Hey Brenda, what's with the fire & horns there on the left?

I'm SO glad you asked! That's a web-design business that's going to design my site for me. RhinoSites

Anyway, I'm trying to get Michael some referrals for doing this for me. Websites are a HUGE tool to writers, even those of us currently unpublished. I've heard of agents googling new authors to see their sites, read about them, get a feel of their voice and even to read blurbs on any books. It's a GREAT marketing tool even before you're getting a check from a publishing house. Additionally, with Nationals coming up, you guys could get the sites built in time to do business cards and have your brand-spanking new site on the cards.

Check them out, see what you think. Remember that if you go with Michael and Ryan, they give you something no one else can: Literally 24/7 support with THEM. Not an automated system. Not someone across with globe with an accent you can't understand. And in designing your site, Michael will walk you through every step, and literally design it JUST FOR YOU.

I know soooooooo many writers are using blogs. This blog, hopefully in the near future, will be gone. Because I'll have a blog area on the site Michael is making me. How cool will that be? None of that publishing all the time, and if something screws up at 3am, I can call him and wake his sleepy self up to fix it for me. With my technical handicaps, that is SUCH a perk!!!!

It's going to be really neat, because it's going to host forums. I'm new to the email loop thing that's currently all over yahoo. I'm much more used to forums. I started out on Woman's Day but a lot of us got tired of it, since anyone could post and it was hugely unmoderated. A lot of my friends and I moved to create private boards. I've tried out proboards and iBoards, but didn't really care much for either. Now we sit on my birth mother's private server so we don't have to deal with a lot of crap like we used to. All of that to say: I like forums.

Forums give you the ability to separate categories. So, in thinking of a writer's needs, we'd have boards with categories like:

General Chat (blab all ya want on whatever)
Agent/Editor News
Resource Books
Promotion (self promo area)
Critiques

and so forth. The good thing is this: The posts stay. You don't have to worry about info going through the emails and having to print it or save it to a subfolder just in case you need it in the future. Once it's posted on the boards, it's there. You can post feedback, etc. (If you want an idea on what they'll look like, go to Woman's Day. Very similar set up.) I really don't like the set up of some boards, like Suzanne Brockmann's. I love her and her books, but the way her boards are set up are confusing and very time consuming. I promise, these boards will NOT be. We can even close membership so the general public aren't allowed in. Just writers. It's really a neat thing. I'd love to hear your feedback on this, and if it's something you, as a writer, would like and participate in.

So there ya go. Look at the portfolio on his site. (I LOVE the look of The Angry Chair he designed.) See what you think. I think you won't be disappointed.