What I did on my day off
Saturday, April 10th, 2010 06:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rolanniAs threatened, I worked with my spiffy new layout program, which was remarkably soothing. I’ve also made a start on a Carousel Tides website. It’s not by any means done yet; I want to add a cast of characters, and some sample chapters and a post about why I wrote this book — to, yanno, defuse those folks who will ask Why On Earth I wasted my time writing urban fantasy.
If you have a couple moments, do you mind going over and taking a look at the place? Let me know what you think, and what you might find useful in such a site.
Thanks — and I hope everyone had as relaxing a day as I did.
Originally published at Sharon Lee, Writer. You can comment here or there.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
Grabbing the brass ring
Date: 2010-04-10 11:36 pm (UTC)With the caveat that I'm not a web designer.
1: Are you planning to treat the site as a Carousel Tides blog?
2: If the answer is yes it looks fine. A little sparse yet, but fine.
3: If the answer is no then I would have liked you to lead off with the cover art. It would have much more impact.
3a: What you wrote was important and well said but wordy for the front page of a web site. Most could have been put behind a sub-page link.
3b: As a web page I know it is a work in progress but you'll need to go back and link the hell out of what you wrote. Internally or externally, from Agent of Change to the cover artists web site.
Your Sharon Lee web site will provide many useful link backs.
That's my opinion, your mileage may vary.
no subject
Date: 2010-04-11 12:01 am (UTC)I read A LOT of blogs - some SF but mostly romance. In general, the romance sites are very well done. Do you think you need a separate site for 1 book? Those of us who know and love your writing will try ANYTHING you write - maybe you need JUST a Sharon Lee (and Steve, too of course) web site with your blog, a book list, what's new and what's in the works, etc. You'd be easier to find if you have one main site.....
You might check out some of the romance author sites to see how they've done it - especially those who are writing in 2 sub-genres, like Christine Dodd, for example.
Barbara in Texas
no subject
Date: 2010-04-11 02:25 pm (UTC)For this book -- yes, or, yanno, I wouldn't be doing it.
Those of us who know and love your writing will try ANYTHING you write
It's nice to think that readers of the Liaden books will read anything else Steve or I write -- but it's a conceit that's proven not to hold water. Also, Carousel Tides is very, very different from the Liaden books -- it is an urban fantasy. Therefore, it will possibly appeal to a group of readers to whom Liad is a Huge Yawn, and who will never think to look on the Liaden-themed websites for news of a book more in keeping with their interests.
Given that there is a segment of Liaden readers who think, vociferously, that we-or-I ought to be writing nothing else, Carousel Tides automatically loses readers from that pool.
There's also the issue that Baen isn't known for publishing urban fantasy, so readers of that genre won't necessarily pick the book up from the publisher's site, either.
It's not that we don't love and treasure y'all (we do), but Out There the reaction to even our "well-known" work is pretty evenly divided between "Whotheheck are Lee and Miller?" and "Oh, them! They've been doing the same thing FORever."
All this to say that Carousel Tides needs -- and I think, deserves -- whatever push I can give it, to get it in front of people who may enjoy it on its own merits.
no subject
Date: 2010-04-11 01:25 am (UTC)"Where the land meets the sea" looks fine, but "Carousel Tides" above it needs a smoother font, a more readable color (as bright as that red is, it's a little light, so it makes the eye boggle a bit trying to read it; it could do with either a font that has a black border around a slightly deeper shade of red type, or to not be done as type -- see next part of comment), or -- what I really think would be best -- it needs to be done up as a graphic instead of as type overlaid on an image. Or at least, it looks like that's what it is :) and that's great for now, but because of the font color and small jaggedness on the letters' edges, changing it to a graphic (whether done by you, or by one of the many talented amateurs who do very professional-looking headers and banners all the time for free in various livejournal communities, and only ask for credit) when you get more time might help a lot with the initial visual impression.
The planned content additions sound great, and are basically what I started looking for the minute I scrolled down! :D Any meta about the world and character or place background/details/origins that didn't make it into the book would be interesting and enjoyable to read about too, if you were so inclined to wax all meta about your writing sometime, or tell stories about the story. If that would create problems or something, of course, by all means disregard this.
I love the background and header images that you chose, and the layout style is very clean and nice.
no subject
Date: 2010-04-11 04:18 am (UTC)I will enjoy all the meta once you have time to add it.
no subject
Date: 2010-04-11 02:33 pm (UTC)Thank you!
no subject
Date: 2010-04-11 08:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-04-11 02:32 pm (UTC)And, yeah, the red. It needs to not be all grey, but I'm not sure red is the answer...
. . .or tell stories about the story
As it happens, I have several stories about this story. . .
no subject
Date: 2010-04-12 12:46 am (UTC)Well, it sounds like it's probably my computer or some setting that I have going on. :) It does it on Firefox, IE, and Opera for me (widescreen laptop w/ Vista). As a side note, the site looks almost identical in Firefox and Opera, but the font size for "Carousel Tides" at the top is quite different between FF and IE (and nothing else, as far as I notice), which is interesting. o_0 IE, go figure.
no subject
Date: 2010-04-11 04:45 am (UTC)Finally, that is the scariest looking horse I have seen. I don't think I'd ride a carousel with him on it. Yikes!
Here's what it looks like on my browser (safari on a Mac):
no subject
Date: 2010-04-11 02:41 pm (UTC)Collections of stories usually own up on the cover to being a collection of stories, since readers get cranky when they buy what they think is a novel and it turns out to be something else. That said, there are six worlds involved in the story, in which our own, The Changing Land, is the last and least.
The calendar came with, and can either be banished, if it proves useless, or kept, in case people want to track when new content comes live.
I'm not at the moment thinking of the Carousel Tides site as a blog, but as a series of static pages. This obviously could change, if people want to talk about what they're reading -- a blog is easy to generate, now that I know how to think about it :)
no subject
Date: 2010-04-11 04:01 pm (UTC)Not sure if you are concerned about display on mobile devices, but I brought the site up on my iPhone. Most of it looks fine, but there are some anomalous vertical lines in the display. One starts below the "b" in the About tab and goes straight down the page to below the RSS icon. But the RSS icon is layered above the line. The other one is indented about the same amount on the right hand side going through the "main content white box". The calendar is layered above this line, but if it weren't the line would pass immediately to the left of the Saturday S.
no subject
Date: 2010-04-11 05:21 pm (UTC)The idea that someone would Seriously Browse the web on a mobile phone is alien to me. Also, since I don't have a mobile phone that will browse the web, I can't see the problem. Which I wouldn't have any idea how to fix, anyway. So, I'm afraid mobile users are on their own here.
I will do some cross-pollination -- later. First, the stuff about the book. And since I'm doing this around other stuff, the site will build slowly, I fear.
no subject
Date: 2010-04-11 04:39 pm (UTC)There's no question that the website is very pretty. The colors are soothing, the pictures are nice. But from a marketing standpoint
(pleasepleasedon'tbemadatme)
it doesn't work for me At All.
"Urban Fantasy" in the current marketplace translates immediately to "Kickass Heroine, Paranormal Monsters, Hot Sex." This certainly isn't all there is to the genre -- I get the feeling that CAROUSEL TIDES is, mmm, more like Charles de Lint at the seashore? -- but if it *is*, there's nothing on that website to get that across. And if it *isn't*, there's nothing to tell me why I should pick it up and read it.
The banner photograph is lovely, moody and atmospheric, but doesn't get my attention. It should be background information, not the first thing I prominently see. Work to highlight the fabulous cover art instead.
The information under "About Carousel Tides" ISN'T. It's about Sharon Lee, who is a lovely person, I'm sure (even if she sounds a bit "gosh-look-at-me-I-wrote-a-book!" in these paragraphs rather than like the graceful and witty professional we know her to be) and should be under a tag labelled such, with links to all her other terrific writings.
Under the main tag "About Carousel Tides", I should immediately be hit with a killer tag line, an enticing blurb, then a bit more information about Why I Should Buy This Book Right Now -- charactes, setting, links to snippets...
Arrrrghhh. I know this sounds so negative, and I hate myself. And what do I know, I've never sold a book, and I'm going to buy this one anyway, the minute it comes out.
But this website wouldn't have sold me on it at all, and I'm your target audience!
no subject
Date: 2010-04-11 05:27 pm (UTC)Um. You did see the part where I said these things were coming and that the site isn't complete yet? As my copy editor will attest, poor woman, I'm reallyREALLY bad at putting down all of the important information in the first four words.
"Urban Fantasy" in the current marketplace translates immediately to "Kickass Heroine, Paranormal Monsters, Hot Sex." This certainly isn't all there is to the genre -- I get the feeling that CAROUSEL TIDES is, mmm, more like Charles de Lint at the seashore? -- but if it *is*, there's nothing on that website to get that across. And if it *isn't*, there's nothing to tell me why I should pick it up and read it.
Untangle this for me? I'm not getting if it has to have kickass monster sex or you won't buy it, or if it has kickass monster sex you won't buy it.
no subject
Date: 2010-04-11 06:47 pm (UTC)As to "Urban Fantasy" -- my point (badly stated) was that *right now*, those words create a certain narrow set of expectations in the general reader, which can be pretty much summed up as "kickass monster sex" (sort of like for a while there "comic books" = "spandex fights" or "science fiction" = "Star Trek and/or Star Wars", assumptions which I am thankful are slowly being abandoned)
I personally have nothing either for or against this narrow slice of Urban Fantasy; if it's well done, I'll read it, if not, not. But I have seen a great deal of fan-whinging online (most particularly in the romance blogs, but in the sff blogs as well) where people say either YAYS FOR ALL UF or NO MORE UF EVAH! without considering the breadth and nuances of the genre.
So in either case, if CAROUSEL TIDES is the sort of thing that either could or could not be well represented on the front cover by a T &
A shot of a tattooed and armed Amazon in leather pants, it might help to make it clear to potential readers up front.
no subject
Date: 2010-04-11 07:04 pm (UTC)Ah, ok. Thanks for straightening that out. We here in Archers Beach are bucking the trend. For one thing, some of those girls have got to be freezing. Tattoos are not warm. Also, War for the Oaks is my hands-down favorite urban fantasy ever.
That said, point taken regarding the first page. It's not going to ambush you, but it's now something about the book itself. Also, some other changes. As I said, this is going to go slow, because it's being done around things. ...story of my life...
no subject
Date: 2010-04-12 09:57 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-04-12 04:17 pm (UTC)All I know is from working at the Fiction Desk of a public library, where I am asked several times a week to recommend "some good Urban Fantasy." If I give those patrons Emma Bull or Charles de Lint or Neil Gaiman (all of whom I love) they look at me puzzled and disappointed. If I give them Patricia Briggs or Richelle Mead or Michelle Sagara or any of the other similar authors featured at the local chain bookstores under a big sign saying URBAN FANTASY, they are pleased and satisfied.
I don't dispute that my description is NOT an adequate or correct or comprehensive way to understand the genre. I thought that it would be helpful to point out how the term is currently being used from a marketing standpoint. If that information is not useful, please ignore
no subject
Date: 2010-04-12 09:34 am (UTC)(I hit refresh to see whether the countdown to release changes. It does! Now that is useful information indeed...)
no subject
Date: 2010-04-12 06:30 pm (UTC)