Now, however, my web site is obsolete. That woman has hair down to her shoulders. Like my head, my home page must now be reinvented. By me, since I'm my own web designer. So the appearance of the thing needs to change. I'm going to play around with different backgrounds, colors, fonts, and graphics for a while and see if I can come up with something I'm pleased with before I go completely blind. There are elements I won't change, though I might move them to a different place on the page. These are links to various sub-pages. A home page without these links isn't doing its job.
ABOUT (or Bio, or All About Kate, or whatever.) Clicking on this should take the viewer to a short bio, a long bio, and a head shot.
BLOG A link to kategallison.blogspot.com. Some writers run a journal on their home page. I like Blogger because it accepts comments and tracks page views.
SCHEDULE (or Appearances, or Public Appearances.) This links to a calendar or a list of signings, conferences, and lectures. That way folks will know when you'll be in town.
BOOKS (or Works.) Everything I ever wrote that made it into print, with pictures of covers and short descriptions.
MEDIA KIT This should link to a page full of classy, hi-res photos suitable for inclusion in newspaper articles and the cover of MYSTERY SCENE (I should live so long). Now I have to get new pictures taken. My hair is all cut off. Bummer. Maybe that's what they meant when they told me I was brave.
CONTACT This can bring up your email address, or show a page with your email address, your post office box if you have one, and your twitter handle. I'm thinking a post office box might be a neat idea in case fans want to send me gifts of jewelry or shoes. It's also useful for dealing with correspondence from convicts. If you want to do that.
You might also include a link to reviews, if you have a whole bunch of nice ones, a link to free stories and chapters, and a link to your book trailers. But the first six links I mentioned, or five links, if you don't keep a blog, are the most important.
It is also interesting to note that a page without text on it tends to be ignored by search engines. So put some text on your page. Kate Gallison – World's Greatest Writer. Something along those lines.
Anyway here goes. I'm going to shoot for something pretty.
Kate Gallison
