The Many Faces of Me
We all have faces on the web–some of us perhaps more than others. Social networking, blogs, mailing lists, forums…and oh yeah. The web site.
One of the things I've always struggled with is my web site author face.
Not the mechanics of it–I've had fun with that since I put my first site up in the mid-90s, and almost immediately started building sites for other authors and dog folks. It's just the…how do I make it ME?
And should it be the smart-ass me, the dreamer me, the matter-of-fact me, or the "Look! My books are really COOL!" me?
(Although really, I haven't ever figured out how to be one of the Cool Kids.)
Then there's the content–trying to figure out the best way to show readers what they want, and what they find interesting. I know, I know–I'm a reader myself. It shouldn't be that hard, right? But it can be hard to be two people at once, looking at both what you have to say and what you'd want said if you were coming at it from the other direction.
And finally, there's a cobbler's children effect: the clients come first. My site is always up to date, but that doesn't mean it doesn't need to be updated. Get new clothes. Put on a spiffy new 'do. Try out some new techniques.
So it's been a couple of years, and I've seen this coming for a while, and this fall I decided to go for it. Kind of Dreamer Me crossed with Matter-of-Fact Me.
Do I have any idea whether I've struck all the right notes (or even any of the right notes), put things in the right places, offered up the right tidbits and insights?
Not a clue.
It's not for me to say, anyway.
But hey, come on in, look around…I hope I haven't left any of the dog toys out or hidden any of the important cookies or forgotten to turn the heat on anywhere.
And I hope you like it!
