Hiring the Right Web Designer

Many years ago I was a website designer/developer. Nowadays, I leave the website designing to other folks, but when I read Jane Friedman’s blog post about what to look for in a web designer I knew I had share with you. Her questions are spot on.

My advice: pay special attention to #6.

1. How long have you been designing websites?
If someone has been creating websites for awhile, there’s a good chance that they will be around for the long haul. Being in business a long time is not enough to prove they’re competent and reliable, but it’s a start.

2. Can I see your portfolio?
Looking at someone’s portfolio can provide you with a lot of information. You should be looking for a few things.

- Do you like their design style? It’s important that you like their style, because the design they do for you will probably have a similar style.
- Do their sites function well?
- Are their sites easy to get around? Is there a lot of clutter, or is it clear how to find what you’re looking for?

3. Are you primarily a designer, programmer, or both?
Some people can create a beautiful design as well as expertly code your site. But most people excel at one or the other. In some cases, you only need one set of skills. Make sure your web designer has whatever skills are needed to get the job done right.

4. Can we meet and talk (virtually or in person)?
Creating a website is a joint effort between you and the designer. You will be having a lot of conversations over the course of the project, and it’s important that you can communicate well with each other and that you are comfortable with their communication style. The only way to get a sense of that is to have a conversation.

5. Will we sign a contract?
Verbal agreements are not enough. You should receive written documentation that spells out the scope of the project. You should know exactly what you’re getting and how much it’s going to cost. This protects both you and the web designer, and is essential for preventing misunderstandings. If the designer is billing by the hour, you should be given an estimate along with some agreement as to what happens if the process takes longer than the estimate.

6. How are website updates handled?
It used to be that you had to hire your website designer to update your site for even the smallest changes, unless it was built with an expensive proprietary content management system. A content management system, or CMS, allows you to update your site without knowing any code or programming languages. These days there are a number of free systems that nearly anyone can use without special knowledge, such as WordPress, Joomla, and Drupal. Of these systems, WordPress is the easiest to use. If you want to update your site yourself, ask your website designer if they use WordPress or another content management system.

7. Who owns my site after it’s completed and paid for?
You should have full ownership of your website. Make sure you get all of your login information so that if somewhere down the line your website designer is no longer in business, you have access to your site.

Some companies build their websites with proprietary software. This may work well while you are hosted with them, but you will not be able to move your site anywhere else, since it needs the proprietary software to run.

WordPress is a very popular platform, so I recommend using it if at all possible. If you want to move your site or change website designers, you’ll have no trouble finding someone else who can take over.

Read the rest of Jane's article here: How to Hire the Right Website Designer

Joe Konrath releases his sales numbers

Joe Konrath broke his hiatus to, among other things, release some of his sales figures. I was amazed.

Joe writes:

Here are my latest royalty statement figures for my six Hyperion titles and my Hachette title, for Jan 1 - June 30, 2011. Paper sales are hardcover and mass market combined.

Whiskey Sour paper sales: $1450.00
Whiskey Sour ebook sales: $5395.00

Bloody Mary paper sales: $463.00
Bloody Mary ebook sales: $2591.00

Rusty Nail paper sales: $226.00
Rusty Nail ebook sales: $3220.00

Dirty Martini paper sales: $415.00
Dirty Martini ebook sales: $3370.00

Fuzzy Navel paper sales: $485.00
Fuzzy Navel ebook sales: $3110.00

Cherry Bomb paper sales: $224.00
Cherry Bomb ebook sales: $3864.00

Afraid paper sales: $1608.00
Afraid ebook sales: $12,158.00

My jaw made a popping sound as it hit my desk. I had no idea that writers could make that kind of money from ebooks compared to print.
You can read the rest of Joe's article here: Guest Post by Lee Goldberg (and Konrath talks numbers)

To Writers: The benefits of living with a cat

The title of this post should be: The benefits of a cat allowing you to live with him/her.

Muriel Spark writes:

If you want to concentrate deeply on some problem, and especially some piece of writing or paper-work, you should acquire a cat. Alone with the cat in the room where you work ... the cat will invariably get up on your desk and settle placidly under the desk lamp. The light from a lamp ... gives a cat great satisfaction. The cat will settle down and be serene, with a serenity that passes all understanding. And the tranquility of the cat will gradually come to affect you, sitting there at your desk, so that all the excitable qualities that impede your concentration compose themselves and give your mind back the self-command it has lost. You need not watch the cat all the time. Its presence alone is enough. The effect of a cat on your concentration is remarkable, very mysterious.
- Writing Advice From History's Fastest, Most Prolific Authors

So there you have it. The tranquility of a cat will help inspire you and improve your productivity. Sounds good! Honestly, though, my two cats are better at putting me to sleep. Especially when I sit down on the couch, notepad in hand, and they decide to climb on my lap. I start petting them and, the next thing I know, I've been asleep for an hour!

Perhaps, though, you'll have success with this method. It's something worth trying.

Six reasons to keep writing

I woke up today and didn't want to write. I wanted to do anything but write. I felt, What's the use, it's never been a happen, I'm never going to be able to earn a significant portion of my living from my writing. But I know with that sort of attitude only one thing is guaranteed: I'm guaranteed to fail. So I wrote this blog post with myself in mind.

1. You owe it to yourself.

If earning your living from writing is your dream, the only way your dream is going to come true is if you keep at it. There's only one person who can make your dream come true: You. Remember, if this were easy then everyone would be doing it. There's a reason they're not.

2. If you try you will succeed.

I'm not saying that if you try you'll get rich, or that you try you will be able to earn enough money from your writing to quit your day job – that would be nice, though! What will happen is that you won't have given up on your dream and, yes this sounds corny, but that's success. You'll be a writer. There's a reason why the phrase, 'starving writer,' trips off the tongue so easily.

3. If you don't try, you'll always wonder, 'what if?'

They say that at the end of life as you look back at what you've done, what you've accomplished, you don't regret the things you did, you regret the things you didn't do. I don't know if that's true, but it sounds right to me.

4. It's a marathon, not a sprint

You've heard this one before. Personally, I think it's like a series of triathlons!

5. Variety is the spice of life

When you get bored, try something new. Something I'm trying out is Dragon NaturallySpeaking. I hadn't heard about this software until a couple of weeks ago when I came across a number of author blogs talking about the fantastic results they had been getting with it. (No, this is not advertisement for Dragon NaturallySpeaking!)

When I picked up the software last week, I thought that this might be a way of getting another half hour per day to write. It takes me 15 minutes to walk to work, but if I could use a digital recorder to dictate parts of my story, perhaps even a blog post, I could squeeze another 30 from the day.

I haven't tried that yet, but something unexpected has happened. This new way of writing – perhaps I can't, or shouldn't, call this writing; perhaps I should call it speaking – has made the words come easier, has reinvigorated me.

One thing Dragon NaturallySpeaking had been excellent for is transcribing my longhand notes. Often when I get an idea for a story I write it out longhand and these notes can run to hundreds of pages! Over the past few days I have been faced with the task of typing in about 50 or 60 pages of notes, something that takes me a long time to do. Last night, using Dragon, I transcribed the lion share of my notes in about half an hour! Perhaps it's the novelty that made it seem effortless – and fun! – But it seemed to go much faster, and I'm a fast typist.

6. Bribery works

I love books, especially journals. New journals. Over my lifetime I've filled bookcases with journals covered in my scribbling. (And, no, I'm not a serial killer!) For me, if I need special motivation, I tell myself, "Self, all you need to do is fill up this journal and you can buy yourself a new one." And, believe it or not this often works.

Okay, I don't know about you, but it's NaNoWriMo time and I'm all fired up to write! Talk to you tomorrow. :)

(PS: I wrote this post using Dragon NaturallySpeaking.)

I'm Listed on Technorati.com!

I don't know why I'm so thrilled by seeing my blog listed on Technorati.com, but I am! I have a tiny, tiny authority of 109 (authority measures a site's standing & influence in the blogosphere and is a number from 1 to 1000, 1000 being most influential), but that's okay.

I would encourage anyone with a blog to list it with Technorati.com. The process is quick and painless and, somehow, very rewarding. Here's how you go about it.

For anyone who is curious, I haven't noticed a significant increase in traffic to my site (technorati is a search engine for blogs) but I just got listed, so who knows?

10 Excuses That Prevent You From Ever Becoming Great

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We all make excuses, excuses that keep us from doing those things we want to do, perhaps even those things we <i>need</i> to do.

Reaching for our dreams is risky because, to achieve them, we would have to make ourselves vulnerable.

Each of us has a special fear, but a big one for writers is rejection, having agents and editors -- and, ultimately the reading public -- tell us our writing is dreadful and our ideas unworthy of the hard drive space they're stored in.

Let's identify the excuses we use and ditch them.

(The following list was made by Tommy Walker, see below.)

1. You can’t afford to take a risk right now.

If not now, then when?

This excuse is fear of the unknown.

The reality is, you can’t afford <i>not</i> to take a risk right now.

If an idea really benefits people, pulling on the reigns doesn’t just inhibit your progress…it prevents people from improving their lives.

2. Someone else is already doing it.

Which came first, Copyblogger or Problogger? Dyson or Hoover? Groupon or LivingSocial?

Does it matter?

Not really.

3. You don’t know where to begin.

The human brain isn’t designed to process information in a linear fashion.

This is why when you dream, it doesn’t start “at the beginning” and you only remember how the dream ended, but never how it began.

If you’re looking to pick up a new skill, usually “the beginning” will make itself apparent, regardless of where you start.

Even better, because the way you process information is unique to you, your “starting point” could help you form a very unique perspective that people love.

Also consider the other people who “don’t know where to begin.”

By simply picking a place and chronicling your journey, you can inspire others to learn with you.

4. You’re afraid of what your colleagues will say.

Peer validation is rarely the deciding factor in any entrepreneurial story worth hearing.

If you’re concerned with what your industry peers will think, don’t worry about it.

Sometimes disruption is exactly what your peers need.

5. Nobody will buy.

If people will buy the “Pet Rock” people will buy what you’re selling.

You just have to figure out how to position yourself, and why they need you.

6. You haven’t done it before.

This is my favorite excuse, because it’s such a cop out.

Let’s look at some of the common milestones in your life that you got through just fine

- You went to school (hadn’t done that before)
- Had your first kiss (hadn’t done that before)
- Learned to drive a car
- Took up a new hobby
- Learned to read

Or really anything beyond lying on your back and flailing your limbs uncontrollably.

You hadn’t done anything before you did it. It’s simple, but it’s true.

This excuse is rooted in fear of the unknown.

Now it’s perfectly fine to be afraid, but “inexperience” is by far one of the worst excuses.

Life is built on a series of “firsts” and making the choice to limit your experiences only leads to dissatisfaction.

7. You’ll get to it later.

No you won’t. You never do.

Get to it now, or at least schedule it to get done.

Then do it.

You’ll be a lot more satisfied when you’re finished.

8. You don’t want to be boring.

What’s boring to some is addictive to others.

People process information differently. If you skew towards boring it’s entirely possible to still find the right audience.

However if you skew towards boring, and you don’t want to, find <a href="http://www.copyblogger.com/how-to-be-interesting/">ways to become more interesting</a>.

Take an improv class, do some live Q&A’s, go bungee jumping… spice it up.

9. If you can’t get it right the first time, why bother trying?

Perfection is a myth.

Nobody actually “does it right”. That’s why there are so many grocery stores, soda brands, religions, and blogs.

It’s not about “doing it right” so much as it is doing it to the best of your ability.

Giving it everything you’ve got, regardless of the outcome, that’s the only way to do it right.

10. Failure would destroy you.

Anyone who’s ever “made it” will tell you they’ve failed more times than they’ve succeeded.

Being destroyed by failure is a choice; the choice is to quit.

If you fail, fail.

Give it everything you’ve got, and let it become a disaster.

Watch it burn.Let it destroy you.

Then recoup, learn from your mistakes, and rise from the ashes.

Failure never completely destroys you, only the parts that weren’t doing you any good.

With every catastrophic failure, hindsight allows you to see where you went wrong.

When you rebuild, you’re that much closer to perfecting the system.

This list of 10 was taken from Tommy Walker's article, 106 Excuses That Prevent You From Ever Becoming Great.

Excuse number 7 is one I use all the time. Today I'm not going to procrastinate, I'm doing it now. (I don't quite know what I'm doing, but whatever it is, I'm doing it now! ;)

Do you have a 'favorite' excuse, one that keeps you from achieving the things you dream about?

Seth Godin: Free Wins

Seth Godin is a new discovery of mine. I had heard his name for years and kept meaning to look him up on the net, but never got around to it. Then a friend of mine said, "Yea, I love Seth Godin's blog, you should read it, I think you'd like it".

So I did.

He opened up my mind to a new way of thinking about community, about what it means to be part of a group, a tribe.

I discovered this video Seth Godin made and want to share it. In it he talks about his book, Unleashing The Idea Virus, and says:

Ideas that are free spread faster and ideas that spread, win.

So, free ideas win.

You might be thinking, yea, sure, you can say anything, what is he giving away for free? For starters, he's giving way Unleashing The Idea Virus as an ebook. You can get it from his site, here.

Here's a video where he talks about how he came up with these ideas:

Social Media: StumbleUpon: It works!

Derek Haines loves StubleUpon and here's why:

My blog completely froze and gave me a ‘Page Cannot Be Loaded’ message. So off I went on an immediate hunt to find out why. It took me some time because I was looking in all the wrong places, and even if I had an inkling of the problem I wouldn’t have known how to go about remedying it anyway. Therefore I didn’t find the problem and decided to try another alternative. Wait half an hour and see what happened.

During that half an hour I popped into Stumbleupon by sheer chance. There at the top of my page was my problem. My server had been hit by over 1,500 visitors in less than fifteen minutes. Yes, from Stumbleupon. As my site is on a very normal everyday type server, this was a bit too much for it to handle. But what a nice problem to have.

Read the entire article over at Derek Haines' blog, The Vandal: Blogging -- The Stumbleupon Effect.

Lately I have been studying ways to drive traffic to my blog but hadn't seriously considered StumbleUpon and, if not for Derek's article, likely wouldn't have for quite some time. Thanks Derek! I think that reading other writer's blog posts is the most useful thing I do all day.

Another site that is worth checking out, if you haven't already, is reddit.com. I mentioned fark.com to someone the other day and they rolled their eyes at me.

"No one reads Fark anymore," they said with pitying condescension.

We'll see about that! I thought and marched home where I compared reddit.com to fark.com using Google Trends.

They were right! Well, not completely right, as you can see reddit.com is trending down as well, but, nevertheless, I was surprised by the result and learnt something.

My goal for the day is going to be to learn more about StumbleUpon.

SiWC 2011: Getting started and Heading in the 'write' direction, by Robert Dugoni

Here are more of my SiWC notes, these are from day two, Saturday. I've mentioned Robert Dugoni before, but I don't think I've been able to communicate ... well, how inspirational his workshops (and keynotes!) are. Every time I walk away from a talk he's given I feel: Yes, I can do this!. If any of you ever have the opportunity to hear him talk, I recommend it.

My apologies in advance for the fractured nature of these notes. I repeat certain tips and the notes themselves are less organized than I'd like. My instinct is to tuck this post away until I have time to do it properly, but I know that's not going to happen, especially not during NaNo! So here my notes are, in all their imperfection.

What is the primary purpose of the novel? It is to entertain.

Your CHARACTERS entertain, NOT the author. If author tries to entertain then the story stops.

1. Backstory
Sometimes there is the temptation for the author to say, yes, we'll get to the story, but let me tell you about this first. You need to weave the backstory into the story.

2. Too much description
Sometimes there is the temptation to stop the story and describe a character. You don't have to describe a character unless it is important to the story.

AN EXCEPTION: If something is a marker, then you need to describe it. For example, if your character is wearing a Channel dress, that's a marker. If your character pulls up in a hummer rather than a VW, that's a marker. If it isn't a marker, then you don't need it. Most readers don't care. If it isn't really important don't stop the story to describe it. Also could sprinkle description throughout the book. Give us the description as it becomes important to character.

Have character moving and talking as you give the description.

RESEARCH: It is important if its important to the characters.

Be careful about giving your characters your personal opinions. Guard against your own attitudes and beliefs bleeding through to the character where it isn't appropriate.

Ask yourself: Are the characters entertaining or am I intruding into the story? The best authors are internal to the story.

Journeys
Your story is really the journey of your characters. The physical journey they take is the plot.

Emotional journey. Emotions get people, and your characters, to do things. Emotions give motivation. Basic human needs. Love, greed, protection.

Most books are about basic things.
- To win (a game) ( a contest) (the love of another)
- To stop (the world ending) (the abuse)
- To escape (a bad situation)
- To retrieve something (think Indiana Jones)
- To destroy something (Lord of the Rings)
- To save something or someone

Right now, write down the physical journey your character is on. What is their motivation for doing it?

Good. Now write down the emotional journey your character is on. What is his or her motivation for doing it.

Raising the stakes
Don Maass' books are great. Read them.
- How would you raise the stakes? You have a victim, how are you going to raise the stakes? How about revealing that the victim is the hero's brother? That's one way of doing it.

The hero has to care. What happens if the hero fails in reaching the goal? Raising the stakes means making the hero lose more, makes the loss more painful and less likely that the hero can recover. Make the goal more personal to the hero, that's how you raise the stakes.

Your goal is to establish the TONE of the book early. Each kind of book is going to have a different tone that will cure the reader that the books is, for example, a mystery, or a thriller, or a romance, etc.

Early on, introduce who the story is about, your readers need to meet the protagonist.

Also, you need to introduce the story problem early on. For instance, in the Lord of the Rings, the story problem is that the hero needs to take this ring a destroy it. Give your readers the story problem at the beginning of your story.

Hooking the reader
Classic openings in literature:
a. Everyday hero. Their everyday life. If your hero is a housewife, you see her going about her day, if your hero is a trial lawyer, you see them arguing a case, etc.
b. Action scene. The hero in action.
c. Emotional scene. Outside action opening. Da Vinci Code. Don't start with the hero. Start with the killing.
d. Prologue. Start in a time or place different from the rest of the book.
e. Flashback opening. Water for elephants. Take scene from the book and put it at the beginning. Like a scene out of sequence.

Warning: Readers don't like prologues. If you absolutely must have a prologue, call it chapter one.

Remember to write scenes where you use all your senses.

Some people say never start a book with your hero on a plane, train or in a car. Why? Because it's a static environment. It is difficult to have action or dialogue. You will be tempted to have your character thinking and thinking and thinking. That's not very interesting.

Goal
Your hero must have a goal. For instance, let's say that your hero can't be late or she'll be fired, but she also HAS to have her morning coffee. She peers into the coffee shop, there's no line up! She rushes inside and an elderly lady steps in front of her and she takes forever to order. The elderly lady is an obstacle that creates suspense.

Okay, so now your hero is late for work. She goes to the office. Her boss isn't there. She looks down the hall, but her boss isn't there either. Perhaps she'll be able to make it to her office and her boss will never know she was late! Her hero walks into her office and there's her boss, standing in her office.

How, should the boss say, "You're fired!"? No, at least, not until the next chapter. You need to keep the story moving forward.

Chapter Breaks
One thing you should ask yourself is: Does this chapter have a better question for the next chapter (a question the next chapter has to answer) if I take out the last paragraph? Often an author will summarize the chapter in the last paragraph, this is bad because it's boring. Your job is to get the reader to turn the next page. How do you do this? By raising story questions.

The first word of every scene
Use the first word of every scene to hook the reader. Raise a question. Readers are curious people by nature. If you raise a question in the first sentence they will want to answer it.

Flirt don't tease. Don't go 35 pages without answering a question you've raised.

Make the first sentence of every chapter great. Don't throw away the first or the last sentence of any scene.

Give the reader something interesting right away, as soon as your story begins. An interesting character should appear right away. Like going to a cocktail party or a book-signing. Unusual people, even people you might think are a bit crazy, are very interesting. The worst judgement you can make about someone is that they are boring.

Settings: Third element
Your settings help you tell the story. For instance, in a scene lets say you have a few tarantulas in a terrarium in an elementary school classroom. The teacher is putting some papers into her briefcase and her principal walks in. The teacher glances at the terrarium. The spiders are gone.

Opening scenes: Don't over-populate your first scene.

If a scene doesn't advance the story then cut it.

Here is a link to Robert Dugoni's home page.

My notes from other workshops I attended:
- SiWC 2011 Day One, Part Two: Don't Flinch: Robert Wiersema
- SiWC 2011 Day One, Part Three: The Psychology of Plotting, Michael Slade
- SiWC 2011 Day One, Part Four: The Inner Journey, Donald Maass

NaNoWriMo: Write A Novel In 30 Days

Today is the first day of a month of insanity, when normally sane(ish) writers decide to work their day jobs and write about 2,000 words a day.

Can anyone say Red Bull?

This is my first year participating in NaNo, and so I've scoured the internet for tips and advice. Here is what Nathan Alderman from Macworld.com has to say:

Think Small
50,000 words sounds like a big, scary goal—until you realize that it breaks down to just 1,667 words a day, about an hour or two’s worth of steady typing. Rather than keeping your eyes on the distant finish line, use your program’s word-count targets to work toward the end of your latest paragraph, scene, or chapter. Those words will add up faster than you think. To keep track of your progress, you can enter your word count for each day in a box on the NaNoWriMo site, and compare it with those of your friends in the contest. And the site’s Word Count Widgets let you show off your progress on your own Web site.

Everybody Wants Something
Are your characters just sitting there like deadweight? Figure out what they want. Frodo Baggins wants to destroy (or, in darker moments, keep) the One Ring; Gully Foyle wants revenge on the spaceship that marooned him; Scout Finch wants to solve the mystery of Boo Radley. The simplest goals can create conflict and suspense, propelling your story forward. Screenwriter and playwright Todd Alcott’s terrific blog, What Does the Protagonist Want?, dissects popular movies to reveal their characters’ driving desires; check out his “Screenwriting 101” and “Spielberg” series of posts.

Keep Moving Forward
Writing is an adventure, and adventures always involve plenty of mistakes and wrong turns. For now, silence your inner critic, and stop caring whether what you’re writing is any good. Just keep writing. And don’t go back to tinker with your existing text, either. If you start editing when you should be writing, you might lose momentum and end up stuck. Besides, revisiting your prose in the cold light of December (or, better yet, February) will make you a much better judge of what works and what doesn’t.

Don’t Overplan
A fellow NaNoWriMo participant once showed me her elaborate spreadsheets filled with specific character details and breakdowns of her daily writing output, and then complained that she was stuck because her characters weren’t doing what she wanted them to. Keeping a few notes on your characters, settings, or overall story arc is a good idea. But half the fun of writing is seeing your characters do something you never expected. Too much planning can squelch that improvisational spirit.
- Advice from a noveling veteran

Okay, got it? Good! Now let's write.