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Tuesday, December 4, 2012

Contest: Help Me Design My Website!!!

As the release of Silver/Steel was approaching, I thought to myself...gee, this would be a good time to redesign my website. I mean, I have to add in the new book anyway, may as well update the entire thing.

Yeah.

Well.

I won't bore you with the details, but of course, lacking the basic knowledge of website design, everything  that could go wrong...did. Thank goodness for those live support chat boxes! So the new site is up and live, but far from complete. In fact, there are some brand new, exciting pages...that are completely empty. And yes, there are broken links. *sigh*

So I need your help. I need YOU to help me pick out a page background for the site. Right now, 10 pages are live, with 10 different background themes. Head on over, click through the pages, come back here and tell me which page theme you like best.

Since this is December, and in my new book Silver/Steel, one of the heroes is quite pagan, I'm going to give the winner (randomly chosen from the comments below) a lovely Celtic themed piece of silver jewelry by Peter Stone. The exciting thing about this prize it that the designs are all discontinued. These are pieces I held onto from when I had a retail business almost a decade ago. (Yup, it was called Wyld By Nature!)

 You can choose from earrings or a pendent. If you like wolves, I also have a cute little silver wolf charm.

So...go  look at my website and click through the pages. Take note of the page theme you like best (ie: I like the green background on the "About" page) then come back here and tell me in the comments.

BE SURE TO LEAVE YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS!

I will choose a winner at midnight December 9 (Sunday) and contact the winner the next day.




When dream hunter Dylan Ryve spots a beautiful shapeshifter raising hell in a bar, he knows he wants the wild young man. But Travis Feris is more to Dylan than a few hot minutes outside in the snow; he's the assassin's ticket into the magical town of Arcada. He didn't plan to rescue the kid, but when he found the shifter being attacked, the opportunity to play hero was too good to pass up.

Through the solitude of a long winter night, Dylan walks in Travis's fevered dreams, learning about Arcada and the pack, and showing the shifter the man he'd been so very long ago. When morning comes, both men know their lives will be forever entwined.

From Dylan, Travis learns that he is a strong, valued member of the pack. The dreamwalker sees his own worth reflected back at him in the dark blue eyes of the wolf. Yet when Dylan has the chance to free himself from centuries of enslavement, can he betray the man he has come to love?

  • Note: This book contains explicit sexual situations, graphic language, and material that some readers may find objectionable: BDSM elements, domination/submission


32 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi,

Very cool.
I like the light greyish blue background on the Library page.

Thanks for letting us help with the web site.

Mickie
Mlmhmzippy at yahoo.com

Belinda M. said...

Thanks Mickie!

felinewyvern said...

I like the blue background on the home page. Looks very classy :D

ilona
felinewyvern at googlemail dot com

Unknown said...

Stopping in to say Hi and Thank you from Erotic Enchants!

I am torn, I like the Library page but I love the Home page!

wendynjason04@gmail.com

bn100 said...

I like the library theme with the blue and white background.

bn100candg(at)hotmail(dot)com

Rush said...

Hon, there is a C missing from the link you provided to your site.

Rush said...

I like the library design. It looks like steel and is easy on the eyes. The black background is good as well for it makes everything you post against it pop out, like a photograph in a black frame, very appealing.

taina1959@yahoo.com

Belinda M. said...

Thanks, Rush! I got it. :)

Urb said...

I like the home page! The peacock feathers are lovely, but a single one would be even better. Use only a few icons and buttons, they cause the page to load slowly, not to mention clutter it up. Black backgrounds are gorgeous, but they cause reader fatigue. white is almost as bad, because its so luminous. San serif fonts, and or fonts designed for web use are a good bet. Eschew boldface. Avoid decorative or script fonts, except for your name, and keep that large! You're already tending towards a cool color palate, which is very nice. Fun, thanks so much!

brendurbansit at gmail dot com

joye said...

I love the look of the peacock feathers on the Home page and a few of the other oages. It is colorful and brings your attention to that page. I also like the look of the Library page-it shows the book cover and the excerpt plus other information for the reader.
All in all, your new site is easily navigated and informative. Kudos
JWIsley(at)aol(dot)com

gigi said...

I like the blue home page (this one too)

gisu29(at)yahoo(dot)com

Anonymous said...

Juliana
I also like the marbled blue of the home page. I also think you could you more than one theme as long as the use the same colors as the peacock feathers! Thanks for the contest, I am always looking for beautiful jewelry!
OceanAkers @ aol.com

Anonymous said...

I like the home page with the deep marbled blue and the modern steel gray on the Library page. My top pick would be the deep blue.

Jess1
strive4bst(At) yahoo(Dot) com

amethysta said...

I like the blue background on the Home page. I don't like the blue on the Contacts page, the green and white on the Shifters page, or the black, white and beige on the Sci Fi page.

amethyst-lilac(at)hotmail(dot)com

I ♥ Bookie Nookie said...

Whew! A WHOLE NEW WEBSITE?? Wow! That DOES NOT sound like fun! Good luck!

I also wanted to say thank you for supporting Erotic Enchants on goodreads.com! You are appreciated!

Michelle said...

I like the brushed steel look of the Library page or the blue on the hom page...thanks for the opportunity. chellebee66(at)gmail(dot)com

Rissa said...

whole new site...whole lotta work! I like the Library page :)
raynman1979 at yahoo dot com

Rho said...

I like the blue background as well. :) I can't wait to see the new look.

~Sassafrass

Diane A said...

I love the peacock feathers!!!
As for the page, I think the library page is the best, the background has enough contrast that you can still read the white text, but the covers really "pop" on the page!
Your "About" page is a bit hard to read with the background and white text - and we want to read about you!!!

I like the home page too, but blue is my favorite color so I might be bias!!!

Thanks for asking input!

Diane A

diall(at)shaw(dot)ca

Lee Anne said...

Thank you for participating in the Erotic Enchants party on GoodReads! It's awesome that authors do stuff like that! You've helped make it an awesome event.

Loveless3173 said...

I love the layout from your "Library" page... heh... Hope my input was in any ways useful. ;)

Judi
arella3173_loveless@yahoo(dot)com

Leilani said...

Popping over from Erotic Enchants, Belinda.

I vote for the Home then Library Page.

Looking forward to Silver and Steel.

leilanibooks@gmail.com

Avalie said...

I vote for the m/m page because that looks as if it will be the easiest to read.
I found the fancy font and white on grey/white background very hard to read.
White font on any colour background is quite hard on the eyes.
The easier it is to see/read the info the more likely I will read.
Please do take into account colour blindness - try, for example, http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb263953(v=vs.85).aspx
Love the peacock feathers. Good luck with your site.
Can't leave without saying how much I love your books and can't wait to read silver/steel.

Anna said...

I like the library page background. :)

I am from the Erotic Enchants group, stopping by to say hello.

annainsocal at gmail dot com

Unknown said...

I like the green of the shifter page because it is pretty darn close to the green in the feathers. great idea for a contest :0

Jean said...

I like the home page background, and the white text shows up well against it.

The libaray silver and white is prety, but not with white text on top. The text really fades into the lighter stripes. You could maybe have that on the border and a solid color text area if you like that one.

The "About" background is pretty, but it would need black or dark text. Again, the light text fades into the spots and does not really contrast well against the green either.

Love your books, especially Blacque/Bleu.

jeanreads2 at gmail dot com

PaulaL said...

1. I avoid full-screen sized browser windows... on SeaMonkey (Mozilla-based) at 100% on whatever size window I have open, 1/3rd of the display area of the website is outside the window...

2. Home page-pretty peacock feathers, but I black background on webpages rapidly gives me migraines. The blue is kind of dark for reading, and white or light text on dark is another migraine-inducer for me. Years ago when computers were actually MORE friendly for users to set their own background colors for text windows, I set the background to light blue or light aqua or even light lavendar with dark test for greatest readabilityfor me... and I prefer serif fonts due to my astigmtism...

3. About page: I like the font, but not white text on patterned background, see "migraine" above. Also, patterning grabs my eyes rather then the text.. I absolutely despised the Wired magazine styles of years ago which I could not read the text because my vision system glommed onto the images the text was on instead...

4.Contacts: the elements seem unbalanced to me, and again I would prefer a lighter background color, and serif font due to my astigmatism

5. Library--the elements seem better balanced, but white text is migraine-inducing

6. News -- black background = anathema

7. Blogg -- medium blue text from what I remember what I was reading up about studies, is not a good idea... blue is the color which the human vision system supposedly is least sensitive to... and I remember military cockpits which deliberately used blue lighting of instruments for night flying to minimize effects on pilot vision looking out nightflying...

8. Shifters White gets too bright... some color makes the display less glaring

9. M/M Same Comments as above

10. BDSM -- black issue, again

11. Skiffy: while I;m not a big fan of pink, it;s better than black or white.... but the black border makes things awfully contrast.

Comments: the human vision system "edge sharpens" -- there's something call "Mach banding" which you see bands and edges where there actually is not a sharp transition--the transition is smooth but the first derivative isn't, and since the vision system "sharpens" the vision system "sees" banding by applying processing to create a perception of banding... there are other examples where people "see" edges which aren't actually present. And when there re areas of strong contrast, they stick ou and grab the attention instead of the text and gestalt getting the attention.

Also, a certain percentage of the populace is color vision deficient, including those with red-green color deficiency, blue-yellow, and others where e.g the person seems some color but not the saturation range of "normal" color vision... Patterning with grayscale rather then depending on color recognition can be useful for creating pages which don't have people unable to read e.g. red text on a green background becaue the gray levels involved are the same and the viewer is red-green colorblind...

(reversed) t e n . s i g @ l a a p

Anonymous said...

Looks good so far. Merry Christmas & Happy New Year.

Darlin Amanda Reviews said...

Love you site!!!!

Rachael said...

Thanks for being part of Erotic Enchants! I've added Silve/Steel to my TBR list and look forward to reading it!

Baby said...

Just saying hi from the erotic enchants group. Happy Holidays!

Anonymous said...

Thanks from EE!