Web Design and Project Management in Portland

So often the “next big thing” on the internet is associated with technology: Twitter, or Facebook, or WordPress. This sea change thinking can wash over more basic questions regarding content. Are we all now expected to have a blog because, well, blogs are where you demonstrate your knowledgeability? Or a Flickr account because we all own cameras?

There’s a lot of flailing around in the print publishing world, at first due to the fact that no one was buying books because they’re too busy with the internet, and now because they’re too busy on the internet to buy ebooks. Unless they’re writing for a popular blog, authors feel pretty lonely on the internet. An author website is as melancholy and homely as a kid’s lemonade stand.

With the print industry hemorrhaging, the lone author is left with a bevy of words and no clue what to do with them. Self publish, or seek small presses, or post online with Google adwords. All valid options, but I am inclined from experience to think that the author is best served by dissemination — getting eyes on the words — than by seeking some kind of gatekeeper or remunerative opportunity. The ugly truth is that no one wants to pay for an internet experience. Especially when it comes to text.

Yes, I said it: text. Not “poetry” or “prose” or “fiction” or “novella.” A user’s experience of your text is not fundamentally different from her experience on CNN.com. And your user is unlikely to have allotted a mountain of time to read your choicest words. They’ll absorb a few, and the context they’re in (blog, website, ebook), and then move on unless they are inspired.

Hey, that sucks! It was a herculean task to write all that crap. Indeed it was, but if you can be all right with the notion of very possibly not breaking into the NYT bestseller list, you can still appreciate an online publishing experience. I — and here I must emphasize the subjective — I believe that the context in which the story is presented makes a difference.

Writers often either hold their creations tight to their chest, or fling them out in hopes of finding a home. For a reader, finding a PDF on a writer’s blog is rather anti-climatic; it’s a blah presentation. However, if the story is given a real web home — and you know what this is — it takes on significance.

Build your story or book a website, either with a CMS like WordPress or with plain vanilla HTML. Make it graphically unique and enticing, and — let me emphasize this one — make it the final destination. Pretend it’s a book, from page one to three hundred, living at that website, presented as attractively and readable as possible. Refrain from cramming more stories onto the site. Don’t make the site about yourself, make it about the work and nothing else. If you are POD savvy, post a link (use an attractive cover graphic) to the POD version of the book. If you want to give folks the option to donate, make an understated donation button. But keep the focus on your story.

I bet we’ll see more and more of this approach as the world gets weirder.