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January 29, 2001

The Fundamentals of Professional Web Sites for Business Professionals

This Week’s:

Features

Step-by-Step: We Don't Want Your Kind Around Here - Alienating Visitors

On Focus: Writers — Part 4
— Promoting a Writer's Work to Publishers & Agents

Banner Sizes By the Numbers

Reviews

A Home for Writers - WriterSpace.com

Call Me an Idiot! - The Complete Idiot's Guide to Online Marketing

Techniques

Instant Art - Instant Illustrations from Stock Photos

Review

A Home for Writers - WriterSpace.com

by Carolyn Cooper

Writerspace.com is a web hosting company specifically designed for authors. It's tagline is "Websites for Writers — Communities for Readers." Offering three levels of service (hosting-only account, full-service account & bestseller account), Writerspace features amenities to promote community-building activities for their clients while handling much of the maintenance. The additional services do not come cheaply, however, the hosted writers who answered my inquiries felt the extra service was worth the price. One writer contacted (who wished to remain anonymous) said, "I have the top of the line service, whatever it's called, and it's generally worthwhile although it gets expensive when I want changes."

Hosting-only account — US$39.95/month

A basic hosting account provides 25 MB of disk storage, 5 POP3 Email accounts, unlimited email forwarding, up to 5 auto-responders, a cgi-directory, your site's access logs, free domain registration (although you are, of course, responsible for the annual US$35 InterNic domain name charge), free "real time audio/video" (I was unable to determine if that was Real streaming audio/video), and upon request, web-based email, Frontpage 98 Extensions and shell access for telneting into the site. (Do NOT use Frontpage 98 Extensions, if you want all of your visitors to have complete access to your site and frankly, if you tend to telnet into your site for maintenance, you probably don't even need this article.) In addition, free writer-targeted services include promotional blurbs in the Writerspace newsletter (listed at 10k+ subscribers), listing on the Writerspace index, "jumplink" to site on all Writerspace pages, all new releases and appearances posted on Readers Calendar. And you do have to register a domain name.

Full-service account — US$75.00/month

All of the above services plus fielding email inquiries & requests from readers, automatic site updating ("tweaking"), sending out individual email newsletters, search engine placement & monthly monitoring, one month of banner ad space on Writerspace per release, bookcover digital postcards at Writerspace, promotion of online activities such as chats, book releases, book signings & appearances. In addition, you can have unlimited auto-responders and for an additional US$5/month a Webtrends report.

Bestseller account — US$150.00/month

Add to the above monthly contest management, mailing list management, guaranteed chat during month of release with exclusive banner ad run during chat and 65MB of disk storage and 10 POP3 email accounts.

Design, promotion or consulting services run US$75/hour and many of the Full-service and Bestseller account features are available "a la carte" at prices that make it cheaper to simply upgrade your account. It's also possible to purchase special, one-time fee promotional packages

Having disposed of the gory details, you should note that the additional services and features are ideally suited for writers in a genre disposed to strong interaction between readers and the writer such as Romance, Fantasy, SF and Mystery. For now, Writerspace is home to Romance and Women's Fiction authors such as Susan Wiggs, Jayne Ann Krentz, Elizabeth Lowell, and Susan Elizabeth Phillips and its identity is strongly tied to the Romance genre for now.

When asked about customer service, an anonymous writer replied, "You mean client service? I give it a C+. Changes and updates are put up too slowly for my taste." The author went on to admit the only problems she's encountered was "Just the slowness in getting changes up. Did they correct it promptly and courteously? Courteously, yes. Promptly, not always." But when asked if she would recommend the hosting service to others, she answered, "Absolutely. It's a growing and dynamic community. Getting quite popular."

Polled about why Writerspace was chosen, the response was the "look", the ability to be "with some of the 'Big Girls' of publishing" and "the menu of services." When asked what appealed about WriterSpace versus other web hosting services, a highly successful author responded, "It's comprehensive. They do it all. Keeping the email list, contest management, monthly newsletters, putting up the text without consulting me about layout, format, etc. Chats are a plus." And in response to a question about ways to improve service, the author admitted her greatest need was "more frequent 'prodding' of us lazy clients to get our material in regarding signings and so forth."

Writers, particularly Romance and Women's Fiction authors, looking for a hosting service that understands their particular needs should check out Writerspace. When comparing costs against other services, be certain to compare actual value. In essence you're hire a web administrative assistant with Writerspace. How much is it worth to you to have someone else handle mundane, but time consuming tasks, such as reader email, banner rotations, calender entries and so on. For the cost-conscious, it may be more worthwhile to learn to make certain your site design uses royalty-free stock images and you learn to handle your own basic HTML updates while letting the staff of Writerspace handle the "geeky" and administrative tasks.

For more information, head to www.writerspace.com and contact Cissy or Sara or call 1-800-315-1666.

And if you don't know whether you really need an auto-responder or 65MB of disk storage or a cgi-directory, check back on 02/05/01 when we'll feature "Home, Home on the Internet Range — Choosing a Web Hosting Service".