Hi Everyone!
As you know, I’m very busy preparing for my free KDP Select promotion at the end of the month, writing my second novel, From the Sky and working my two day jobs etc.
But if you follow this blog and read my posts, you’ll know that I wanted to develop a new site for The Hunter Inside with some content completely different from what I have on this blog. You see, it’s all well and good directing people from Twitter, Facebook, Goodreads and other places to davidmcgowanauthor.com, but if they arrive here as readers then most of the content is not well suited to what they would like to see. Articles about how to create a scene or develop characters or any of the myriad of things I usually blog about are not what fans of my writing want to see.
Well, all that is about to change!! I have been designing some content for The Hunter Inside to have a new web presence all of its own, and today I have finally begun to populate a new WordPress blog catering to the needs of readers rather than writers.
Unbelievably, it’s already had almost fifty views(!!) but I wanted to share it with everyone here who follows and supports me and thank you all for the helpful comments and ideas I know you’ll give me. There’s lots more new content coming soon, but this is just your starter! I’m thinking I’d probably prefer comments like ‘nice new blog’ and stuff of that sort to go here rather than on the new blog (if you catch my drift!). Basically I’m trying to make The Hunter Inside more appealing to people who either stumble across it or are directed from Twitter or Facebook (or other places).
So, without further ado – go visit, click through what’s there so far, and don’t forget to follow and check back for updates! It currently looks a little bit similar to this blog, but the content is all original and quite different, and I’ll be working on jazzing up the appearance over the next few hours/days/weeks in the run up to my free promotion weekend. I’ll hopefully be populating it with lots more stuff very quickly too, so apologies to anyone who follows and gets pissed off with getting tonnes of emails about it!!
I have also re-written and updated the blurb for The Hunter Inside on Amazon, so go and check that out too and tell me if I’ve made it more appealing to my readers! Thank you, and here’s the link to the new ‘site’:
The Hunter Inside < CLICK!!
Preview 1
Preview 2
Preview 3
I’ve been thinking about doing this as well, so I can separate The First from the book I plan to publish later on. They’re so different that they really need to be separated. Excellent work on the site, David! One thing readers might like is a page that talks about how The Hunter Inside came to be – maybe talk about what influenced/inspired you to write it. Also, if you had a few different concepts for the cover art, you could show the ones that didn’t make the cut. Oh – and a page dedicated to the characters, with bios and such, maybe actors you’d like to see play them on film. Just a few ideas. Have some fun with it!
Posted by M.S. Fowle | August 5, 2012, 2:23 pmYes, yes and yes Mel! All those things are coming! The blog itself is very basic. There was another theme I liked but couldn’t get the images to show. I basically wanted a page that showed the newspapers side by side chronologically, but it wouldn’t do what I wanted it to! My Monster under the bed article will be a good one to stick on there to show where my inspiration came from.
It’s good fun getting creative with your virally stuff! The newspaper creator is at fodey.com and is really easy to use. Also, Imagechef.com has some very good stuff for quickly making free customised images and creative content for your site. I’ll be exploring lots of avenues. Might even try and make a few gifs and stuff. No way am I going to start making a trailer though! Need to have it looking good by the end of the month, so a trailer would take up too much time! Few tweaks here and there and it’ll end up looking fab!
Posted by davidmcgowan | August 5, 2012, 2:29 pmThanks for the links!
I’ve been trying to make a book trailer too, but the fact that I can’t get exactly what I want is frustrating me. Erik at http://eriktiger.wordpress.com/ did a quick trailer on http://animoto.com/ that came out really well – maybe you should give it a try. You can view his trailer right from his blog to get the basic idea. My issue is music – so hard to decide what to use that compliments without overshadowing content.
Posted by M.S. Fowle | August 5, 2012, 2:34 pmThanks Mel! I’ll check it out
Posted by davidmcgowan | August 5, 2012, 2:35 pmLike very much David! 50 views already – go you!
Posted by Virginia | August 5, 2012, 2:30 pmDavid, I love watching you work this out. I am planning to release a novel in the spring and have just purchased a domain name. My initial thought is to using the URL to simply redirect visitors back to a page on my current website rather than build out a whole new site. The downside is that WordPress isn’t as flexible as a traditional website IMO so I may have to rethink that.
All the best on your journey. Cheers.
Posted by Steven Ramirez | August 5, 2012, 6:49 pmThanks so much! Yep, I’ve got lots of working out to do! I hope my experiences will help you out when the time comes for your release!
Posted by davidmcgowan | August 5, 2012, 9:18 pmI like that. It is very similar to you main site, which maintains consistency. I’m a big fan of books/series having their own websites, because it lets readers embrace the work and get a feel for it without the congestion of every other facet of the author’s writing life.
Posted by amschultzcom | August 6, 2012, 4:23 am