Morning, everyone!
If you’re reading this post on my website, you may have noticed a few changes around here. Yes I’ve finally, FINALLY updated my website. And about time, too — the last time I did anything with my site it was 2007, I was about to release my third book, and there was no such thing as Twitter (or maybe there was, but I don’t think I was on it yet). All of which is to say, the times were very different and the organizational layout of my site reflected that.
It simply wasn’t set up to handle the needs of a career that had three different series, standalones, short stories set both in the series and out of the series, half a dozen non-fiction books, social media, multimedia, e-books, and all the various and sundry other things I have going on now, six years later. Every time I wanted to add a new book, I had to add it in about seven different places (a books page, a series page, the page for the individual book), and if it was a crossover — like a unicorn short story — I had to add it in all those places on the short story page as well as on the unicorn page as well as on individual pages for both… in short, it was a nightmare.
(Though this weekend has been a nightmare, too — but hopefully a nightmare I only have to deal with once.)
If yo are a debut author, I recommend taking these thoughts into account while designing your website. I can’t tell you how many conversations I had with designers who wanted to design a site “based on the theme of your book cover.” My response? “I have ten covers.” My very first website was “based on the theme of my book cover” which then changed so radically before the hardcover hit the shelves that it actually ended up clashing terribly with the cover (and then clashed even more terribly when they changed things for the paperback).
But color schemes are actually pretty minor in the scheme of things. Organization turns out to be much more important as your career progresses. To figure out what I wanted, I looked at a lot of sites belonging to writers who have dozens of books out, sites like Kelley Armstrong’s and Bella Andre’s. I’m a writer who not only has multiple series, but works in multiple genres and for multiple markets. Some writers who do so choose to have entirely separate sites (i.e., “go here for my YA, here for my adult novels.”) I chose not to do that. But I still have to find a way to make sure people are finding what they want.
So, as you may guess, it’s a really, really big changeover, and I’ve only figured out about half of the things I need to fix and futz with to get the new website and organizational structure where I want it to be. I appreciate your patience. What I’m doing right now is taking on one big website task a day, and devoting the rest of my day to writing, which of course, should always be the priority. Gotta get you guys some nice new books to read, right?
But the great news is that once that’s all done, my website will be ever so much more functional for the way people use the internet now — everything will be likeable and shareable on the social media site of your choice, my facebook and twitter and pinterest links are all up there for your perusal, and I’m going to have a fabulous new newsletter (see the sign up link right there at the top) which will be oh so functional and chock full of giveaways and freebies and secret info you will get before anyone else.
So make sure you sign up for that. Because I do have secret, y’all. So. Many. Secrets.
And meanwhile, welcome to the new dianapeterfreund.com.
Also, what’s up with all us Yalies writing YA these days? We should start a volleyball team — it can be me, you, Barry Lyga, Jennifer Lyn Barnes, and Lauren Miller. We can play the BYU alums…
