Good indie books and good indie authors are hard to find. I decided to make it easier.
Category: webmaster, website design
I Was Naughty Today …and Nice (I Guess) :D
So I have this friend, and this friend’s website, which I threw together under emergency, “has-to-be-live-now” conditions, custom coding it in, quite literally, hours a few years back, NEEDS to be upgraded. …Because it’s going to fail soon. But this friend is very particular, so it’s very hard to get a semi-solid “this is what I envision” from them. I had a couple of “Dawn” ideas, but nothing I “knew” would gather any sort of approval. So I pulled a “sneaky” based on a mere passing mention that was made of another friend’s site, something I knew was built on bad coding, but that I knew I could hand-code myself if need be.
Now here comes the “sneaky/naughty” part:
First I displayed a site laid out much as the one already in place. After a couple of hours of working through this friend’s critique of it on the phone, I switched to a rough I’d coded on another design scheme, and, as I anticipated, this was definitive “no”. So then I pulled up a raw, stripped version of something I thought might be kinda sorta cool–good for cross compatibility (responsive-to-all-devices/mobile-first) yet allowed for a really professional presence that didn’t get ‘old’ to the eye or the brain. And it worked. This one is a go. …At least so far. We’ll see how this all works out after I get done custom coding it all out, then dressing it with content. My fingers and toes are all crossed. This is supposed to be a Christmas present for them to be launched with the advent of the new year. Wish me luck.
The Trans-Dimensional Shift Machine Let Loose
8 Months Research, a Breakthrough, So It’s Build Time
Back in January, 2016, I quit publishing. I had book #3 of the Country James series ready to throw to my editor and was pounding out the final manuscript of E. J.’s Come-Back Road, the second book of a planned three book series covering the life of one Dr. Warren Jeffries, DVM that started with Old Hickory Lane. I quit because I got a good solid look at the piracy numbers of just one of my titles. Then, I got the rest of the numbers, too. 
Throughout 2016 and 2017, I published nothing. And I was pretty darned sure that I would never publish another novel, not until piracy could be defeated (Ha! Dream on. Did a year of research on that and found no good solution.) Then I met author Laura Belgrave, mystery/crime author of the Claudia Hershey Mystery series. Like a drip of water that slowly wears away stone, Laura got my rock hard petulance worn down bit by bit. It took her until January of this year. Then, once again, I began to research.
I’ve got a very interesting brain. It works at its own pace, and, usually, that pace is quite fast. Not this time. I kept shoving data in, but got back …silence. I shoveled in more data. Then more again. Still silence. Eight solid months inputting more and more data; eight solid months of dead silence. …Until last week, when, like gears finally starting to move once the penetrating oil does its job or like one of those strange flowers that takes months to form, then bursts open into full bloom all at once, the whole evaluation and conclusion precipitated from subliminal simmering into fully served answer.
So I tried it.
And it worked.
Now, I’m scurrying about, pulling out projects I built, then mothballed as unworkable, and all the pieces are hanging together quite nicely.
I’ll keep you posted on progress as I work through all the various branches of the project’s build. See you on the other side.
Site Updates and Upgrades in Progress
Yeah. I know. It’s about time, huh! So, I’m working on EJRuek.com and CountryJames.com, then it will be DLKeur.com right after. Then, I’ll see about revitalizing Aeros’ site. Meanwhile, I did release another E. J. Ruek book. I just never got around to posting it up here on this, my main website. It’s titled Slightly Disturbing Stories and those folks who’ve read it seem to really, really like it.
Don’t.
Dear Website Owners Selling Something I May Decide to Try,
Don’t:
- hide your pricing;
- hit me with a persistent pop-up window requiring me to create an account, login with my Facebook account, join your mailing list, and/or anything demanding I share with you any contact information or identity information, forbidding me from exploring your products and/or services unless and/or until I do.
Do:
- prominently display the benefits of your goods or services and the cost of those goods and/or services;
- allow me to decide if I want to create an account and share my identity and contact information with you once and only if I decide to buy.
Your job and your website’s job is to convince me that you’re trustworthy, dependable, offer a worthy product and/or service. Hiding your pricing and terms of service, blocking me from information about your products and/or services unless I jump through hoops to get there is a sure way to lose me as a potential customer.