An
agent recently published a post where agent explained that she & other publishing
professionals can assess a query in fifteen seconds or less.
There’s
the easy “not what I work with,” the almost as easy “this reads badly,” and the
less clear “not what I’m looking for right now.”
It
sounds both arrogant and presumptuous, but it is a necessity when hundreds of
queries pour in day after day.
I
just read another post about how one’s website’s Homepage is likely the only
one most visitors would glance at, and (gulp) on average, for less than a
minute. That
post is linked here.
It’s
hard to think that other pages’ content you thoughtfully aggregated, mulled over,
culled and refined— will remain largely unseen.
These
are the facts. A home page is the front yard, and the way a few will choose to
knock on the door and come inside.
My first publisher, a small house that published my picture book and had since closed, offered to make a website for me. That seemed a nice bonus. No effort to learn the ways of website hosting and design, the thought of which was intimidating. I liked their website for them, but their designer (who had designed their other authors’ sites) felt wrong for me. It was busy. It was jazzy. It was hip-hip-hoorah and kinetic to the point where one might worry about inducing seizures in susceptible individuals.
All right, a slight exaggeration, with slight being the operative word.
That
wasn’t going to be my calling card, which is what websites and especially their
home pages serve as today.
So,
I said, “thank you, but I’ll do my own”— and braved the choppy waters of the interwebs.
In
addition to the good but general advice in the linked
post, I would add that your home page has to feel right
for you.
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