Sunday, September 30, 2007

Websites, or how promo is driving me crazy

...so, there I was--arguing with Cowboy, who wants content for the fabulous website he's building me (for free!!! Have I mentioned how much I love this man?) And thinking, okay, now I see what all the people over on the promo loop at WRP are talking about.

If you have nothing to say there's no content.

I spent a lot of time trolling through websites, looking for inspiration. The lists are easy, y'know, "so, Jodi, who are your favorite authors and give me some links..." Although looking at who I like has me thinking I sound like I don't read in my genre. Although it's not that I don't read romances, I just don't keep many of them. My bookshelves overflow with sci-fi fantasy, mysteries, old IM's and the occasional romance keeper. Tara Janzen for one. Tara is funny. I read her stuff and loved it back when she wrote as for Loveswept as Glenna McReynolds, found her Tara Janzen stuff when I was cruising through the bookstore, didn't know it was her, and bought her series before finding out. Which goes to show you that good writing sings and dances.

The whole bio and intro bit are throwing me hard. The sites I visited vary from "home of the award-winning author..." to "welcome to my romantic world, it is a purple trove of over-lurid platitudes..."

I did see one where the woman simply decided that if she had nothing to say, she was going to put up a bare bones site. *sigh* I liked it better than the overblown sites, but it felt...empty. So I figured, okay, my site is weird, what with the decaying skull and raven (in silhouette!) and little skull links, and color scheme. So why not make it off beat, too?

Whattadaya think?

(this comes under the header, as the intro)

Home of Jodi Henley. Jodi has been writing for a long time. She has a stack of manuscripts under the bed that she hopes will never see the light of day, a thing about the color green, and a whole roomful of tattered paperbacks. She also loves office supplies and occasionally steals pens. If you'd like to extend Jodi a kind offer of pen-ship, contact her here (insert link). And while you're in a generous, giving mood, she would like you to consider a donation of chocolate. Thanks for dropping by.

lol

3 comments:

Jennifer McKenzie said...

LOL! I love that! I went pretty bare bones with mine.
I HATE bios. They're too much like blurbs.
WHERE IS THE NEW SITE. I wanna see! I wanna see!

Unknown said...

lol. I'm working on it right now. *sigh* BUT I do have a spiffy "domain parked courtesy of Go-Daddy" :)

Gwen Hayes said...

I so feel what you are going through, Jodi. I don't know what happens next in the story I am writing, how on earth can I sum up "who I am" or "what I write" with one theme.

Which is why I decided...duh...it isn't like you can't change your website whenever you want to. It is making it easier.

Love the pen-ship.