Blog Archives

One Step at a Time

1/30/2025

The good news is that the reader reports are back for my Holy Bull manuscript and are very positive. (It may sound weird after more than 20 years of writing for publication, but I still feel nervous on seeing something from my editor in the email box---is it bad news? For the record, I've yet to open one that torpedoed me, but tell that to my anxiety; there's always a first time.) The bad news is that I'm still waiting for the editorial review board to give the project final approval to proceed, although this should be a relatively short wait. From there, it's on to copy editing.

While I wait, I'm still working slowly on the tale of the Firebird---I have always been much slower at putting together a fictional story than a nonfictional account, and this is proving no exception to the rule. I'm also doing research for possible future projects regarding horses and their people. Sometimes it feels like I'm mostly spinning my wheels, but I've long since learned from experience that the time I spend on alternative ideas is seldom wasted; one way or another, it will contribute to my future projects and to my development as a writer. So ... onward, one step at a time toward whatever the future holds.

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A Word About Websites

1/9/2025

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I've spent a good chunk of my free time during the last week updating this website based on the 2024 sire lists---as many as I could get hold of for countries that conduct black-type racing under International Catalogue standards. This brings me to the topic of website development and maintenance, which most authors will have to consider sooner or later.

Now, American Classic Pedigrees is a much larger project than most authors will ever need to undertake. For me, the business of writing about Thoroughbreds and the maintenance of an organized compilation of information about the breed are closely intertwined. For others, simpler may be much better. Nevertheless, given the importance of online presence and platforms in modern book marketing, websites are necessities, not luxuries or "nice-to-haves," and should be carefully designed to accomplish a writer's purposes in providing visibility for his or her work.

Websites do not have to be expensive. If you use a do-it-yourself host that provides pre-made elements and layouts to customize to your needs (as I do), a few hundred dollars a year will cover the basics; the rest depends on how much time you want to pour in and whether you want to hire any of the host's design services to polish things up further. If you want a professionally designed and fully customized site and lack the skills to do the work yourself, you may lay out several thousand for the work, depending on what bells and whistles you want to include, in addition to paying annual fees for hosting and for registration of your domain name.

At a minimum, an author website should meet some basic standards:

1) Is the domain name one that is reasonably easy to remember?

2) Is the site's basic layout attractive? While this is somewhat subjective, designs usually work best when they are uncluttered, focused on a single main theme, and using an easy-to-read font that is fairly high in contrast to the background.

3) Is the site easy to navigate? Do buttons and drop-down menus clearly indicate how content is organized? Are links clearly indicated and functional?

4) Are your most recent works up front? Is it easy to find information about earlier works on the site?

5) Do you have easily accessed space for sharing information with your readers about upcoming projects, appearances, and promotions?

6) Does each book have ordering information clearly shown? If you're not doing direct sales through your site, you do want people to know how to obtain your titles.

7) Does the website translate reasonably well to smartphones? Like it or not, that's a major means of access these days.

8) Does the website help your readers to make a personal connection to you? Whether or not you want them to be able to communicate with you directly is a personal choice, but does the website display something of who you are and what you are about? How about social media information?

I know a lot of this is going to seem pretty old-school to those who are digital natives, but for those of you working on a first book, there's no time like the present to start thinking about how you will present yourself online. And if you already have a website, this is as good a time as any to review it and see if it needs any tweaking to remain up-to-date and focused on your needs in communicating with your audience.

Happy writing!

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One Step at a Time

A Word About Websites

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