This post starts a new series: “Clever Internetizens” — it will be a series of interviews with people on the web who have a great web presence. They utilize their websites and social media effectively across a variety of disciplines. Today I’m talking with author & librarian, Sara Ryan (http://sararyan.com). Sara has written two novels, Empress of the World and The Rules for Hearts, and a bunch of comics including the series Flytrap. She’s currently working on a graphic novel for DC Vertigo called Bad Houses.

I was in grad school at the dawn of graphical web browsing. As soon as I learned how to ftp and change file permissions, I set up what was then known as a Personal Home Page. (Old. School.)

I used it mainly to recommend things I liked.

• How long have you had the website that you have now?

I’ve had sararyan.com since 2001 (here’s a snapshot via the Wayback Machine: http://web.archive.org/web/20010219040125/http://www.sararyan.com/). The design has evolved considerably since then.

• How did you decide what it should look like?

I knew I wanted a sort of collage/bricolage appearance, because I wanted to be able to add images relating to new projects without necessarily changing the whole design. And I think the site’s retro/antique look is paradoxically less likely to feel dated over time.

I also asked my readers; the Flickr and LibraryThing widgets and the prominence of the blog on my frontpage came as a result of their feedback.

And finally, I worked with highly skilled code monkey Space Ninja (spaceninja.com) to develop the details of the look-and-feel and make sure the site worked on different platforms.

• How often do you update it?

It varies wildly — sometimes I post several times a week, sometimes I take a hiatus for as long as a month. Probably the average is about once a week.

• How do you use it to publicize the work that you do?

Like most folks, I announce events and link to interviews. I also make a lot of work available on the site. I have several short comics that you can read online (you can also buy them as chapbooks), and I’ve recorded myself reading my first novel, Empress of the World, in its entirety as a series of podcasts. I’m working my way through my second novel, The Rules for Hearts, too.

• How else do you publicize your work?

I like Twitter.

I’m on Facebook as well, in a low-key way. I respond to comments on my wall, but I’ve never set up fan pages for my books or used it to send event invitations. I can’t quite bring myself to cross that particular self-promotional Rubicon.

And I crosspost my blog entries to LiveJournal. It’s not as popular as it once was, but a fair number of folks still hang out there, especially genre writers, so there’s a certain sense of community.

My overall approach: I don’t force myself to participate in spaces that, for whatever reason, don’t feel right. Lots of writers are on GoodReads; I’m not. Lots of writers have Google alerts set up for their names and book titles; I don’t. And sure, I might miss out on seeing some nice reviews, but I also don’t have the stress of wondering whether a particular mention will turn out to be depressing or delightful.

• How do you balance and prioritize the tasks of writing and self-promotion?

In a sense, the balance is easier for me to maintain than for some of my friends who write full-time on a book-a-year schedule. They always need to simultaneously promote the current book and write the new one.

I have longer stretches between books, so the level of self-promotion ebbs and flows fairly organically. And sometimes I’ll take a hiatus from the blog (as I did in August) to devote more time to writing.

• I love that you’ve posted individual podcasts of you reading your work – what prompted you to do that?

I noticed that my computer had GarageBand!

Seriously, I like reading out loud, and podcasting seemed like it would be easy and fun — which it has been, in part because I, um, don’t worry too much about sophisticated audio production values, e.g. I just record and post.

I started the Empress podcasts as a way to build up to the publication of Rules, and continued because people seemed to enjoy them.

• You regularly blog about other authors and books you recommend – what prompted you to do that?

I read a lot; I like talking about what I read with friends; I like treating blog readers as friends.

• How much do you share about projects you’re working on before they’re published? Does it help your process at all?

I share much less than I once did. I’m less likely to report on word or page count, more likely to discuss process in a broader sense. I wrote a while back on the differences I’ve observed in revising a graphic novel script vs. a prose novel, and I have a post in the works about unexpectedly useful reading.

I think the danger of talking too much about a project-in-progress is that readers may wonder what’s taking you so long (!) and/or get tired of it before it even appears. And publishers often move a book’s release date, so if you’ve said Hey, it’s totally coming out on September 1st!, and then you find out it’ll actually be February 27th of the following year, well, that is no fun for you or your readers.

• What’s your advice to authors when it comes to their online presence?

Have one. At minimum, basic information about your books, a bio, upcoming events. Make it easy to contact you if you want to be contacted. In terms of social media, do what interests you. Don’t blog if it feels like homework, don’t tweet if it feels like a waste of time.

That said, don’t be afraid to try something new, either. It took me a while to get the point of Twitter, now I find it nigh-indispensable.

Thank you, Sara, for your thoughts and advice to those looking to create or optimize their web presence!

If you’re considering creating a Facebook fan page, or already have one and want to improve it, here are five tips to help you get the most out of your efforts:

1. Consider a custom tab.  If your page’s Wall tab isn’t particularly active, or you’re not very well known, creating a custom tab allows you to craft a landing page that lets people get to know you.  Facebook allows you to set this custom tab as the landing tab for all non-fans.  Just like your website’s landing page(s) you want your custom tab to quickly impart what you’re all about, and have at least one call-to-action (eg: visit your website, sign up for your newsletter, purchase something).
2. Specifically ask people to “Like” the page.  It’s been shown that Facebook pages that specifically ask people to click the “Like” button are much more successful at acquiring fans.  Lets face it, there’s alot to look at on the average Facebook page – people are easily distracted by ads, or notifications, or even your content – so reminding them to “Like” you page in a clear way help you cut through the clutter.
3. Create a great Profile picture.  You have the opportunity across all tabs of your Facebook page to display a profiile picture – don’t waste that opportunity!  This is basically advertising space – and while you don’t want it to read like a banner ad, you want to use that space to reinforce your brand.
4. Make sure to get the optimized URL.  Pages with more than 25 fans can get a shortened URL for their page.  Not only is this easier to remember, it’s easier to reference throughout the rest of your online & offline collateral.  To get the URL once you have 25 fans, visit http://www.facebook.com/username
5. Keep your page updated! You can have a great Facebook page design, with a custom tab and a killer profile pic, but if you’re not regularly checking in to participate in conversations with fans, or share interesting content, there’s little reason for people to ever visit your page again.  Your Facebook page is an opportunity to keep you and your business active in people’s memories – if they see an update in their feed from your page, they’re much more likely to visit and participate and pass it on.

Recently I’ve been asked about which to invest in first for an online platform if you had to choose just one: a Facebook page or a website.  Like with most things, it depends!  There are a number of factors that will go into your decision, like what Facebook audiences have come to expect, how much content you have to share, and the overall goals of your project/business.  I’m going to break down these factors + the limitations of each, so read on to learn more about which is better for you when it comes to Facebook pages and websites. Read more …

It’s unavoidable, to have a website you need two very important things:

1. A domain name (like outboxonline.com)
2. A web hosting service – the place where you’ll put the files that make up your website so that you can access them through your domain name (see above)

These can be mysterious and often confounding propositions – where to begin? Read more

Earlier I wrote a post about how to give feedback on a website. It was less about the ins-and-outs of giving feedback, and more about a tool you can use to make it easy to deliver your feedback. This time I’m going to talk a little bit about ways to give helpful feedback to your web designer. Read more

All too often people are left in the position of using the tools they have at their disposal for giving feedback on a website. As a web designer, I’ve received feedback as prose in an email, over the phone, as a bulleted list in a text document, as a document that has been printed, scanned, then emailed to me, etc…

And they’ve been effective for the most part – but wouldn’t it be nice if you could put your notes right in place over the actual website, then easily send that to someone?

Well, technology is a wonderful thing, and I’ve discovered this wonderful tool called Bounce (http://www.bounceapp.com/).

Bounce lets you easily add notes right over an image of any web page – you just enter the URL, they take a picture of the page, then let you make notes on it & send it on to someone. It’s simple, it’s elegant, and makes life just a little bit easier. Who could ask for anything more?

Every now and again I am reminded that it’s easy to get swept up in the details rather than focusing on the bigger picture when designing a website.  As website designers, we’re really serving two needs:

1. Design (and possibly implement) an engaging, usable, website design to sell a product or service, or to act as a resource.
2. Help the owner of the website understand their goals, so that their website helps them achieve said goals.

It’s often easy to assume that someone looking to have a website fully understands and acknowledges their overall goals.  To create a successful website design, not only does the client need to fully understand their goals, but the designer needs to as well to create something that helps meet them. Read more

Most people are under time constraints – they have lots going on and not enough time to do it.  So things sneak up on them and then need to be done in a hurry.  We’ve all been there!  But what are you to do when you need a web presence ASAP, but don’t have the time to plan and implement the whole site before your deadline?  Create a page that has the critical details on it and then plan out the rest of your site knowing that your web presence, while minimal, is still working for you.

Do not settle for an old school “under construction” page, or for the domain parking page that your registrar puts up there to make money off of you while you get your site underway!  The page you create should have some basic, but critical information on it. Read on to find out what to include on your Coming Soon page…

Like with many things besides the pie vs cake debate (pie is clearly better!), there is no clear answer to the blog vs email marketing debate. There is also room for both – have your cake and eat your pie too! Lorrie (of Web Marketing Therapy) and Kate virtually sat down to create some guidelines for to help get you started.

Before we get into it, though, let’s break down what form they take most often:

A Blog: A blog is part of a website or a stand-alone destination in which content is published over time. It becomes a valuable repository (hopefully) of information and links.  Also, people can visit to read/view/listen to your posted content and interact with the author(s) by leaving comments at any time. People can use an RSS feed to subscribe to your blog, which delivers the latest content from your blog to their Feed Reader or their email inbox. You need a platform on which to create your blog, like Blogger or WordPress (my favorite).

Email Marketing: Email Marketing is a subscription-based service in which you send content (eg: a newsletter) via email to a subscription list. What you send can include text, links and images, but needs to adhere to some of the limitations of the email programs that will display them. Often, an incentive is offered to entice people to sign up for your mailing list. You need a service that allows you to create a way for people to sign up, manage the subscription list, and send emails to them.

So how do you know which to use when?

Read on…

I began the process of redesigning my own website (http://www.outboxonline.com) today – Version 4.  In the next couple of weeks, the new design will be rolled out on the site:

There are lots of reasons that I’ll enumerate below for this redesign, but the most important is the evolution of my business based on the needs and wants I hear about from my existing and potential clients.   The last time I redesigned my website, I was moving from doing both user experience design for software and web design & development, to doing mostly web design & development — so the website reflected that.  I kept the Portfolio section as updated as possible with recent projects, but otherwise it remained the same for about 2 years.  That’s a long time in the life of an online portfolio!

Since then, along with the evolution of social media platforms and people’s understanding of them, blogging platforms have also made huge advances, and as many people are looking for partially-custom budget-friendly websites as are looking for bespoke, unique websites.  Additionally, more and more people better understand how important web marketing is, and how social media can help spread the world about their businesses.

Based on all of the above, here are the things that will change about my website and why:

1. There will be much less text on the Home page: The text on the Home page will be streamlined to efficiently explaining what I do and how to get in touch with me. I had already streamlined text on the last iteration of the design, but I wanted to do it even further in this case to get down to only what is essential. There will be further details in other places on my website, and the job of the Home page is to engage people enough so that they click through to read it. In most cases, people visiting my website want to see examples of my work, know a little bit about me & what it’s like to work with me, and decide whether they want to contact me to work with them. This is different than visitors to my blog, who are looking for information about how to do something, or resources for their project(s). I know this because I’ve regularly checked in on what people are checking out on my site via Google Analytics.
2. The services I offer will be much easier to identify: There’s lots of overlap when it comes to the skill set necessary to design and develop web collateral. And not every designer and developer does the same thing. Often, it can be very confusing for people looking for someone to hire — they don’t know exactly the skill set they need, they just know what they want the end result to be. So, it’s important to be as clear as possible about what I do, and talk about it in terms of what people want the end result to be, eg: blog, website, logo, etc…
3. There will be a better & more efficient way to know how much something will cost: Since there are so many variables to consider, it’s very hard to give someone an estimate without having a conversation about what they need and want. But the form they fill out to get in touch with me can gather more specific information to help me get them a quote more quickly. Also, I can offer semi-custom packages with very specific elements that can be added a-la-carte so that people with a limited budget can choose only what they need/want.
4. The blog will be a part of the site, rather than a separate entity: Beyond the technology change of having the whole site built in WordPress, I want the blog to be an integrated part of the site rather than a stand-alone entity. Since the blog content I create is closely tied to my the work that I do, and because I want it to be easier for people to jump from the blog content to my portfolio and back again, I’m presenting a consistent navigation across the whole site.

Next time, I’ll talk about the decisions that went into the aesthetics of the redesign & any changes that happen while moving from design to development and why. Stay tuned!