Unfortunately this post was not easy to write. Sadly many authors these days still don’t even have websites (Tom Clancy – where you at?) and those that do often have very poor ones built long ago using outdated code, tables and animated gifs (best-selling author Ken Follett has a pretty poor showing). However, as more and more authors realize how important a presence on the web is new author sites are being built, and they’re getting better. A great author website reflects the nature of the writer’s style, helps fans get to know the author better, provides an easy way for authors to connect to their audience, and remains easy to navigate.
If you are an author and you need a better website (one that would make this list) please contact me today. I can help you create a custom-designed site that is easy for you to update yourself. Let’s not let this industry wallow in 1998 any longer – its time for authors to embrace good web design!
For inspiration and to offer a bit of hope here are a few stand-out websites for authors I’ve found on the web:
Absolutely stunning site that makes great use of a minimal design approach and limited color scheme.
Blogs are great. They have the potential to help your business reach across the world, stand out from competition and develop a following for your brand. Writing a blog can help establish you and your business as an authority in your industry. They can help you communicate with a niche market, disseminate news quickly, and build community.
photo by Kristina B
There are considerable number of positives to business blogging. Don’t get me wrong in this article – I think most companies should have a blog. However, putting a blog on your site is not a quick fix; its not an automatic easy way guarantee that your traffic will boom and your website be a success. Blogs take time, energy, and more time. And because of this many blogs on business websites can actually hurt the business. Few things worse looking on a professional site than a blog with one post, or a blog that hasn’t been updated in months or years. So, take some time to think about if blogging is right for your business. My suggestion? Don’t start a new blog if: Read More »
Avatars on the internet are pretty cool. They let you provide a small picture to tell more about yourself on a certain blog, forum, or community website. But it can be a hassle to have to upload a new photo for each site that you want an image to appear. That’s where Gravatars come in. Gravatars are Globally Recognized Avatars and the idea is that you link your picture to your email address in one place and that avatar can be pulled into a variety of other websites.
You can get your own Gravatar really easily at www.Gravatar.com. Just enter your email address, confirm it when you get the welcome email, and upload your photo! It will then begin appearing when you enter your email address (usually required anyways) on a Gravatar-enabled website.
Here’s a video that does a good job explaining Gravatars:
I’ve been on vacation for a few days and seem to have missed the announcement that Google is releasing their own web browser. Its called Google Chrome and they’d like you to think its going to tip the browser world on its head.
Google hired the fantabulous comic book artist Scott McCloud to illustrate an online booklet describing the new browser. In typical the McCloud fashion the artwork is clean and simple, but with wonderful subtle elements. The booklet gets pretty technical, but is a great way to let people learn about this new product.
Kudos to Google, such a huge company, for using great design and illustration to promote themselves.
At Apt, we are always interested in websites that employ horizontal scrolling. Why? Horizontal scrolling is basically a huge no-no when it comes to web design. It is taught against in schools and railed against online. And for good reason, for the most part scrolling sideways is highly counterintuitive. At least online, where user experience is king and most people are accustomed to going down a page for information.
That makes it all the more beautiful when a website is created in a horizontal fashion and done well at the same time. Such is the case for a new website we found called How To Cook A Wolf. The site is for an (apparently) upscale restuarant in the Seattle area. Georgeous photographs, sparse type, and great layout make this site work. What makes it stand out is the navigation. Visitors have the old option of scrolling across with their scrollbar, but LookAtLao Studio has added JavaScript buttons that slide nicely to the sections of the site.
this is a great video introducing web 2.0. some people don’t believe in the idea of web 2.0, but we do and maybe you should to. but what is web 2.0? well, you can always wiki it , but this video is a fast (dizzingly fast) introduction to the idea. great graphics and music make it fun to watch.
the apt design blog will now begin shifting its focus to its real purpose – offering graphic and web design tips, tools, ideas and suggestions; as well as connecting you to other interesting websites.
our first topic – rss. Have you heard the term RSS but really have no idea what it is or how it may make your life easier? read on for a brief introduction.
RSS in its current incarnation stands for Real Simple Syndication. As the internet continues to evolve more and more emphasis is being placed on website’s content being updated often. this is especially true in the realm of blogs which may be updated multiple times daily. other examples of constantly updated content include news stories, sports scores, photo albums, and forums.
now, if you are interested in getting multiple streams of current content often you could quickly find yourself spending all day going from site to site to check for anything new. this is where rss comes into play and can save you enormous amounts of time. instead of going to find all of this information, you can make it all come to you!
the first step is to download an rss aggregator. one of the most popular is google reader, though there are a variety of free aggregators. some customized homepages like igoogle and myyahoo can also be aggregators.
after you have an aggregator you need to subscribe to a site’s rss feeds. you will often see the rss logo or a ‘subscribe’ link to click on. this will automatically notify your aggregator when the content you have subscribed to has been updated.
now instead of visiting multiple sites, you can just open your aggregator and it will let you see which of your subscriptions have been updated, as well as show you the new content. don’t worry, if you need to go directly to the page that was updated you can do so easily from your aggregator.
finally the best news – real simple syndication is all free! so go ahead and subscribe to this blog for updated tips, ideas, and links – just click the ‘subscribe’ button at the top of the blog page!
after you have an aggregator you need to subscribe to a site’s rss feeds. you will often see the rss logo or a ‘subscribe’ link to click on. this will automatically notify your aggregator when the content you have subscribed to has been updated.