It used to be that to break into the publishing business you not only needed talent, but you also had to know the right people, make the right connections, or sometimes, just be in the right place at the right time.

With the advent of blogging and social media, more and more authors are finding their way past the gatekeepers and finding their audiences—with or without publishers. With a bit of web savvy, moxie, and talent, today’s author has more power than ever to get their words into the hands of eager readers.

Yet, too many authors seem to be ignoring this relatively new path to publication.

Or worse, they are scaring away potential readers with awful websites.

You know that saying about not judging a book by its cover? While people may give some leeway to a book with a bad cover, not nearly as many people are as forgiving of a poor website.

Hideous wallpaper backgrounds, clashing colors, and frames with visible borders (ugh!) look about as contemporary as the fade in Kid ‘N Play’s hair styles. Whether the design is gaudy and stuck in the 90’s, its content impossible to navigate, or it is simply a static page (which is nothing but a glorified business card), too many writers are scaring away readers and relegating themselves to relative obscurity in today‘s digital world.

Considering how easy it is these days to publish content to a blog with a clean theme and a simple layout, there is no excuse for a bad website.

The Lessons We Can Learn From Good Author Sites

There are plenty of well-known authors with crisp, clean, and even gorgeous websites. Dennis Lehane and Stephen King both come to mind. However, many of the well known authors have websites designed by the best designers for publishers with deep pockets.

Yet you don’t need a fat advance to have a great website. Here are four examples of authors with sites, all with blogs attached, that are economical, while doing all the things an author’s site’s supposed to.

1. Give Your Readers What They Want

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Seth Harwood was one of the early adopters of the novel in podcast form. Along with fellow author Scott Sigler, Seth found early success through Podiobooks, by dividing his book and delivering it through a series of free podcasts.

This tactic eventually led Seth to a book deal for his crime novel Jack Wakes Up. Seth’s website is a great example of a layout that features everything a reader could want in an easy-to-find format.

Want to learn more about the author? Click.
Want to see details on any of his books? Click.
Want to listen to a choice of free audio downloads from any one of his books? Click and Save.
Want to buy the book in physical form?

Guess what?

Yup, a number of links to help a reader quickly purchase the book.

Something else I like about Seth’s site – he has photographs of his readers on the front page, using a simple widget linking to his Flickr account. Seth understands that being a successful author requires building a robust community. In addition to a clean layout and easily accessible information, Seth has built forums for his community, as well as a space devoted to fan art.

In short, Seth’s website is about as close to perfect in function as I’ve seen.

Follow Seth on Twitter

2. Engage Your Audience

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Scott Sigler IS the modern author. Sigler has helped to reinvigorate, if not reinvent, the world of publishing with the success of his first book, Earthcore, the world’s first podcast only novel. Much like our own Available Darkness, Scott released his book in serialized format, dividing the book into twenty episodes, then releasing it for free on podcast through Podiobooks and iTunes. He also has developed an active community with his forums and interacting with readers via social media.

Many authors have since followed the model, but Sigler’s early pioneering placed him at the vanguard of modern publishing.

His site is intuitive, with all his social media and podcast subscribe buttons located in the top right hand corner. They are neat and easy to read, with the tongue in cheek caption, Subscribe or die!

Like Seth, Scott understands that community is fundamental to an author’s growth and his site reflects that in every way.

Follow Scott on Twitter

3. Know Your Audience

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Artist, cartoonist, and writer Raina Telgemeier knows her audience well.

The artist of The Babysitter’s Club graphic novels has a website which is not only a big bag of eye candy, it succeeds in showcasing her impressive illustration talents, while also appealing directly to her target audience.

Raina regularly showcases her upcoming projects via blog posts. One of those projects is her soon-to-be published book, Smile.

The page devoted to Smile is a study in what makes a perfect landing page for a book. It’s warm and inviting, has published reviews along with all the relevant information, and links to help guide the reader on their way to a purchase. The use of color on this page, along with the beautiful book cover, makes me want to buy about four or five copies before I leave the page.

Raina’s site has style, personality and community with a clean, impressive layout.

Follow Raina on Twitter

4. Give it Away, Give it Away, Give it Away Now

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Three of the four authors we’re posting are notable in that they give their content away.

I’m sensing a theme.

Craphound.com is the home to Sci-fi writer, activist, journalist and blogger and Boing-Boing co-editor Cory Doctorow, who is practically synonymous with the model of giving your product away.

Doctorow believes the constraints of copyright belong firmly fixed in the previous century. And while many in the publishing industry balk at the idea of giving your product away and argue that there is no way to monetize “free,” Doctorow is proving them wrong. Time and time again.

Cory compares modern authors to the forerunners of rock n’ roll, saying that “the Internet makes the cheap, dirty and experimental possible.”

With several titles and legions of fans, Doctorow is the premier example of a modern author making full use of the “freemium” model.

Follow Cory on Twitter

By using WordPress and a premium theme such as Thesis or Frugal, an author can have their own website up and running for less than a hundred dollars. Of course, you could spend a bit more and have a professional layout that appropriately reflects the quality of your writing (hint hint – we do that).

The key to getting read is to build a community around you and your work.

Start a blog, get involved with social media, and get your book (or eBook or audio book) in front of as many eyes (and ears) as possible. Never has the world of publishing been so open to you.

So, what are some of your favorite authors’ websites?

What lessons have you learned from the good ones?

Thank you for reading. Click here for free updates to Collective Inkwell.

Spread it if you like it, link it if you love it.

Do you have

• an ugly blog that makes small children cry and your dog cover his eyes with his paws?
• a boring blog with zero zing?
• or a blog that fails to stand out in a sea of sameness?

It doesn’t have to be that way.

The Collective Inkwell can help you.

This is the place for no-holds-barred opinions on how to take your blog from average to awesome! We might get a bit snarky from time to time. Nothing personal, we just want to make the posts entertaining for as many readers as possible.

Welcome to the second edition of Make Over My Blog! This week we visit I Love Pie, a uk-based music site.

The home page

Most music blogs I visit are on the cutting edge of web design trends or display the personality of the blogger(s) who run it. That is not the case with I Love Pie.

The page is VERY white (with a splash of pink and blue) with practically no graphic elements, save for those used in the posts. While it IS a clean look, it is also very plain. Especially given the obvious good taste of … wait, what’s his name? There is no name associated with the blog. Anywhere.

Fortunately, Michael (the blogger) commented here asking us to review his blog, so we have something to go on. The rest of his readers, well, not so much.

click to make bigger

The logo

While I’m not sure what the name has to do with music, that’s okay. There are lots of blogs with names which don’t seem to relate at all to the content. I like the logo. It’s simple and clues you in what the site is about (which is a good thing since there is no About page). However, it looks naked up there with all that space to the right of it. I would suggest shrinking the logo down to a smaller height and moving the ad up next to it or putting a tag line to the right. Perhaps finding a way to blend the ad a bit more seamlessly into the site design would help things. Speaking of advertisements, if you’re not making money from them and they’re not required, I would remove them. They disrupt the flow of the design, particularly the banner one across the top.

The sidebar/ Navigation

The javascript menu is located on the sidebar. It’s rather plain, expanding when you click on an item to show links to other sites and archives by month. However, there are no links to an About page, a contact page or even recent posts. If you want to know what the site is about, well, you’d need to figure it out on your own or visit the site’s Facebook page (which is linked along with some other social networking sites), where you will find out that “I  lovepie is a music blog, focusing on electro and indie music.”

Further down the page is an RSS feed for music headlines an advertisement and a Twitter stream with a font so large it bleeds over the background line.

I would suggest a smaller Twitter font and adding an About page so people can get to know the author or at least what the site’s about. I would also consider a contact form or email address. It might help in getting some more exclusive content before other bloggers.

The site’s navigation leaves much to be desired in that it isn’t very user friendly.  Readers have no way of scrolling back to older posts at the bottom of the home page as you can with most blogs. This wouldn’t be so bad if a visitor could click on recent posts. I would suggest adding Previous Entries to the bottom of the page.

The Content

I Like Pie posts several times a week, sometimes several times a day. The posts usually contain short stream-of-thought blurbs about whatever music Michael is listening to. It’s sort of like having a “cool music” friend on the web who turns you on to good tunes, videos and music news. The only negative I see is that the posts don’t invite much reader discussion. Perhaps that’s not the point of the site, which is okay. If Michael wants to promote conversation, he might consider involving the reader more, perhaps asking questions which would create discussion.

The good

• clean layout
• content is good
• pictures are eye pleasing

The bad

• layout is a bit too clean
• no About page or contact info
• no Previous Entries navigation at the bottom of the page

In summary

I like I Love Pie and will be adding it to my RSS subscriptions. I think with a few tweaks, it could rise to the next level.

Thanks, Michael for letting us review your site. Best of luck!

Note to readers: We got a lot of responses to our free consultation offer, so we’ll be hitting those twice a month and are closing the free offer for now until we catch up.

However, if you’d like us to Make Over your blog immediately, we have a few slots open.

If you would like a private consultation, our services can be had for a small fee of $60 via PayPal. You can choose whether you want your review publicly posted on our site or private, sent to you via e-mail. And, if you pay us, you can choose how you want your advice: Straight up and a bit kinder (for those who don’t appreciate snarky criticism) or with full snarkiness intact. We definitely understand a lot of people don’t have the time or skills to devote to making their blog pretty and we would never want to make anyone feel bad.

If you decide to hire us for a consult, we will deduct $25 from your first custom design order.

Some of the things we can do to make over your blog

• customize your WP Thesis theme
• Install Thesis on your self hosted WP site
• create unique custom illustrations (banners and other site graphics) from a professional cartoonist for any web site.
• craft custom SEO and landing pages to help your blog be found by search engines and readers
• devise a custom color theme for your WP blog
• advise you on the best usability practices on the web
• help you determine which items to keep on your blog and which to get rid of
• ghost write copy for your site

Got more questions or want to hire us? Contact us at collectiveinkwell AT gmail.com.

Agree with our assessment of Michael’s site? Or think we’re nuts? Leave a comment below. If you like this post, please consider tweeting it.

Do you have

• an ugly blog that makes small children cry and your dog cover his eyes with his paws?
• a boring blog with zero zing?
• or a blog that fails to stand out in a sea of sameness?

It doesn’t have to be that way.

The Collective Inkwell can help you.

Welcome to the first edition of Collective Inkwell’s Make Over My Blog! This is the place for no-holds-barred opinions on how to take your blog from average to awesome! We might get a bit snarky from time to time. Nothing personal, we just want to make the posts entertaining for as many readers as possible.

Our first makeover is Law School Bound

The Home page

Our first impression of the home page is, “Hey, I’ve seen this blog before. In fact, I’ve seen it about 400 times.”

Why?

Kristina is using a free theme, something we will address in a bit. The blog is clean and pleasant looking enough, so clean it’s almost sterile. In fact, it has no visual trace of the personality behind it.

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So, who is the personality behind Law School Bound? Let’s find out.

The About page

The About page starts with the sentence, “First and foremost, I am a dancer. Always have been, always will be”.

Okay, that’s nice, but who are you?

Nowhere on the About Page is the blog author’s name or photo.

Only after visiting the Resume page do I find out that the site is written by Kristina Duncan. The About page NEEDS to let readers know something about both the blog they are visiting and the person behind the blog.

What is this blog  about (she said she likes dancing, but it doesn’t SEEM like a dance blog)?

Why is this site on the web?

Why should I come back?

These are the questions a proper About page should instantly answer.

Another thing Kristina may want to consider – using a photo on her About page. Given that she uses it on her Twitter page (good luck finding that – see further down the page); she should consider using it on her blog. Kristina’s an attractive young woman and could use that to her advantage. Regardless of what we think about this, the fact is that people are attracted to attractive people. Heck, if I were half as photogenic as Kristina, I’d have a 1,000 pixel wide photo on every page of my site. Okay, not really, but you get the idea.

Theme

Kristina’s theme is the ubiquitous PRESSROW, by Chris Pearson. We love Pearson’s blogs and are using his premium Thesis theme here at Collective Inkwell. I like PRESSROW for its simplicity and intuitive navigation scheme.

Because PRESSROW is a good (and free) theme, it’s a bit overused. Generally speaking, unless you are producing great content that separates you from the pack; it will be hard to distinguish your blog from the many others using the same theme as so many other bloggers. Well, unless you do something to customize it.

Header and navigation

I’m not a big fan of the huge banner, though I do like the picture of the books. I’m even less a fan of the large navigation text, which takes up a good chunk of the screen. The navigation above the header is also redundant since the pages are also linked to in the sidebar. I would ditch the above-the-header navigation.

Kristina may want to shorten the navigation text. For example: instead of ‘My Resume’, use ‘Resume’. Instead of ‘My Favorite Blogs’, use ‘Links’ or ‘Resources’. Instead of ‘Ramblings of a Pretend Writer’, perhaps change it to ‘Ramblings’ or ‘Writing(s)’.

If she wants to stand out from the crowd, but wants to keep this theme, a good idea would be to create her own custom header which shows the uniqueness of her blog (or hire someone to do it for her – hint hint).

Pages

Looking around the site, I spotted a link to Kristina’s ‘My Favorite Blogs’ page. Curious to see what other sites she likes, I clicked and was surprised to see a page with only one link!

Talk about being selective!

To make matters worse, the one link she has isn’t even to a blog, but rather a Twitter page that no longer exists. Perhaps she should rename the page to ‘My Favorite Deleted Twitter Accounts”.

Speaking of deleted Twitter accounts… don’t click on Kristina’s Twitter link on the front page or you’ll end up at another deleted account. For those that are curious, her Twitter account can be found here: http://twitter.com/legalninjaKris Readers shouldn’t have to come here to find it, though.

Content

The blog reads well and is inviting enough to get me to want to know Kristina more. However, I have issues with some of the content. Namely, typos.

Just a few of the typos I spotted:  spelling venue without an ‘e’ and morter instead of mortar and use of the word through rather than threw on her About page.

Given that Kristina posted her resume on this site, I am guessing that she wants to attract clients? If that’s the case, she should pay special attention to details which might turn a client/employer off, especially on a page that will see consistent traffic over the life of the blog.

When I see typos, I usually give the person the benefit of the doubt, especially when I see content that shows they’re better educated than 95.7% of MySpace users. However, I instinctively wonder if someone spelled a word wrong because they don’t know better or because they were in a rush.

The minute my eyes hit a typo, it’s like a road bump impeding my progress just long enough to distract me from what the author is attempting to say.

Kristina is obviously a smart woman who is on the road to success. She would do well to show that by proofreading before hitting PUBLISH.

More problems

From her “Ramblings of a Pretend Writer” page, is a sentence which should NEVER be on a blog aiming at professionalism.

“This is where I will post my attempt at fiction which should include my post ‘pain in her soul’ as the first installment.  Now I just have to figure out how to move it over.  Hmmm…”

If she doesn’t know, she needs to find out.

But since I’m already here – there are two things I can suggest. Change this from a static page to one that shows items in a particular category, such as “Writing” which her ‘pain in her soul’ posts is tagged as. Option two would be to use the static page as an introduction with links to the appropriate pages.

SEO

If her blog is more than a hobby, it is essential to know her audience. To whom is she speaking? Knowing this essential bit of information will not only help Kristina write with clarity, it will also allow her to implement basic SEO with ease. SEO can be complicated, but knowing your audience will make the fundamentals feel far more natural.

The good:

• The blog has a clean look, lots of white space
• RSS button is nice and big and easily found
• Content is good overall. Kristina writes well and is likable
• The navigation is intuitive
• The site is free from annoying ads, or other sidebar clutter that litters so many a blog across Blogopolis these days

The bad:

• About page doesn’t really tell me much about you or the blog
• The navigation bar takes up too much space
• Twitter link is broken
• Favorite blogs page has no actual favorite blogs
• Unclear audience and no SEO in place

The ugly:

This page displays several lines of html coding that SHOULD HAVE been inserted in the html edit mode, not the visual mode. Given that the post is two months old and is still busted, it gives the impression that you don’t edit your posts and check them once live.

Thanks Kristina for volunteering to be our first Make Over My Blog! victim volunteer. Most of the changes we suggested are ones you can easily implement yourself. Should you want help, you can hire us at a discount and we can handle all your Blog Makeover needs.

Note to readers: We got a lot of responses to our free consultation offer, so we’ll be hitting those twice a month and are closing the free offer for now until we catch up.

However, if you’d like us to Make Over your blog immediately,  we have a few slots open.

If you would like a private consultation, our services can be had for a small fee of $60 via PayPal.  You can choose whether you want your review publicly posted on our site or private, sent to you via e-mail. And, if you pay us, you can choose how you want your advice: Straight up and a bit kinder (for those who don’t appreciate snarky criticism) or with full snarkiness intact. We definitely understand a lot of people don’t have the time or skills to devote to making their blog pretty and we would never want to make anyone feel bad.

If you decide to hire us for a consult, we will deduct $25 from your first custom design order.

Some of the things we can do to make over your blog

• customize your WP Thesis theme
• Install Thesis on your self hosted WP site
• create unique custom illustrations (banners and other site graphics) from a professional cartoonist for any web site.
• craft custom SEO and landing pages to help your blog be found by search engines and readers
• devise a custom color theme for your WP blog
• advise you on the best usability practices on the web
• help you determine which items to keep on your blog and which to get rid of
• ghost write copy for your site

Got more questions or want to hire us? Contact us at collectiveinkwell AT gmail.com.

Agree with our assessment of Kristina’s site? Or think we’re nuts? Leave a comment below. If you like this post, please consider tweeting it.

You’ll notice that the black background that was behind the content is now a bit lighter and, we hope, easier on the eyes.

While we both LOVE the original background, and particularly the way the cream colored bolds and the orange links popped off the page, many readers said they had difficulty reading light text on black. So, we listened and made the change. Since words are 90% of what we do here, we feel you ought to be able to read them as easily as possible.

We’d love to hear what you think of the new colors and anything else you like or don’t like about Collective Inkwell. This is Version 1.2 of a site that, if my track record of frequently re-designing my sites stays true, will be just one of several.

I have a few thoughts on what I would like to change here, but I’d like your opinions, also. While this is our home we’d like to think of it  also as your home and we want you to feel comfortable.  No, we’re not installing a bar. Not before the indoor swimming pool, anyway.

For those who wonder about such things, the site design you see in front of you was one of the first ones I came up with during the planning stages. Close to launch, I started reconsidering the darkness of the theme and almost went with an almost all white, ultra clean look. Who knows, I may still elect to go that way. However, Sean and his lovely wife, Cindy, both convinced me that the darker theme was much better.

(Edit: Thanks for the feedback on the text and background! We have since changed the background from the light gray to a slightly darker one, and returned the text to a lighter one. We hope this is a decent compromise and provides for easier reading than the light text on a completely black background. If not, we will continue to tweak until we (and you) are satisfied.)

(Second Edit: After much thought, we have gone back to black. However, we have used a gray text, rather than a brighter, almost white text, which we hope increases readability. We’ve also increased the font size from 14 pt. to 15 pt. to help in ease of reading. We will continue exploring options to achieve the best appearance and function.)

Some of the other things we’d like to know:

Would you prefer more frequent but shorter posts?

Do you enjoy reading Available Darkness on Friday or would you prefer another day?

If we set up a separate Twitter account, what would you most like to see us tweet about?

So, feel free to leave a comment below, or email us at collectiveinkwell (at) gmail.com

Don’t forget, we can redesign your blog as well, along with an entire suite of services such as SEO web copy and custom blog posts.

Do you have

• an ugly blog that makes small children cry and your dog cover his eyes with his paws?
• a boring blog with zero zing?
• or a blog that fails to stand out in a sea of sameness?

It doesn’t have to be that way.

The Collective Inkwell can help you.

Collective Inkwell is now offering to critique your blog. Why? Two reasons.

1) We’re kicking off our own Reno-Blogging services to help remodel your blog.

2) There are countless blogs that could greatly benefit from a simple helping hand.

If you want your site exposed to a no-holds-barred, honest critique with a helping of humor at your blog’s expense, post a comment here with your blog address and simply ask. We may feature your blog in an upcoming edition of Make Over My Blog!

Along with our reviews, we will offer a few tips and tricks to make your blog awesome. If you decide to hire us to help, we’ll even give you a discount!

What we will do

• Check out your site for design and visual appeal. Does your site hurt our eyes? Does it look like one those AOL pages from the late 90′s? We’ll tell it like it is and spare no feelings.
• Look over your site’s content. Are your posts too long? Is your site’s purpose immediately clear? Do you have lots of obvious errors?
• Review your site’s layout and usability. Is your site’s design intuitive or do first time readers have to jump through hoops to figure things out? Is your blog full of clutter? We will tell you what your friends won’t. The unbiased truth.

We have no idea how many people will take us up on our free offer, so we’re going to take them on a first come, first serve basis. In some cases, blogs on life support may get rushed to the front of the line. In other words, if you’re in a rush to get your blog reviewed, you may want to hire us.

If you would like a private consultation, our services can be had for a small fee of $60 via PayPal. You can choose whether you want your review publicly posted on our site or private, sent to you via e-mail. And, if you pay us, you can choose how you want your advice: Straight up and a bit kinder (for those who don’t appreciate snarky criticism) or with full snarkiness intact. We definitely understand a lot of people don’t have the time or skills to devote to making their blog pretty and would never want to make anyone feel bad.

If you decide to hire us for a consult, we will deduct $25 from your first custom design order.

Some of the things we can do to make over your blog

• customize your WP Thesis theme
• Install Thesis on your self hosted WP site
• create unique custom illustrations (banners and other site graphics) from a professional cartoonist for any web site.
• craft custom SEO and landing pages to help your blog be found by search engines and readers
• devise a custom color theme for your WP blog
• advise you on the best usability practices on the web
• help you determine which items to keep on your blog and which to get rid of
• ghost write copy for your site

Got more questions or want to hire us? Contact us at collectiveinkwell AT gmail.com.

Speaking of blog makeovers, what follows was by no means an ugly blog, but it was a blog the owner felt was a bit boring and in need of a makeover.

A re-design

We’re proud to present our first public re-design since starting Collective Inkwell. For some of our work on our other sites, check out our illustrations page.

Our good friend, Tracy O’Connor of the popular site, I Hate My Messageboard was bored with her theme.

It was an out-of-the-box free WP theme lacking any color or custom graphics. It was, in a word, dull. With her site’s recent explosion in popularity thanks to her humorous posts, sense of community on her message board and the occasional gross food post, she was ready to take things to the next level. She wanted a design that matched her blog’s buoyant personality.

I did a consultation to find out what she was looking for. We bounced some ideas back and forth and quickly hit on something that represented her awesomeness.

The first thing I did was upgrade Tracy to Chris Pearson’s premium Thesis WordPress theme. It’s what we use here and on our other sites. From its ease of use and flexible design features, to its SEO optimization and stellar typography, Thesis is our favorite theme.

Tracy’s old theme (click the image to make bigger).

After the upgrade, I created a custom site color scheme, a custom logo/banner and custom sidebar graphics for her social media and subscription buttons.  Additionally, Tracy wanted a colored sidebar and some space for 125×125 ads above the fold. We brought all of this together using a custom designed style sheet that made her site look like this.

We’re thrilled to say that Tracy LOVES the re-design as do many of her readers. And we love Tracy! Thanks for being our first public makeover.

Community questions:

How much does a blog’s appearance affect your reading habits?

What are your pet peeves with blogs (content or design?)