Yesterday I said it’s not easy to be a writer. Today I’m all about bloggers.
How to lose my interest (as a reader) in a nano-second:
1. Bells and whistles.
Dear lord, get rid of that floating sparkly stuff and dopey music. Makes me cringe. And hit the back button at the first note.
2. Posts that scroll.
I want to read your latest post. If I’m interested in an older post I’ll scroll through the pages myself. I absolutely hate it when the new post vanishes the instant I open the home page. Trying to catch the post I want is like playing whack-a-mole.
3. Long videos.
Oh. My. God. I wish I had 15 or 20 minutes to watch your video interview, but I don’t. If you upload a video you find useful for authors/bloggers/reviewers/publishers, please please please post a brief summary. That way I can decide if I should make the time to view the video post.
4. Is it a blog post or a book?
I don’t have time to read a post that is more like a chapter, (unless you are posting an actual book excerpt or a series). On occasion I will, but as a general rule, one long page is about my limit. If you have a lot to say, break the post up into several installments. A serial blog post definitely keeps me coming back for more.
5. Dark print on a dark background.
If I can’t read it, well, I ain’t gonna read it. ’Nuf said.
I feel evil lately. Evil I tells ya! Must be the New Year. Or maybe it’s the Devil’s Dung affecting my brain cells. I know… I’m not perfect. Shhhhh, don’t tell my dog. :)
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I have to agree, especially the dark background. It bothers my eyes so much, I can’t stick around to read.
Amen, sister! I would especially like to add, please stop making animated buttons and badges, people. Animations slow loading time way down. It has a tendency to make me back out of a site, if I have to wait 20 seconds or more for the darned thing to load!
Remember this quote from The Big Chill…
“No writing longer than an average person can read during an average crap.”
Folks have short attention spans….shorter is always better!
My least favorite thing is automatic music. Someday I may have a heart attack. If you must have music, please put the player at the top of the page with an obvious mute button.
I hope I’ve compensated for darkness with font-size.
Penny - the Big Chill must be where they got the idea for People Magazine.
S-)
I read a website the other day that had a dark-red dense, swirling pattern as the background with a delicate lavender type font on top. It hurt so much to read that when I glanced at my wall, the ghost-patterns were still hovering in my burned outed retinas.
Be kind folks, go easy on the patterned backgrounds.
XXOO Kat
I’ve had the same problem, Kat. Anything swirly really bothers me. I know one girl - a darling blogger, who does fluorescent orange on a black sparkly background. She has so much stuff on her site that it takes forever to load. I can’t get it to scroll and I see stars after visiting! So I never visit.
I am guilty of the dark background but that is the back back not the main page..I do hate when I go to a site and there is music and every page I hit the song resets over and over…OMG
Steph - I can read yours with increased font size. For a few weeks there something happened and I felt like I was colorblind - could not see the font to save my life!
Yes, Penny - I will always remember that line - words to live by!
Oh Julianne - I can’t stand it when a site takes forever to open. I give up after ten seconds.
Hey, Amber. I’m not fond of black backgrounds with white lettering at all. Does bother my eyes.
Savannah - your background is like mine - just an outline of the main page. That’s no biggie - it actually highlights the main page.
I couldn’t have said it better myself. Those are rules every blogger should read daily. Thanks for a great post.
Thanks, Prudence! Nice to see you!
Hmm…now I don’t feel so bad about my blog being very plain (I am still learning the ropes) and I will keep all of your comments in mind as it evolves. Just wanted to thank you for the book (and couldn’t figure out how to send you a message otherwise-I did look!). Hope you all have a great 2012.
I like your site! You’re welcome! Happy 2012 to you too.
Plain blog. Check. I hate the music the most. Why must I listen to someone else’s taste in music? Sigh. Good post.
Oh, no kidding Anny. Plain old blog. That’s good enough for me.
I have white lettering and a shocking pink background. People still come back and read it. I conclude people either are appalled or like what I say and the background has stuff all to do with it. The thing I loathe about some author blogs - when the author has a photo from 20 years ago where she is dressed up like a tart and she is explaining her ‘art’ and what she feels when it comes to writing. I don’t care. I want real and average, down and dirty. As for art? Writing is not an art. It’s a means to an end and if someone denies that they’re lying their arse off. Writing equals money. We’re not in this game to be existential butterflies searching for the meaning of life in our words.
Yes you do have white lettering, Amarinda, but I can read yours. The pink background is easy on the eyes. More important you always have something interesting to say and you are brief and to the point.
Well, I wish I could say writing equals money, but not in my case. I don’t make enough to be able to say that. Writing does equal satisfaction for me. I do try to put meaning into my words beyond the obvious entertainment value.
I mean, even entertainment has meaning. It makes readers happy - writing is a public service.
“writing is a public service.”
Can’t go along with you on that one especially in light of it being entertainment because then you could say hookers and strippers and drug pushers - who provide enetetainment - are doing a public service.
Well, I guess, Amarinda, but that new link you put up really freaked me out. I knew ARE was getting into a lot of that stuff, but how disturbing!