Today I’m over on Jane Friedman’s wonderful blog talking about why design is such a big, big deal for blogs and websites. If you’re just starting to build your platform, or want to take your work to the next level, you’ve GOT to make it look appealing. Design is your brand, and you only have about 10 seconds to win over someone who wanders through your online home. (According to #science, no one has an attention span anymore…) Click here to read about the 7 things you need need on your site to make a strong first impression.
And while you’re there, poke around Jane’s blog–it’s full of fantastic resources for aspiring authors, creatives, and entrepreneurs. I think you’ll find it bookmark-worthy.
Related Posts
If Querying Isn’t Working for You: Troubleshooting & Resources
Read, Eat, Drink: Author Websites, Pasta Roundup, and The Minimum Sage Cocktail
3 Common Mistakes on Indie Book Covers
Read, Eat, Drink: William Zinsser on Nonfiction and a Wild Feast
Should You Self-Publish or Traditionally Publish? The One Thing That Matters.
2 Types of Flawed Thinking That Are Getting in the Way of Landing a Book Deal
Hi Maria,
Just wanted to say I saw this post on Jane Friedman’s site and loved it; shared it on my Google+, etc. as well. Very informative and so true-I’ve seen many other authors’ blogs that either really caught my attention with their beauty/voice/tone or…well..didn’t. I think it can be intimidating to try to tackle a professional blog/website without much graphic design experience (I know for me it was terrifying to try using WordPress) but there are some great templates out there like Weebly-what I use-that are user-friendly but still give the author an ability to create a visually-striking, evocative site.
I went through your list and THANKFULLY think I managed to hit all the buttons with the site I’ve created a few months back, but still really appreciated your insight.
Gorgeous site by the way. Take care and looking forward to seeing more posts!
Thanks so much, Ashley! And I know what you mean–building from scratch on WordPress can be so tough, so it helps a lot to find user-friendly templates. Your site looks great, by the way! 🙂