Never ask a surgeon about turkey carving...

[etherial]

I was unclear in my previous post about websites. I'm not looking for a modern web 2.0 data scheme. I want a simple front page that says "Hi, we are legitimately offering you $5 for your short story and will actually pay you if we use it". What information can we provide, besides our writing guidelines, that will help assure you that your $5 short story is not going to be stolen by us?

I am currently suffering from writer's block, not an overwhelming desire to curl up in a ball twitching because I can't get the @!#$ code to work.

Comments

[stillking.livejournal.com]

The simple "mail yourself a sealed, certified, dated letter containing your own short story, with an unbroken signature across the back envelope flap" is a decent stopgap method, and will stand up in court if/when necessary. Authors and publishers have been doing this for, like, 75 years.

To jumpstart this process, you might offer to send them a postage-paid envelope suitable for such activity. This is what half.com (now eBay) does for its sellers.

-- Sven

[catya.livejournal.com]

(I'm happy to build something for you.)

For front page content, I think you want a short description of the project, leading to a longer description.

A short description of what sort of stories you're looking for (again maybe linked to longer)

A form for people to submit entries, including a spot for uploading files.

Does any of that help with writer's block?

[siderea]

Ahh. Though I think you misunderstood the point of the other commenters. The single most important thing you can do to convince people that your company is trustworthy is to look trustworthy. To look "professional". This is image. This is design. Not text.

And one of the fascinating bits of class semiotics online has to do exactly with what pezzonovante said. Most people -- most small businesses and fly-by-night operations -- when they want to throw a quicky web page up, use WordPress or other blog-based CMS to do so. See, they're pre-packaged apps that come pre-skinned. You don't need to pay a designer or have design skills for it to look "professional".

The problem is that they look like "professional" blogs. To anyone with any net-savvy, they scream "cheap, fast, and possibly illegitimate".

I have a strong professional opinion as to what product you should be using to do this the moment you get beyond one page, because evaluating CMSes is one of the things I do for techjob -- ask if you want it -- but one way or another, you're going to need to attend to design.

[catya.livejournal.com]

(I use Drupal, which has the advantage of being themed (like skinned), but is not a blog. good stuff.)

[siderea]

Drupal is a portal package, which is the identical problem from a different angle. Also, I hate it deeply.

[etherial.livejournal.com]

I certainly am thinking about our long-term needs, but we're just not willing to frontload everything. While I appreciate the reminders re: blogotype and wikis, our short term needs for the webpage are "get our submission guidelines up and our name out there". I mean, there's generally a 2-month lead time on those $5 short stories - something that says "work in progress" is not out of line here.

[catya.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure what you mean by portal package :) but perhaps not here for religious wars :)

[jon-libby.livejournal.com]

First thing I'd want to know is who retains copyright.

Is that the kind of thing you are asking?

*sigh*

[etherial.livejournal.com]

I don't even know what I'm asking.

[siderea]

You're missing the point. This isn't about CMSes -- a technology you clearly have no idea about (hint: it has nothing to do with wikis) -- this has to do with design. You know: fonts, colors, layout. If you want to do a single, stand-alone HTML page, that's fine, but if you want people to trust you it had better not look like it was cobbled together by a 12 year old and a box of markers, so you will either need to have design skills or find a designer.

[siderea]

Well, Comic Sans is a good start, but you have to use at least three distinct fonts if you really want to impress people.

Animated gifs and that CSS sparkle effect are also de rigueur.

[calygrey.livejournal.com]

...but you have to use at least three distinct fonts if you really want to impress people

Good God. No you don't. Where did that rule appear from?

[siderea]

You just blew your saving throw vs. sarcasm. (The curve was one comment back.) Roll 1d20 against the critical hit "irony" table for damage.

Re: *sigh*

[calygrey.livejournal.com]

Who: who are we
What: what are we doing
Why: why are we doing it

Where: where should you send your story
When: when should you send it; when will it be published.

Note: you, the author, retain all rights except for "xxxx".

Design: very dark text on a very light background. ONE typeface, used NO MORE than 3 different ways (italic, bold, etc, big, medium, little: not 3 ways times 3 sizes, just 3 differences.)

The home page title could be something fancy if you are particularly brave.

Read www.webpagesthatsuck.com and follow all of their rules. You audience will love you for it.

Floating tables so the thing'll center no matter what the user's browser size is.

If you have more than one page, make all pages under the home page identical to each other. Make them relate some to the home page.

CMS, Drupal, all that jazz, you simply do not need and likely never will. I loved Front Page. It was perfect for this level of thing. Try KomPoZer; I don't love it, but it's free and not hard to learn.

[calygrey.livejournal.com]

You just blew your saving throw vs. sarcasm.

Oh my God. I am so very stupid.