Good morning!

I am honored to be one of the IWSG co-hosts for May. Seek the co-hosts, please and thanks: Erika Beebe https://erikabeebe.com/, Cathrina Constantine http://cathrinaconstantine.blogspot.com, Sadira Stone http://sadirastone.com/, and Tonja Drecker https://tonjadrecker.blogspot.com/

And, don’t forget to pay homage to our blog father, Alex Cavanaugh, via one of these means:
https://www.alexjcavanaugh.com/, https://www.insecurewriterssupportgroup.com/, https://twitter.com/AlexJCavanau,

Please feel free to look around my author site https://pjcolando.com.  I’m rather proud of its functionality, which could be instructional to your purposes.

There are plenty of tabs to keep an author or interloper occupied. Click around and explore among these:

• Home
• Books
• Meet PJ (my bio)
• Speaker
• Book Clubs (a target audience for any women’s fiction writer)
• Events (essential when an agent looks you up post-query letter)
• Contact

Provide the icons for other writers and friends to follow you on social media you regularly inhabit. Here are mine:

• Facebook
• Instagram
• Twitter

Do use your name as your domain name rather than pay $$ to have an intriguing yet obscure domain. You own your name. You are your brand.

Do employ a professional to build your author site. These professionals have experience and don’t take things personally if criticized. I used https://monkeycmedia.com and I highly recommend the husband-and-wife team’s design services.

One of their areas of expertise in SEO (Search Engine Optimization), which assures that your site will be seen and never succumb to the dreaded 401 message: this site can’t be found.

Your book may have the most glorious book cover, but little fanfare can be created without a glorious website.

Although most markers of a bad website are obvious, some are more subtle, and have to do with more complex stuff like button placements and module alignment—you know, the stuff a designer does, according to MonkeyC Media in their recent newsletter. But below are some examples of common mistakes to avoid.

• Not being visually organized or appealing
• Inconsistency in style or design
• Being bland, boring, or unconventional in the wrong way (aka not looking professional)
• Design mistakes
• A confusing and hard to navigate layout or design

Your website is so important to your success because it’s usually the first line of contact between you and your book’s audience and community. If it doesn’t look polished and professional, or if it’s not easy to navigate, and/or it’s just a jumbled mess, it’s not going to make the great impression that you deserve!

This post was written for the Insecure Writer’s Support Group. Members post on the first Wednesday of every month.  To join us, or learn more about the group, click HERE.

Now I yield space to an important public announcement from Alex, our beloved Ninja Captain:

Dark Matter: Artificial

An Insecure Writer’s Support Group Anthology

Discover dark matter’s secrets…

What is an AI’s true role? Will bumbling siblings find their way home from deep space? Dark matter is judging us—are we worthy of existence? Would you step through a portal into another reality? Can the discoverer of dark matter uncover its secrets?

Ten authors explore dark matter, unraveling its secrets and revealing its mysterious nature. Featuring the talents of Stephanie Espinoza Villamor, C.D. Gallant-King, Tara Tyler, Mark Alpert, Olga Godim, Steph Wolmarans, Charles Kowalski, Kim Mannix, Elizabeth Mueller, and Deniz Bevan.

Hand-picked by a panel of agents, authors, and editors, these ten tales will take readers on a journey across time and space. Prepare for ignition!

Release date: May 4, 2021

Print ISBN 9781939844828 $14.95
EBook ISBN 9781939844835 $4.99
Science Fiction: Collections & Anthologies / Space Exploration / Genetic Engineering

ONLINE BUY LINKS:
Amazon – https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08S7LP369
iTunes – https://books.apple.com/ca/book/dark-matter-artificial/id1548059392
Kobo – https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/dark-matter-artificial
Barnes & Noble – https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/dark-matter-insecure-writers-support-group/1138581452?ean=2940164777661
Goodreads – https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/56632113-dark-matter