What not to have on your book website
Yesterday I was asked for some information for a newsletter for an online book club with which I am affiliated. Which reminded me of the existence of said online book club. And now that I think of it, there’s a blog on the site, too. You’re probably sitting there aghast, wondering how a relatively tech-savvy person such as myself could so callously ignore a book club in which I’m involved. That I could not read a blog when I’m constantly extolling the virtues of online media. Here’s why:
– The flash takes forever to load. Flash (i.e., animation) is fun and catchy, but it takes a long time to load in the best of circumstances — and crashes your computer in the worst — so there had better be a good reason for it.
– There are no permalinks. A permalink is a unique address for a page. So, for example, the URL for this blog is http://yodiwan.wordpress.com, but the permalink for this particular post is http://yodiwan.wordpress.com/2009/01/21/what-not-to-do-on-your-book-website/ . Permalinks enable people do direct web users to a specific post / area of your website — to the author tour page, for example, or the author bio section. Without permalinks, you can only send someone to the home page and leave them to sift through mounds of information. (I’d actually complained about this earlier and in response, URLs were posted on the page itself. It looks weird, though — people expect URLs to appear in the browser above the menu bar, but on this site they appear on the page itself.)
– The blog lacks an RSS feed. I don’t know enough about programming to know why this is so, but I do know the site does not have an RSS feed, so reading the blog requires going to the website itself. Which is so 1999.
– The Search function verges on nonexistent. There’s no “Search” button. Let me repeat that, folks, because some of you probably don’t believe me: there’s no search button. Instead, you have to click on the “Bookshelf,” wait (for the flash to load), then click on a section of the alphabet, wait again (more flash), then mouse over the bookshelf and then individual book covers will appear before you. It looks great when (or rather, if) it finally loads, but all that to look up one book? There’s no place to, say, type in “Jane Austen” and simply pull up all of Austen’s titles. Essentially, the site is mimicking the feel of a “real” bookshelf in a bricks-and-mortar store or library. Which is novel for about a second until you remember it’s not a bookshelf.
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Readers (or journalists) looking up books online aren’t seeking entertainment. That’s why Wii and bungee jumping were invented. Readers are looking for information — background information about the book and author, articles about the book or interviews with the author, an author tour schedule (if there is one), photos, etc. – and fortunately for authors and publicists, this information can often be presented quite simply and inexpensively. More often than not (there are always exceptions), author / book websites should be functional above all else: easy to use, intuitive. Except when I’m sleeping or on the subway, I spend virtually every minute of my life connected, if not on my laptop, then on my Blackberry and / or phone. If a website loses me as a user because I find it difficult to navigate, that begs the question: exactly who is using it?
I took a quick Twitter poll yesterday and here are a few more Do Nots from friends and colleagues:
– Failure to include a contact email address. It’s the web — anyone who makes it to the website can find it in themselves to send an email (rather than call a publicist to shoot the breeze). If you don’t want to get spammed / spidered, spell out your email address, e.g. johndoe[at]gmail[dot]com or build a contact form into the page.
– Dark backgrounds and small / multiple fonts. Keep it simple.
– Unused features. If your site features a blog or discussion board, make sure you post / update regularly.
– Forgetting to post downloadable hi-resolution images of / from / about the book. For copyright purposes, it may not be possible to post a hi-res author photo or certain pictures from the book. Consider posting other pictures about the book — for example, one author of mine posts snapshots of her traveling on research trips for her books. At the very least, make sure to include contact information so journalists / booksellers can contact you or the publicist to get what they need.
– Book trailers that play automatically play. Rude and disruptive.
– Boring book trailers. Book trailers are like flash — do it if you have a purpose, i.e., it’s informative and / or amusing. Skip it and save the money if you don’t.
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For what you should have on a website (and for some examples), check today’s The 26th Story’s post about good author websites.
How to get involved in online book promotion
Today, Buzz, Balls & Hype bemoans diminishing marketing budgets and suggests authors and publishing houses work together closely to maximize their efforts.
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One area that is particularly conducive to a publicity novice jumping right in is the online arena — blogs, discussion groups, wikis, etc. Although all publicity and marketing departments maintain increasingly large lists of bloggers, there are so many blogs that change so frequently, it’s impossible to keep track of all of them. This is where the author comes in.
Did you write a book about the Civil War? Or knitting? Or pets who are heroes? Look up blogs and discussion groups about those topics. Use a site like Alexa or Technorati to determine which of those blogs get the most traffic. Check the blogroll (the blogger’s list of favorite blogs) to find other related sites. Blogs that appear on a lot of blogrolls are obviously more popular than those that do not.
While finding a handful of blogs might take an afternoon, becoming a part of an online community can take weeks or months. Bookmark the blogs. Better yet, add them to your RSS reader. Read the posts regularly. Comment when you have something wise or funny to say. Get to know what a blogger likes to cover, their tone, how frequently they post. Get to know other commenters.
Right about now, you’re asking whether it’s worth spending the time to do this. First, if you had the wherewithal to write a book about knitting, please tell me you at least have some interest — book promotion aside — about what’s rocking the boat in the knitting community. And second, blogs and websites link. They link to small sites, which link to medium-sized sites which link to larger sites. Freelancers who write about knitting visit these sites. Print reporters who cover crafting visit these sites. So yes, it’s worth taking the time to do this.
10 New Year’s Resolutions
My New Year’s Resolution last year was to get my oven fixed. Which didn’t get done. It’s been five years. So this year, rather than coming up with a resolution for myself — and being of the sometimes bossy persuasion — I thought I’d come up with some resolutions for … other people. (I can do that, right?) Here, categorized:
Publicity
– Set up a Google Alert for your book (or all your books if you’re a book publicist). They’re not fool proof, but free, quick to set up and pretty darn effective more or less makes up for that. Make sure, though, that there is *one* person assigned to forward press mentions to editor / author / agent / publicity director — you don’t want to duplicate efforts and have everyone forwarding everyone else the same mentions.
– Set up an RSS reader like Bloglines, Google Reader, News Gator, or any number of others. For a publicist, an RSS reader is an invaluable tool for following numerous publications and websites (and broadcast outlets). For authors and anyone else, it’s a good way to stay on top of the news in general or to keep yourself briefed about a specific topic(s). For more information about RSS readers, check here.
– Make sure an author’s web presence is established early, as in, by the time galleys are sent to the media (typically four-six months before a book goes on sale). Depending on the author, “web presence” could mean any or all of the following: website, blog, social networking profile, discussion group, wiki, etc. Whatever it is, get it up there ASAP because while you’re dithering over fonts and flash, readers and journalists are out there Googling the book. In this day and age when basic sites can be created in a few minutes for free, there’s nothing more frustrating than not being able to find accurate information about something. (I’m not advocating throwing together a shoddy site simply so you can lay claim to having one; I am saying think about this earlier rather than later.)
– Set an email signature. On your desktop account. On your PDA. On your replies and forwards. You may know someone, but what if they have to forward your message to someone else? Sending an email message without a signature is akin to calling someone and not identifying yourself. It’s unprofessional. Unless you’re emailing Grandma.
– Don’t be sloppy. Do not pepper your messages with emoticons. Do not write all in lower-case letters. Do not write all in upper-case letters. Don’t use cell-phone abbreviations when you have a full keyboard at your disposal. Punctuate properly. Don’t ramble.
– Use Reply All — when appropriate. We’ve been conditioned to not use Reply All (with good reason). But sometimes, when I email a producer / writer and copy an author (or vice versa) and the contact only responds to me, I’m left simply forwarding the message. Not only is that a waste of my time, but when time is of the essence, it could lead to a missed opportunity.
General
– Use a “Follow up” tag / tool / label / folder. A few years ago I was working with a very busy author who was pretty much impossible to track down by either phone or email. As a result, interview requests constantly went unanswered and I could barely keep track of who still needed a response. What I learned (in addition to figuring out how not to tear out my hair) was that segregating interview requests in a “Follow up” folder (or using the Follow Up tag in Outlook) made it that much easier to figure out who still needed an answer. Sometimes, when I know an author takes a long time to respond, I email them requests with a blind copy to myself so I can file the message in the “Follow up” folder. Of course, this means you have to follow up on the “Follow up” folder, but at least I can tell the difference between “To Do” and “Done.”
– Don’t waste time by asking stupid questions. What is a stupid question? The definition of a stupid question is very simple: it’s one you can pretty easily answer yourself. Kind of like, “Can you tell me who wrote this book?” If you are asked a stupid question, you can either 1) say you don’t answer stupid questions 2) answer the stupid question or 3) provide the link to the answer to the stupid question. I suggest option 3.
– Try not to ask someone else to do something when it’s quicker to do it yourself. There are exceptions, of course — extreme busy-ness, need to delegate, blah, blah, blah – but sometimes it really is more efficient to do something yourself rather than waiting for someone else to do it. For example, if I want to know whether I can get an author to a city in time to do an event / interview, I could call or email the travel agent asking for possible flight times. Although my travel agent happens to be the World’s Best Travel Agent, it still is faster to hop on to Travelocity and sift through my options.
– Exercise. Two-thirds of Americans are overweight or obese. Well, you didn’t think you could get away from that one, now, could you?
Morning Brief — Wednesday, October 8
On Monday, I posted about what RSS is. Well, whaddaya know — now everyone’s jumped on that bandwagon. Yesterday, marketing expert Seth Godin and social media guru Chris Brogan posted about various RSS reader options and how to make the most of your reader. Brogan also mentions Alltop, Guy Kawasaki’s news aggregator.
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Even the venerable Gray Lady is facing cuts: Editor & Publisher reports that the Metro section has been folded into the A section of The New York Times and Sports has been folded into the D section several days a week.
An explanation of RSS / feeds / online newsletters
Note: This post has been slightly modified / corrected from the original thanks to a few careful and knowledgeable readers.
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I often get email requests asking to subscribe to my “feed” and the other day someone asked about distributing a podcast via RSS. This represents a somewhat discombobulated understanding of RSS and feeds, so I thought I’d try to explain these terms / concepts. (I should note that I really don’t know all that much about RSS — just enough to maintain my blog — but on the upside, “just enough” is probably good enough for many.)
What is RSS?
RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication (and something else I can’t remember, but that doesn’t much matter). Think of it as electronic subscription service — instead of getting your newspaper delivered to your front door, RSS allows you to get your newspaper stories delivered to your RSS reader.
What is an RSS reader?
A reader is a website that allows you to read the stories (or posts) for websites and blogs to which you choose to subscribe. Readers include Bloglines, Google Reader, NewsGator and others.
What is a feed?
A feed allows an online publication or blog to distribute their stories to readers via RSS.
How does this all differ from an online newsletter?
An online newsletter is simply a message that is emailed to a distribution list. There is no feed involved. (In the case of The Book Publicity Blog, I maintain an email distribution list for people who prefer not to check the blog online / in an RSS reader — after I post online, I simply copy and paste the information into an email message and send it out.) So when you ask if you can subscribe to The Book Publicity Blog, you’re asking if you can subscribe to the email newsletter, not to the blog’s feed (since you woud subscribe to the feed yourself). Apparently, I could also have Feedburner send out my blog posts via email automatically … although that would mean I wouldn’t have time to correct posts after publishing them!
Why set up an RSS reader?
A reader is an efficient way to consolidate all your websites and blogs. You can quickly scroll through all headlines and click through only to those stories in which you are interested — instead of visiting many websites a day, you can simply look in your reader and view the content on all of them.
Exactly how efficient is a reader? I subscribe to almost 300 websites and blogs and I whip through all these headlines every day or every couple days when I’m busy. Before I had an RSS reader, well, let’s just say I sure wasn’t following almost 300 websites daily. Sarah Palin obviously doesn’t have an RSS reader. (Granted, following all these sites is far more important for a publicist making their living working with the media than for someone who following the news for fun.)
Here, the blog Men With Pens weighs in on why they like their readers.
How do I set up an RSS reader?
Click here for instructions about how to set up a reader and here for some publishing websites you may want to put in your reader.
Why is it important for a blog to have a feed?
You know the story of the tree that falls in the woods? (If a tree falls in the woods and no one is around, does it make a noise?) A blog without a feed is like the tree falling with no one around — it doesn’t make a “noise.” Unless someone is so beholden to you that they will check your website every single day, you can assume that they won’t check your site. In other words, there’s no way to build a regular audience for your blog without a feed (since most of us have a limited number of blood relatives and best friends).
I initially thought feeds had to be established by the site / blogger using a tool like Feedburner, but as you can see from the Comments, feeds are usually built in to standard blogging platforms like Blogger, Typepad, WordPress. (I have occasionally encountered blogs without feeds, though, so if you are blogging, it’s worthwhile testing out your feed.)
If you do use Feedburner, there are other cool things you can do (again, see Comments).
I think that covers the basics …
Why you need an RSS reader (and how to set it up)
For those of you who have not yet set up RSS readers because you think it’s too complicated / don’t have time to set one up / have no idea what I’m talking about, check out ReadWriteWeb‘s “Ode to RSS.” This RSS 101 explains why you would want an RSS reader (it’s easier to follow blogs and podcasts), allows you to click through directly to Google Reader in the post so you can open up an account immediately (Bloglines and Newsgator are other RSS readers) and includes links to other RWW posts that explain how to get the most out of RSS.
How to set up an RSS reader in two minutes — Part II
On Friday I posted some instructions on how to set up an RSS reader. Here are some book review and literary blogs you can add to your reader to start off. These are only a handful of important media/publishing blogs out there, but you can add these first and then add one or two (or more) sites a day to your reader.
- http://www.beatrice.com/
- http://www.bookslut.com/blog/
- http://blogs.suntimes.com/bookroom/ (Chicago Sun-Times book blog)
- http://books.beloblog.com/ (Dallas Morning News book blog)
- http://esposito.typepad.com/con_read/
- http://www.edrants.com/
- http://www.sarahweinman.com/confessions/
- http://marksarvas.blogs.com/elegvar/
- http://maudnewton.com/blog/
- http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/jacketcopy/ (Los Angeles Times book blog)
- http://www.boston.com/ae/books/blog/ (Boston Globe book blog)
- http://papercuts.blogs.nytimes.com/ (New York Times Book Review book blog)
- http://blog.washingtonpost.com/shortstack/ (Washington Post book blog)
To find more blogs, check each site’s blogroll (the list of web sites usually on the right side of a blog). My blogroll, which is on the bottom right side of this page, includes all the media, publishing and some miscellaneous blogs that I regularly follow.
