# Boneman goes live!



## Boneman

I'm very aware that I'm treading a fine line between self-promotion (when I don't actually have anything to promote) and disseminating information, but here goes: 

I've noticed that a fair few agents ask you to put a link to your website, when you're pitching to them (if you have one), and when I was at Alt.Fiction, there was a consensus of opinion that writers need their own websites. This shows a) their talent and b) that they're serious about the mechanics of promoting their own work, above and beyond what the publisher can do. Somebody asked the panellists of published authors when was the best time to set up such a body of work, and they all agreed: right now. If you can get a website up and running before you're published, and have a following (even a small one) it will all help. Feedback from strangers, if you place some of your own work there, can be even better.

Our Host, I,Brian, said this in 2006: http://www.sffchronicles.co.uk/forum/9885-how-to-market-your-book-online.html 

So with a lot of time and a reasonable outlay to a professional designer, I've gone and done it. I haven't posted any of my own work for critiquing in ages, but the openings of my two wips (the first books of two separate triliogies) can be seen here: www.jscottmarryat.com I'm even blogging... It's early days, and I'm sure I'll be able to post photos, videos and all kinds of links as I become familiar with it. Note the obvious pluglink to the SFF Chronicles on the home page...

Feel free to post any comments, send me links to your work etc etc - luckily, I have to approve them before they're posted on the site, so hopefully should be protected from the worst excesses that have been spoken of in other threads here!


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## Perpetual Man

Just had a quick look (I'm meant to be uhhh working), but was rather impressed BM.

I thought the bookcase was wonderful, especially the two books hidden on it!

The rest seems to work perfectly, and was subtly ensnaring, what was meant to be a quick look turned into something a little bit longer. 

I shall head back later...


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## Dozmonic

I have scripting and flash disabled on all new sites by default and thought it was a plain text based site, until I saw a little flash thing in the corner. Enabled it and BAM  Tell your designers they've done well to enable content even on non-flash enabled browsers


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## Boneman

I will. I did. She was reet chuffed.


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## Ian Whates

Nice looking site, Boneman!


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## chopper

good one, sir! and good luck with them angry robots!


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## Mouse

Very professional looking, tis really good! I like your book covers too! 

I had my own website, but just got rid of it recently as I could never get it to look how I wanted (I've got a web design qualification, but it's basic HTML. Not easy making a site with that!) so now I just direct my domain name to my blog.


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## Boneman

Thank you all. I claim very little credit, except the written bits - spent three hours with the web designer and she came up with virtually everything!


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## Teresa Edgerton

For some reason, I can't get anything but the first page (which is awesome) to load.


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## alchemist

No photograph of the author? It's the main reason I usually look at these sites. 

Otherwise, nice look to it, good luck with it, and enjoy the trip!


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## Droflet

I think there's a huge amount of muscle on those bare bones. Nicely done. Good luck with it.


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## Parson

Great site boneman. I hope it puts you over the top in publishing.


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## Boneman

alchemist said:


> No photograph of the author? It's the main reason I usually look at these sites.
> 
> Otherwise, nice look to it, good luck with it, and enjoy the trip!


 

Listen, I had trouble loading a photo onto the chrons a year ago... but I'm sitting down with my designer next week to go over all these things, so hopefully all that will change. I really want to load photos from the trip - especially the one of me with Patrick Rothfuss at the WorldCon... 

Thanks all, for the compliments and wishes. Teresa, no idea why you can't get all the goodies, I've just checked it at this end, and it's all loading okay.


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## Erin99

Congrats, Boneman! I've had a look, too, and I'm impressed. Here's a few of my thoughts, in case you find them useful:

I LOVE the look of the site, and the chair background is very comforting and stylish.

I also love the covers for your books, particularly the world/gateway one.

Get you page titles to have better keywords, which helps search engines find and rank your pages. Right now your home page just says "Home" - when it could say "The Official Home of SF/F Author J Scott-Marryat" or "The Official Home of Fantasy and Sci-Fi Author Blah Blah", or some such.

I agree with alchemist - you should have an author photo. It struck me as odd that you didn't. I hope you and your designer manage it! You could even sign up for a Photobucket account and just copy and paste your uploaded photos' html tags into your blog. It's a very easy way to get pics, that way!

My netbook was having some issues with loading any page other than the home, but that's because it was struggling for memory since it's not a top-spec machine. I would put my mouse over your links and no link cursor would show, so there was nothing to click on. I solved it by restarting my machine, closing any unneeded programs, and using a less rescource-hogging browser to view the site.

I'm afraid I couldn't look at your sample pages because they're white text on a black background, and one thing I suffer from is that my eyes hurt when reading this, and when  I turn away from the page, my vision is covered in odd-coloured lines of text for quite some time afterward...  I tried to read all your Biography, though.

I can't wait for the rest of the bookshelf to have links in! Imagine when most of those books are covered in links! (I have a similar thing in my website, where I have Flash links over an image of a bookshelf, which brings up pages about my work.)

I'd recommend gtting rid of your test comments and test post, to make the site look more professional. And this next tip may or may not work (I've not done a blog myself), but you could try adding links by using the official html code for them, if your blog uses html tags; e.g.:

<a href="http://www.your-site-link.com">Click here for a great site!</a> (Which displays text that's clickable and takes you to a site.)

Or:

<a href="http://www.your-great-site.com">http://www.your-great-site.com</a> (Which displays just your link as a link.)

You can even set the link to open in a new window:

<a href="http://www.your-site-link.com" *target="_blank"*>Here' a great site to look at!</a>

Hope some of this is useful to you!


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## HareBrain

Leisha said:


> I'm afraid I couldn't look at your sample pages because they're white text on a black background, and one thing I suffer from is that my eyes hurt when reading this, and when I turn away from the page, my vision is covered in odd-coloured lines of text for quite some time afterward...  I tried to read all your Biography, though.


 
Leisha, I have exactly this problem too, and it's caused me to abandon some of my favourite sites in recent years such as RPGFan, or at least not read so much on them. I found the problem was helped somewhat by using a reading prescription when using the PC, but you're probably too young for that. I don't know how common this problem with white-on-black is, but I assume it's not _un_common, so Boneman, get onto it.

Apart from that, very stylish, though I think you ought to be able to play with the chess-set, read the books on the shelves, creak the leather of the chairs etc. This is the age of interactivity after all.


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## mithril

Very professional looking site  Good luck for netting the perfect agent and publisher... My only crib would be that to me the white text over black background for the writings might be easier to read in maybe a different font.. or maybe with a slightly larger size.. Dunno.. just a thought 

Congrats on the site again.. loved the cozy armchairs and the bookshelves


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## Erin99

HareBrain said:


> Leisha, I have exactly this problem too, and it's caused me to abandon some of my favourite sites in recent years such as RPGFan, or at least not read so much on them. I found the problem was helped somewhat by using a reading prescription when using the PC, but you're probably too young for that. I don't know how common this problem with white-on-black is, but I assume it's not _un_common, so Boneman, get onto it.
> 
> Apart from that, very stylish, though I think you ought to be able to play with the chess-set, read the books on the shelves, creak the leather of the chairs etc. This is the age of interactivity after all.



Wow!!! HareBain, thank you! I didn't know I'd find someone like me! I wondered if it was a symptoms of my CFS (cos I have other vision problems from it), but perhaps it's just that some people have what we have... Which makes me feel better about it. 

I think I will ask the optician next time I go.

And yes! Completely agree with what you say about the age of interactivity. when I designed my site, one of the reasons I chose to do it in Flash was because if the interactivity it allows. For me, JK Rowling's site will always be a benchmark, because I remember it was unique for that at the time, and I found it amazing.

So I designed all sorts on my site (which was fun!), like you could tap on a fish tank and a fish would pop out the reeds and look at you, or you could click on a cat and have her purr or meow at you, or you could pick up a feather and tickle a little stick man on the homepage with it, etc.


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## HareBrain

Leisha said:


> Wow!!! HareBain, thank you! I didn't know I'd find someone like me! I wondered if it was a symptoms of my CFS (cos I have other vision problems from it), but perhaps it's just that some people have what we have... Which makes me feel better about it.
> 
> I think I will ask the optician next time I go.


 
I think it is related to tiredness. In my case, my eyes were getting tired because I was using the screen a lot and my eyes were having to work harder because I needed a reading prescription (pretty standard once you hit 40, I gather), which is why it helped. I guess someone with CFS would get tired eyes much more easily anyway.



> And yes! Completely agree with what you say about the age of interactivity. when I designed my site, one of the reasons I chose to do it in Flash was because if the interactivity it allows. For me, JK Rowling's site will always be a benchmark, because I remember it was unique for that at the time, and I found it amazing.
> 
> So I designed all sorts on my site (which was fun!), like you could tap on a fish tank and a fish would pop out the reeds and look at you, or you could click on a cat and have her purr or meow at you, or you could pick up a feather and tickle a little stick man on the homepage with it, etc.


 
I was half-joking about the interactivity, but I admit I did run my cursor over Boneman's homepage to see if it "picked up" anything, as though in an adventure game. What you've done with yours sounds great. When I get round to doing mine, I'd like to have stuff like that.


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## Boneman

The colour background is something that will be addressed next week with the designer, as I'm experimenting with it at the moment. But thanks both for the input. I'm hoping to have more flash bits inserted as time goes by...


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## Devil's Advocate

I like how you brag on the first page about being the inaugural winner of the Chrons' 75- and 300-word challenges. Rub it in our faces, why doncha..?

On a serious note, congrats on the site. It looks excellent. I'm just heading out so haven't had the time to really explore the contents, but I'll be sure to do so later.


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## Gary Compton

Boneman said:


> The colour background is something that will be addressed next week with the designer, as I'm experimenting with it at the moment. But thanks both for the input. I'm hoping to have more flash bits inserted as time goes by...



Why not have links built into books that go to the 75 word, and 300 word winning stories. Please don't mention bottoms though. 

Maybe a secret comartment of books that when clicked, open to your about me page.

What about  a magazine lying on the chair - click it and it takes you to a page about the online magazine you edit.

I don't agree with Bryan on PhPBB forum's which are free. If you set them up properly, they are fine. In fairness to IB, it was way back when he made his comment. They have come on alot since then.

I have both PhBB and MyBB, and I have them sorted against spammers now!!

Like Leisha says, have a look at JKR's site and tailor yours so its busy with links.


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## Boneman

Links to the stories themselves would make a lot of sense, wouldn't it? I actually looked at Dan Brown's site, and really liked his bookcase. Something to aspire to, and hopefully, it will evolve... I figured clicking on the light might be cool to go to me... Since I bought the photo rights I can do what I like with it, and my designer will guide me - she knows what she is talking about, and besides, she is definitely way cooler than me. And more fragrant. (Alison, if you read this, let me know what that perfume is, will you?)


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## Gary Compton

Boneman said:


> Links to the stories themselves would make a lot of sense, wouldn't it? I actually looked at Dan Brown's site, and really liked his bookcase. Something to aspire to, and hopefully, it will evolve... I figured clicking on the light might be cool to go to me... Since I bought the photo rights I can do what I like with it, and my designer will guide me - she knows what she is talking about, and besides, she is definitely way cooler than me. And more fragrant. (Alison, if you read this, let me know what that perfume is, will you?)



Fragrant, you never mentioned that.

I would say develop the bookcase to all your stories. Your proud of them so why not and you got more votes than me.

Fill it full of you - biography, aspirations, CV, loves, hates, footy club. Favorite food, drink, latest news, blog etc etc. 

Make it 1000% interactive.

In fairness I struggled to find the two books but if there had been more links I would've persevered


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## Boneman

Thanks Gary. Doesn't it say 'Books' at the bottom of the home page? Or are you saying the ones on the bookcase? All these suggestions are great, and will help shape it so much. thanks everyone!


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## Gary Compton

No clicking the books on the bookcase. Me being thick as a castle wall; I struggled to find them. 

Only did after reading about the flash did I spot them


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## Gary Compton

Boneman said:


> I figured clicking on the light might be cool to go to me...



What about clicking on the light and you get your latest inspiration/story/novel page.

It's as easy as flicking a switch they say


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## Vertigo

I'd agree with both the above - love the whole look and feel, but it is very common for people to have problems reading white text on a black background. This is why computers moved away from white on black as quickly as they could. I reckon you could quite easily retain the black background and the overall effect but put the text in a white "page" that still has the black background around it. Bear in mind that although a black background gives a very dramatic effect, you actually see very few website built that way, for exactly this reason, other than photographer sites where the black typically frames their photos well.


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