Authors on the Web

Web Pages: Who Needs 'Em?

"I think it makes a lot of sense for an author to have a web page," says Jennifer Cast, an employee of the online bookstore Amazon Books. "It certainly can be a strong piece in the mix of promotional tools. S/he should market the site during readings, signings, interviews, etc."

Is It As Good As More Familiar Tools?

Billie Sue Mosiman, who maintains web pages at http://www.sff.net/people/bmosiman/, says she's had email from people in England and France who said they bought one of her books as a result of her Web advertising and liked it so well they went back to the bookstore for more.

"I've received a couple of excellent emails suggesting that at least a few people have read the stuff on the Web page and gone out to buy my entire ouvre," Holly Lisle (http://www.hollylisle.com/) said in 1996. "Not a lot, but the page is new."

Still, Barbara Paul's response may reflect the more common experience: "My page generated a lot of email, but I have no way of knowing if the folks who wrote rushed out and bought my books."

Robert J. Sawyer says he knows from email received that his web page has brought some new readers, but adds that "whether the number makes the effort worthwhile is very difficult to say."

Lawrence Watt-Evans says, "There's no evidence of new readers, but it definitely attracts fan mail from old ones, which is fun. It also seems to bring to readers' attention that I wrote a bunch of stuff they didn't know about.

"But as advertising," he says, "from a purely mercenary point of view, it's a pretty good time sink."

I Knew It. It's Just Another Time Sink, Isn't It?

"On the other hand, tens of thousands of people who'd never heard of me before now have my name lurking in the recesses of their brain." She's had email from several hundred strangers, a substantial percentage of whom mention "something to the effect of, 'I'll look for your other work,' and once in a while I even get one that says they went out and bought an anthology or a magazine for that reason."

John Vornholt finds his Web page to be a time saver. "I put my email address in the bio of my Star Trek Novel, Rogue Saucer, and I got tons of e-mail, 10 or 20 a day. I had to answer a lot of the same questions over and over, such as 'What is your next book?' and "Can you help me sell my Star Trek novel?' I found I could answer these questions once on my web page and refer people there."

And even those who don't believe their Web pages bring in new readers seem certain that the Web, and the Internet as a whole, are important promotional tools. Dana Stabenow says no one has told her he bought a book of hers as a result of her Web page. "On the other hand, quite a few went out and bought more of my books after talking to me online. I think the 'Net is a fabulous and soon-to-be essential promotional tool."

Several readers have told me that they frequently buy books on the basis of what they've seen on authors' home pages or heard from authors in Usenet newsgroups (a sort of bulletin board on the Internet). One said, "A scan of my shelves shows that more than half of the SF I buy these days is from people I've gotten to know via the 'Net." He stressed that this was more of an argument for involvement in Usenet than for a Web presence, but several others who do not frequent Usenet said they had purchased numerous books on the strength of sample chapters they read on the authors' Web pages.

Janni Lee Simner says, "It's relatively low energy once you get things set up, so I figure there's no harm, at any rate." And Nancy Etchemendy says, "If you can set up a Web page for a very low cost or gratis (as I've been able to do thanks to Jeffrey Dwight and SFF Net™), there's no question that it's worth your time."

In the final analysis a Web page seems at least as useful a promotional tool as signings and similar personal appearances. The author who has a computer and modem and who wants to cover all the promotional bases should probably give it strong consideration. Even those who don't yet have the hardware might want to think about it.

How Much Does It Cost?

If you already have an ISP, the additional cost for a home page is just the time it takes to set it up. If your ISP doesn't provide the space as part of its service, SFF Net™, which is run by SFWA member Jeffry Dwight, offers discounted membership including a large home page space to all professional writers. DM Net, which is run by the Genie SFRT1 and SFRT4 sysop Nic Grabien, has recently begun to offer free membership to SFWA, HWA, RWA, and WGA members. GeoCities offers home pages free to anyone. There are probably other ways to get the space inexpensively or free.

If all else fails, the SFWA site offers very basic pages free to members. Of course you have some say in both design and content, but you have to go through the Webmaster to make changes or additions, both space and complexity are limited, and changes can occasionally be delayed. The advantage is that you don't have to do anything but send (by street or email) the information and graphics you want included, and the rest is done for you.

For those who don't yet have a computer and modem, those can cost anything from a few hundred to a few thousand dollars, depending on what else you want to use them for. You don't need anything fancy just for the Internet: an 8088 XT-clone with two floppy drives, no hard drive, and a 2400 bps modem would be enough for a text-based connection. I know at least three people who use exactly that for their Internet connection.

"For the majority who has heard of the Internet since only the last 18 months or so, with major emphasis on the WWW, it is very easy to understand why they think they need a fast computer, a fast modem and a fast line," says Benoit Bisson, trade magazine editor and SF/F author. But for straight information access, he says, the real issue is "search engines that can do very pointed searches, thus effectively locating specifics through the noise and clutter," and those are freely available to anyone on the Web.

If you would like to see what the Internet is like before you spend money on it, free public access may be available in your area through schools, universities, or libraries that provide shared computers and log-on IDs; and there are "Internet cafes" opening up in many cities that serve Internet access with their cappuccino. I have "met" (through Usenet) several people who use café connections to post to Usenet newsgroups. It might even be possible to set up and maintain a home page through such a connection.

But Aren't Web Pages Written in a Programming Language?

(Would I Have to Learn That?)

(New development: services that will help you write your Web page for free. All you have to do is fill out a few Web forms. WebSpawner provides space and lets you create a basic Web page complete with a headline, text, hypertext links, and your choice of several backgrounds. Tripod, Angelfire, and GeoCities also provide space, and offer more sophisticated design options.)

A few of the authors I talked to feel the design and maintenance of a home page is best left to professionals. "Unless you're already ept in hypertext," says Dana Stabenow, "bite the bullet and hire it done. You have better things to do, i.e., writing your next book." Unfortunately this could cost anywhere from twenty to several hundred dollars depending on the designer, the complexity of the page, etc.; and there are more bad designers than good ones to choose from; so it may not be the simple solution it seems.

Holly Lisle says a friend volunteered to do a page for her before Holly was even on the Internet. "She did a beautiful job," says Holly, "and if you have a friend like that, I'd certainly say that's the way to go. I did a little bit with HTML and decided I'd be better off working on the books I owed than teaching myself another language."

Holly was fortunate. "If you can find somebody who will code your web page for free and do a great job, great!" says John Vornholt. "But I wouldn't count on this happening. Unless you have money, you had better learn to do it yourself."

People who are uncomfortable with computers or who really hate puzzles and problem-solving may find HTML too difficult to bother with; for most people there is a stiff learning curve. But a majority of the authors I talked to found that only a minor stumbling block. "Oh, do it yourself," says Lawrence Watt-Evans; "it's not hard to learn some basic HTML, and hey, we're writers--what matters is the text, not the fancy graphics or gimmicks."

"It depends on your personality," says Jean Lorrah (http://www.geocities.com/Athens/3439/ and http://www.geocities.com/Athens/4165/). "If you trust a friend or secretary to type your stories, or let someone else deal with your galleys, get a friend or fan to do it (but don't pay anyone--HTML is so easy that unless you are also getting the design skills of a professional advertising agency you are being ripped off). If you prepare your own manuscripts, and carefully comb through your galleys yourself, make your own website. At the very least, learn enough to be able to update it."

Nancy Etchemendy agrees that HTML is not a difficult language, and stresses that a Web page is an ongoing project that has to be updated regularly. "I think even people who hire others to put a site together for them end up learning a certain amount of HTML, because the cost of maintaining the site becomes prohibitive otherwise."

Joe Haldeman, who has home pages at http://www.sff.net/people/joe.haldeman/, says, "Newer versions of WordPerfect have a 'save as HTML' option. You still have to read some stuff if you want to put in pictures, embarrassing noises, and so forth.

"It's not hard to turn regular word-processed text into HTML," he says, "once you get the basic idea, which is to present text in such a way that even the dumbest computer can return unambiguous output (while a more sophisticated computer, encountering the same code, can do bells & whistles). It does take time, both to climb the learning curve and then to do the dog work of search-and-replace." He adds that "although the 'save as HTML' option is handy, I would counsel anybody who wants to maintain a Web site to spend a couple of days doing it the hard way. It's actually kind of fun and magic, and gives you a measure of control."

Robert J. Sawyer uses WordStar for DOS to write HTML. "I think authors should code their own Web pages. It's not difficult," he says.

"I'm in favor of the do-it-yourself approach," says Barbara Paul. "Having a helpful friend would be nice, but I wouldn't recommend paying to have the page put up."

HTML is a simple but evolving language. There are many How-To books on the market, but they're often out-dated by the time they hit the shelves. Luckily you don't really need a book: everything you need to learn HTML is available free on the Web.

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has complete information on HTML 2.0; on the W3C recommendation for HTML 3.2 ("Wilbur"); and on the more recent working draft HTML 4.0 ("Couger"), which is intended to supercede 3.2. The Web Design Group offers extensive online help (including a BBS).

What About Those Embarrassing Noises and So Forth?

(Shouldn't I Have Some of Those?)

But she adds, "I know that most multimedia pages won't give all the web surfers who hit those pages the experience intended. Not all browsers work the same and not all coding works the same on the browsers. But when I hit multimedia pages, I feel as if I've just stepped into a party room--there's lots going on."

Patrick Nielsen Hayden says, "I think Web sites should use all the bells & whistles they like, but they should be designed to fall back graciously. Lynx users, users of creaky old 386es running 16-bit Mosaic over a 9600-baud modem, all those people should be kept in mind."

He adds, "I do hate sites that play music at you unexpectedly, I admit."

Nancy Etchemendy thinks "it's important to provide both textual content and graphics. I've incorporated some sound files into my page, too....If you have a fun, stimulating page that is updated and changed regularly, people will come back to it again and again."

But Barbara Paul warns, "Until graphics and sound files load a lot faster than they do now, I'd say go easy on the ornamentation. Some graphics are necessary, of course. But writers write; readers don't visit a writer's page to look at pictures."

Robert J. Sawyer agrees. "The graphic-intensive stuff makes surfers say, 'Cool.' Well-written text makes surfers say, 'Gee, I've got to remember to look for that guy's stuff next time I'm in a bookstore.'"

The bells and whistles and embarrassing noises are certainly not essential. They may draw more users to one's site, but the bottom line for attracting readers seems to be scanned book covers and sample chapters. All of the people I've talked to who say they buy books as a result of authors' web pages agree that those two things are almost always the deciding factors.

Promoting the Promotion

It's also a good idea to use one of the search engines to search on key words (for example, "science fiction") for additional sites where it would make sense to list your page: many fiction-related sites have lists of authors' web pages and forms by which one can add new ones.

The more lists or databases where your page is mentioned, the more people who will see it and the more potential new readers it will bring you. A Web page is like a billboard visible world-wide to anybody with access to the Internet: but it's your job to put the road to it on all the major maps.

Sidebar: Three Good Reasons to Get Online

Last update Monday August 04 2008.

Melisa Michaels is the author of six OP books from Tor, one mystery novel, and two urban fantasy novels from Roc. The first of these, Cold Iron, was released in August 1997. She would be very pleased if you would order it from any of several online bookstores.

Copyright © 1997 by Melisa Michaels. First published in the Bulletin of Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, Spring, 1998. Reproduction and distribution specifically prohibited. All rights reserved. Reprinted here by permission.