It seems the in thing right now is to have a custom twitter background. This is a great idea for authors and businesses.

But I urge everyone to be careful when designing their background. It’s easy to design what you think is a great twitter background and have it be partially visible to a majority of your followers.

Why? Screen size and resolution. If you design your background wrong, it will be useless to some of your users.

I recently began following Donna Amos. And when I went to her page I noticed her background was squished. I had my husband bring it up on his monitor to see how it looked there.

His monitor:

My monitor:

And here’s what it looks like at 800 x 600.

With that in mind, I set about creating a new background for my twitter page:

And the Pixelware Design twitter page:

You’ll notice that I’ve kept the image tall and skinny. Then I set the background of the twitter page to the same color as the background of my “background image”.

My images are about 126 wide x 524 pixels tall.

You can add a background and update your color scheme in the settings area of your Twitter account.

Good luck!

PS. Donna Amos always has great advice for entrepreneurs. You should follow her.

I like when I stumble across good examples to share. Since I love excerpts and I know other readers do to, I’m always interested in how an author has their excerpt laid out. I think I’ve covered what to put on an excerpt page before, so here’s an example of a nicely done excerpt page.

It includes: Title, ISBN, a cover blurb, a review snippet, the cover, Buy It links, and the excerpt.

See it live.

I came across an event invitation recently that left me scratching my head. It was a chat invite and I thought ahah, i have some time tonight, I could drop in. But… the time or link to the chatroom was nowhere to be seen. It only said “chat tonight.” And there was the taunt of “prizes.”

All of which was followed with half a dozen book blurbs.

Before I clicked away, frustrated, I glanced at the very bottom. And there, hidden among the book blurbs was a time and link. I don’t need to tell you that this is a bad place for it to be.

Here’s a screenshot… at 11%. So just imagine how much scrolling is involved here.

There’s a new player in the game of author promotion: Vidcasts.

A vidcast is similar to a podcast (audio only) except there’s picture to go with the sound. I haven’t seen many authors doing this yet, but I really love the idea! Perhaps that’s why I think RomanceNovel.tv is so awesome. The way I see it, we Americans are very visual folks. We love movies, magazines, celebrities and pretty much anything that we consider ideal. We like our TV. We love YouTube. And book trailers/videos are quickly catching on.

So it’s only natural that vidcasts should become popular and a great way for readers to see the real author. It’s like a special little note from the author’s desk, right to the reader.

And let’s face it, we’re all curious what our favorite author’s “really” look like… and of course, what their office looks like.

Check out Sasha White’s vidcasts on her blog.

Cute haircut and pretty lipstick are required.

Here on Highlights, we highlight the good with the bad.

Today I was cruising Liquid Silver’s site, looking for contact information for one of their authors. Here is a great example of something simple, and yet really important, being forgotten on a publisher’s website. Author contact information. If it’s on there… I didn’t see it.

One would assume when you click an author’s book, you’d either find that information after the book information or find a link to that information. Or at the very least, you’d find that information or a link to it when you click Other Titles by this Author.

So, a heads up to all you publishers out there. Provide contact information (a bio would be nice too! but at the very least an email and/or website address!) for your authors. Make it easy for readers to get to know the authors who write for you. Those relationships will make you money!

I’ve stumbled across another site that I think has promise. There’s a welcome mat and a comfy chair. Over time I’ve begun to wonder about the purpose of a splash page. What exactly is its function and is it worthy of the time and space we give it. If you’re running a website that has a more sensual message then a splash page is a great idea. Just a heads up to visitors about the territory they’re about to enter.

But if you’re a romance author, business, children’s book author… make sure your splash page provides a purpose. Or a the very least, has your cover on it!

This site makes me want to curl up in my chair and read her book. And I have a feeling, that’s exactly what this author intended. Way to go Kimberly Killion.

I’m sure many people don’t share my addiction to welcome mats. But you can certainly appreciate a nice one, right? A warm inviting entry into the home. Something well light, safe, yet cozy.

The front page of your website is your welcome mat to the world. I love coming to a site that has a very simply laid out front page that doesn’t shove details down my throat. One that doesn’t scare me away or confuse me.

So well done to Sylvia Day and her designer. Her site has a great welcome mat. I might just kick my shoes off and stay a while.

Myspace is great. I’ll give you that. It can be a time sucker, I’ll give you that as well. But over all I think it’s a great place to connect with new people and yet one more place to get your name out there.

However, when you design your myspace layout…….. make sure your text isn’t invisible!

I’m not releasing the name or link to this poor author. But here’s a screenshot to illuminate my point.

For the record, in the romance industry, there’s a very large Firefox community.

If you’re an author, you’re probably trained to write…not promote. And while you porbably have a general idea of what you want on a website, it probably stops at the design and getting your content loaded onto it. That’s why when I see an author’s website with a little something extra on there, I get excited.

For instance, Nalini Singh’s website has what she calls a Star Hunt. As you surf her site, keep a watch out for a little black star. If you find one and click on it it’ll pop up a little something special. In this example, it’s a hunky guy.

Sometimes when I’m surfing the web I come across something I think should be shared with others… something that highlights good or bad design, user interface or lack there of.

I recently came across Lisa Renee Jones new website for her new book series. I really liked how she laid out her Books page. Specifically since the books are in a series, she lists which characters will be in which book. This is great for readers because when they read book One, they’ll want to know when those other characters get their own books.

Screen shot below. Visit the page: www.theknightsofwhite.com/the-books