Episode 202 #WebsiteRevampHowto

Hey listeners! It’s been a mad mad mad week here (all of you in the future, check the date), and I bet there too. Result: there are no shownotes for this episode. We’re talking about

revamping my website to get it in gear for my forthcoming second book. Here’s the image we mention—the before—and for the after (which is still in progress), head over to my site and see what you think. Any questions, shoot me an email ([email protected] or reply to this.

Transcript (We use an AI service for transcription, and while we do clean it up a bit, some errors are the price of admission here. We hope it’s still helpful.)

KJ (00:00):

Hey #AmWriting listeners, this is KJ and this is my seventh time attempting to record this pre-episode discussion of something really cool that's being authored by Author Accelerator, our sponsor. I think you all know that I loved working with Jennie Nash on revising my manuscript for The Chicken Sisters. Well, if you'd be interested in working in a small group with Jennie, she is offering a Rock Your Revision small intensive workshop for fiction writers ready to revise manuscripts this summer, July 16th - 19th of 2020 in Santa Barbara, California. If that interests you, if it sounds like something you'll be ready for, if it sounds like something that having it scheduled might make you get ready for (and I think that will work) head on over to author accelerator.com click on the retreats and summits link, and then scroll on down to Rock Your Revision to learn more. Is it recording now?

Jess (01:05):

Now it's recording.

KJ (01:06):

Yay.

Jess (01:06):

Go ahead.

KJ (01:08):

This is the part where I stare blankly at the microphone like I don't remember what I'm supposed to be doing.

Jess (01:12):

Alright, let's start over.

KJ (01:13):

Awkward pause. I'm going to rustle some papers. Okay. Now one, two, three. Hi, I'm KJ Dell'Antonia and this is #Am writing the podcast about writing all the things and getting them out into the world. And that's all I'm going to say about that this week.

Sarina (01:37):

Really? Well, I'm Sarina Bowen and I write long things, primarily genre fiction and I've written 30-odd romances and my newest one is called Sure Shot. If I ever finish it.

KJ (01:50):

I can't wait for it. Okay. I am KJ Dell'Antonia, the dithering other voice on the other end of the microphone. I am the author of the novel, The Chicken Sisters coming out this summer and the book How To Be a Happier Parent as well as the former editor of the New York Times' Motherlode blog. And those are the things that I do and it's just me and Sarina today.

Sarina (02:23):

It is. We're here to work on KJ's launch sequence.

KJ (02:26):

Yes. And if we sound a little odd, we are (as we often are) working in our local libraries. So, yes. Sarina, as we all know, has many, many, many past identities and for all I know is also cat woman when we're not together. But one of those past identities is helping people, specifically authors, with their websites. So that's our plan today. We're going to go over my website and talk about how I can shift it from being a website, primarily designed for a parenting author to a website designed for an author in general. And the way we're going to do this (if you want to take a look) by the time you hear this, I will have changed it. So we're going to take a lot of screenshots. So if you'd like to see what we're talking about and we will describe it cause you're probably in your car. But if you do want to just head over to the show notes at amwritingpodcast.com and there will be pictures, screenshots of this website as it is today before the dramatic changes that I'm going to make to it. I mean, it's a good website somebody made it for me and I can change it and you know, there's nothing wrong with it other than that there is absolutely no mention of my nove,l at all whatsoever.

Sarina (03:55):

Right.

KJ (03:56):

Because that's the first thing that's wrong with it. Check.

Sarina (03:59):

So I usually get involved with an author's website at about this same point. Sometimes I'll get calls earlier before people have cover art for their book and those people have been told that they must have an author website and start building their platform and blah, blah blah, but they don't have a book cover. And that is fine. Like, it's great to be invested in handling your book launch, but if you really do your website before you have cover art, you're wasting your money because it, you know, it would be disappointing to do a website all in purple and to find that your book cover is bright yellow. So, you know, I gently dissuade people from spending their hard earned cash early on, but you're ready to go because you have your cover art.

KJ (04:50):

I do.

Sarina (