's just a cut and paste from word, or a direct edit into the web browser. There are thousands of themes out there, and tons of add-ons.

You'll also need an image editor. GIMP does everything photoshop does, and it's free... ;)

Thanks,

Bill

Pamela J. Parker
Mar 10, 02:30am

I've found wordpress pretty easy to manage for a non-techy person.

James Lloyd Davis
Mar 10, 04:24pm

This is helpful. I've been told that I should have a web site, always put off doing so because people always told me it smacks of tacky self-promotion, something that never quite rang true with me ... but there it is. Writing is exposure, often on levels that are more intimate than any other form of human comunication, so if the idea is simply to be read, self promotion is a means to that end.

Having said that, beyond Fictionaut, the very idea of 'social networking' makes me uncomfortable. People ask me if I'm on Facebook, but I'm not because, well, I'm not all that enthusiastic about the idea of virtual 'friends.'

I've decided to go ahead and do a web site, though, so I hope that more people are willing to share what they know here. I thank you in advance.

Mike Lynch
Mar 11, 06:21pm

I understand where you're coming from with Facebook -- I'm not too comfortable with it either. Twitter, on the other hand, is a lot of fun! But I try not to follow more than 50 feeds or so. Anything more than that, and I start frothing at the mouth. ;)

Creating a website doesn't have to be straight-up self promotion -- it just offers you a different sort of sensation than publishing via books or zines. When I see my words in print I feel a huge sense of accomplishment, but posting stuff on my website feels less serious/adult and more...fringe? Back in ‘95 (I was about 15), the internet blew me away because it seemed like this huge chaotic mess full of super cool lunatics who filled their weird, nerdy, and creative websites with whatever they damn well pleased (hand turkey drawings, pizza photographs, poorly drawn cartoons -- good times!). Chaos! I thought it was ridiculously cool. Since then I’ve always had a website. It’s like a threadbare pair of shoes that I can't bear to part with. Heh!

I'm going to mess w/ WordPress and Drupal on Sunday. Looks like my hosting provider will install them for free. Nice!

Mike Lynch
Apr 12, 12:56pm

Bill/Pamela:

I took your advice and built my website using WordPress. After spending a few days putzing around with the interface, I'm very happy with the results. Here's the final product: www.mikealynch.com.

Thanks a ton!

Mike

Marcus Speh
Apr 12, 03:49pm

drupal, in my view, requires a lot of tweaking if you're a writer and don't want to meddle with IT too much - it's the best CMS out there though.

wordpress offers plenty of flexibility (when self-hosted, i.e. no "wordpress.com" address but your own webspace), more than most people, not just writers, will ever need. Most importantly, it is a system that grows rapidly right now but has been stable (for blogging) since years. beats most other system except perhaps the very lightweight tumblr, which we use for <a href="http://kaffeinkatmandu.com">kaffe in katmandu</a> - and i use it on top of that for a couple of other sites serving only prose and photos, like <a href="1000penguins.tk">1000 shipwrecked penguins</a>.

<a href="http://marcusspeh.com">my own site</a> is built using wordpress 3+ and on purpose only uses the standard theme, which makes it boilerplate in a way but, in my view, heightens the importance of content. the site also offers guest posts and a variety of other things and allows me to balance static content (pages) and dynamical content (posts).

take a look: http://marcusspeh.com - let me know what you think, too, i love feedback!

- everything that i think a writer's site "should" have is there. but, of course, there are plenty of other solutions and I think a blog/site should reflect who you are and who you're trying to appeal to. i don't think there is an alternative to wordpress + facebook + twitter if you do your own marketing. this might change within a few years, of course.

Marcus Speh
Apr 12, 03:49pm

... and mike, your wordpress site looks great!

Robert Vaughan
Apr 12, 03:53pm

I really like wordpress, and have had a lot of success and I don't do much but write, post and re-link the blog post to Facebook or other sites. (http://www.rgv7735.wordpress.com)

And I agree, Marcus (of course i love your sites, too) that you have done a great job, Mike. Your site looks great!

Marcus Speh
Apr 12, 05:37pm

i like that (new?) header photo on your blog, robert, and thanks for your kind words!

Writers Across Genres - WAG (http://wag.mixxt.org) is the place to share what you're doing web-wise as a writer, by the way, because we might try and summarise some of what everybody's learnt for a wider community.

i'm personally very ambivalent about facebook. i deactivated my "friends" site and only kept my <a href="http://facebook.com/speh.marcus">facebook "author's page"</a>, which gives me what i need - for actual interaction i prefer fictionaut or dialog on the sites i mentioned. kindly "like" that page, if you like it that is.

Mike Lynch
Apr 12, 10:14pm

Thanks Robert and Marcus!

I was tempted by Drupal because I've heard such great things about it. I even sat through some random YouTube tutorials. Sadly, I still struggled a bit with the interface and gave up. WordPress is just more my speed I guess.

Cool site Marcus. I really like that little toolbar gadget that hangs out at the bottom of the screen! Is that a plugin? I also dig that 3d looking tag cloud thingy. Totally jealous of all your cool photos and images -- I'm design challenged and a bit of a spazz. Some of my old websites were just a seizure waiting to happn. ;)

stephen hastings-king
Apr 13, 12:16am

Well, I wouldn't point to myself as an expert on these things, but I have a (new-ish)tumblr:

http://postreality.tumblr.com/

I like the minimalist look(s) and the emphasis on reblogging---the downside of which is that it'd be easy to loose control over what you post. So far as I can tell, I have so far been protected by a thick wall of peculiar. I think I'm using tumblr in a more dense way than often happens...but don't really know. Anyway, I'm still figuring out how to make the space grow, which direction to take with it. It feels like I should make it a project rather than a portfolio. Still deciding. I also looked at Cargo and a couple other portfolio sites for more intermedia oriented work that I'm doing (or will be again soon). Tumblr seems flexible as any.

Robert Vaughan
Apr 13, 12:59pm

Hi Stephen,
I also joined Tumbler when I was published with a story at Housefire which is a literary offshoot of Metazen, hosted on Tumblr. And also our Fictionaut friend Marcus Speh is notorious on Tumblr, see his posts above. I have yet to figure out how to use my Tumblr, also. Am on there a lot less than my own wordpress blog. But I am excited to see where you take yours, as I am a 'follower' of your Tumblr site.
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