The Question: Why?

Over the past few weeks, Stuart Aken has been posing a number of questions on his website. These are not writing related but offer a change of subject and direction for both the writer and visitors to the site.

The issue here is whether these act as a distraction from the main purpose of a writer’s blog or whether they bring in new readers due to the variety of subjects raised. It’s early days yet, and no conclusion is possible. However, Stuart is persevering with the experiment, if for no other reason than it allows him to draw in opinion on subjects of interest.

Interestingly, comments are invited for these discussion topics and response rates have been quite varied. What is possibly a little frustrating from a blogging point of view is the way that responders make comments on other social media rather than on the post itself. So, for example, the latest question in the series related to religion. He posted a link to the blog post on his author page on Facebook. This was picked up by his publisher, who shared it on his own FB page. The blog post picked up 27 comments from a potential readership of 18,000, but the post on Facebook generated over 100 comments from a recorded readership of 329. This may be an intriguing insight into the motivation around commenting. Perhaps those who commented via FB hoped and intended that their friends would see and respond to their comments, whereas those who made their comments on the blog were content to have only the specific followers of the blog notice their remarks. Who knows? One thing has become clear, however; the nature of the questions has actually increased the numbers following the blog.

Stuart will continue this occasional activity to encourage discussion of topics both trivial and serious. So far, there have been just 3 such questions posed, under the generic title of ‘I’d Like to Know: Why?’.

The list runs as follows: #1 Why Make it Hard for thePostman? #2 Why Do They Keep Terminal Sufferers Alive? #3 Why Are We Requiredto Respect Religion? Click on the titles to reach the appropriate posts.

What’s next? Well, you’ll have to follow the blog by clicking here to discover that, as Stuart produces these items on impulse, rather than in a planned manner.

Spring Cleaning: Three Authors' Websites

Yes, it’s that time of year. The wall might be peeling behind the desk, but which writer wants to dig out their writing space to add a lick of paint? The act of removing all those research tomes, notebooks of jotted ideas, bits of half-discarded envelopes carrying insightful quips and snatches of pithy dialogue... Who would get to the actual prepping with so much to rediscover? Far easier to give the old author website a revamp.

Three members of Hornsea Writers have done just that. And here are their excuses... sorry, reasons:

Noted word-wrangler, Stuart Aken, decided to swap Blogger for Wordpress as he wanted more control over his site.

‘Blogger is a great free platform, but is subject to Google's sometimes arbitrary decisions and doesn't give the writer the availability of a website. Wordpress, especially if you use the hosted option, gives the writer complete control, allows for multiple pages like a website, and is a crowd-sourced platform free from the commercial considerations of any one company.’

It isn’t though, an afternoon’s job. It is taking him a while to get the site the way he wants it, but he considers it a work in progress. Check the new look: http://stuartaken.net/

April Taylor, known for her Alternative Tudor Mysteries, decided to go the whole hog and move from a blogging site to a website with an internal blog.

‘There comes a time in each writer’s life when they look at their site and realise it just won’t do. I really didn’t want the hassle of building another, so took a couple of weeks to research the various programmes out there, growing more despondent by the minute. However, it was a task I could no longer put off, so when I had girded my loins with a couple of gins, I plumped for Weebly. 

‘The process is easy and very flexible. In fact, once I plunged into the icy waters of creation, it only took me a morning to build the new site. The secret is to plan – on paper – what you want each page of the site to look like and what kind of information each needs to convey. After that, building the new site is a doddle.’

The site is open for viewing and you can tell her what you think via the contact page: www.apriltaylorauthor.com

In contrast, Linda Acaster plumped for the easier option and scrubbed up her Blogger site.

‘I’m a slow writer and not a daily blogger so wanted a site with a free-standing landing page. The Blogger framework can be fairly flexible if you don’t mind twiddling with a bit of html. Of course, what I know about html can be written in large script on the back of a postage stamp, but that’s why YouTube was invented. Someone, somewhere, has done it all before and will happily walk you through it.

‘I’m treating the current incarnation as a halfway house. When I finally stop messing with its width I’ll go about designing a new header image. Besides, as a displacement activity to writing the current novel it is infinitely better than scrubbing the kitchen floor with a toothbrush.’

Cast a wry eye over her design technique at www.lindaacaster.com