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David_L_Wilson

Pre-takeoff checklist
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Feb 2, 2009
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David L Wilson
Book number 3 is now in the hands of a literary agency. Check out "And the Citadel Fell."
 
You certainly are prolific. No airplanes in this one, I presume! :D
 
flyersfan31 said:
You certainly are prolific. No airplanes in this one, I presume! :D
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Actually my main character is a pilot and flying is a small part of the book. However, there is some good flying in the story. He flies fixed wing and helicopters in the book. Did you like the picture I photoshoped for the website?
 
Your website could use some work. The story page is pretty well busted for me. That CDC image overlays the text.....Plus it's just..hard on the eyes.
 
jesse said:
Your website could use some work. The story page is pretty well busted for me. That CDC image overlays the text.....Plus it's just..hard on the eyes.
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I appreciate your advice. I don't see any text covered by pictures. Do you have the "chiller" font installed on your computer? So far I have gotten good reviews including from my agency. What would you change? The page is dark because of the subject matter of the book. Horror/SciFi.
 
David_L_Wilson said:
I appreciate your advice. I don't see any text covered by pictures. Do you have the "chiller" font installed on your computer? So far I have gotten good reviews including from my agency. What would you change? The page is dark because of the subject matter of the book. Horror/SciFi.
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No I don't have whatever the "chiller" font is. It's really bad web design to make your users download some font off your website and install it on their computers. Pretty much no one will do that.

You more or less need to use fonts people have or use some of the other methods out there (some tricky javascript) to use a different font.

As far as the web design itself? It's very up and down vertical -- loud big fonts, etc. It's just not what you typically see in the web design world. Seems 1997ish.
 
David_L_Wilson said:
I appreciate your advice. I don't see any text covered by pictures. Do you have the "chiller" font installed on your computer? So far I have gotten good reviews including from my agency. What would you change? The page is dark because of the subject matter of the book. Horror/SciFi.
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This is what it looks like to me...
(image removed as no longer necessary)
 
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Capt. Geoffrey Thorpe said:
This is what it looks like to me...
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Ah, I see. The "chiller" font is a true type font that should be on 99% of computers as it comes with microsoft office. It looks really cool, but I can see your point. If people cannot read it, well its just useless. I will fix it.
 
David_L_Wilson said:
Ah, I see. The "chiller" font is a true type font that should be on 99% of computers as it comes with microsoft office. It looks really cool, but I can see your point. If people cannot read it, well its just useless. I will fix it.
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99%? :rolleyes:

Most statistics you can find will suggest Office is at MOST 66% penetration on Windows based machines... and Windows is just a one O/S in the web-enabled world.

I think it's good you're changing it!
 
I have Microsoft Office and do not have the Chiller font....

advice: If you like the Chiller font as much as it sounds, that's great, and you can still use it: turn it into an image, and it will look as you intended.
 
Ok let me know if you can read everything clearly now. I am really glad you told me about the problem. You should have the correct Font already installed.

Please tell me if you have any viewing problems now. The Chiller font is cool, but useless if nobody can read it.
 
jesse said:
No I don't have whatever the "chiller" font is. It's really bad web design to make your users download some font off your website and install it on their computers. Pretty much no one will do that.

You more or less need to use fonts people have or use some of the other methods out there (some tricky javascript) to use a different font.

As far as the web design itself? It's very up and down vertical -- loud big fonts, etc. It's just not what you typically see in the web design world. Seems 1997ish.
Click to expand...

No need to be hostile dude. I agree with most of what you are saying but I am new to website design. My other 3 sites are very low tech. I don't mind because people will only use these sites to gain information, not for entertainment. My www.youthinaviation.com site is the same way, but it is full of usefull content.
 
David_L_Wilson said:
Ok let me know if you can read everything clearly now. I am really glad you told me about the problem. You should have the correct Font already installed.

Please tell me if you have any viewing problems now. The Chiller font is cool, but useless if nobody can read it.
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You're still using it, from looking at the page source code:

Code: 
<FONT style="FONT-SIZE:48pt" color="#FFFFFF" face="Chiller">
 
If I can make one big suggestion: Write the page from scratch, or using a real web development package like Dreamweaver or even Eclipse. The WYSIWYG Web Builder appears to add a lot of crap to your Markup, and this site is really not too complicated to contain that much extra stuff.

It requires some learning, but you could build the exact same site by doing some of the tutorials available at w3schools.com or many other places.

Not trying to be mean, but you'll be much happier if you learn the basics associated with website development before you market your books through them....that way you can avoid these types of mistakes. We caught it for you, but if you wrote a book that went on the NYT Best seller list, you'd have been caught with your pants around your ankles trying to fix it up quickly.

Edit: it appears you are using a font called "CityBlueprint" still, which is very likely to not be installed on many computers.

edit2: Also - Your book title doesn't fully appear on my browser when it is not maximized. All I see is "And the citadel"
 
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SkyHog said:
If I can make one big suggestion: Write the page from scratch, or using a real web development package like Dreamweaver or even Eclipse. The WYSIWYG Web Builder appears to add a lot of crap to your Markup, and this site is really not too complicated to contain that much extra stuff.
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I dont understand what you mean about "a lot of crap to your Markup" could you please explain.
 
Never used an agent, sold both my books to my publishers myself. What's the deal?
 
What's up with the HIT F5 TO REFRESH THIS PAGE? Why would someone want to refresh that page?

I also wouldn't show your page counter on the page. People quit doing that years ago. If you want statistics then use an analytics package like http://www.google.com/analytics -- a page counter makes you look very small. The large fonts are also very old-school.
 
David_L_Wilson said:
I dont understand what you mean about "a lot of crap to your Markup" could you please explain.
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Sure. I happen to have a few free minutes:

Code: 
<a href="[URL="http://www.pilotsofamerica.com/forum/view-source:http://xyz.freelogs.com/stats/d/dlwdracos/"]http://xyz.freelogs.com/stats/d/dlwdracos/[/URL]" target="_top"><img border="0" alt="hidden hit counter" src="[URL="http://www.pilotsofamerica.com/forum/view-source:http://xyz.freelogs.com/counter/index.php?u=dlwdracos&s=flame"]http://xyz.freelogs.com/counter/index.php?u=dlwdracos&s=flame[/URL]" ALIGN="middle" HSPACE="4" VSPACE="2"></a><script src=[URL="http://www.pilotsofamerica.com/forum/view-source:http://xyz.freelogs.com/counter/script.php?u=dlwdracos"]http://xyz.freelogs.com/counter/script.php?u=dlwdracos[/URL]></script>
<br><a style="font-size:12" href="[URL="http://www.pilotsofamerica.com/forum/view-source:http://www.freelogs.com/"]http://www.freelogs.com/[/URL]" target="_top">hit counter dreamweaver</a>
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">
<HTML>
<HEAD>
<TITLE>And the Citadel Fell</TITLE>
<META name="AUTHOR" content="WYSIWYG Web Builder">
<META name="GENERATOR" content="WYSIWYG Web Builder - http://www.pablosoftwaresolutions.com">
<STYLE type="text/css">
div#container
{
   width: 1091px;
   position: relative;
   margin-top: 0px;
   margin-left: auto;
   margin-right: auto;
   text-align: left;
}
body
{
   text-align: center;
   margin: 0;
}
</STYLE>
</HEAD>
<BODY bgcolor="#000000" text="#FFFFFF">
<DIV id="container">
<A href="[URL="http://www.pilotsofamerica.com/forum/view-source:http://www.pablosoftwaresolutions.com/"]http://www.pablosoftwaresolutions.com[/URL]" target="_blank"><IMG src="[URL="http://www.pilotsofamerica.com/forum/view-source:http://www.andthecitadelfell.com/images/builtwithwwb3.gif"]images/builtwithwwb3.gif[/URL]" width="88" height="31" align="top" border="0" alt="Pablo Software Solutions" style="position:absolute;left:93px;top:640px;z-index:250"></A>
<DIV style="position:absolute;left:274px;top:41px;width:471px;height:82px;z-index:1" align="left">
<FONT style="FONT-SIZE:48pt" color="#FFFFFF" face="CityBlueprint">And the Citadel Fell</FONT></DIV>
<IMG src="[URL="http://www.pilotsofamerica.com/forum/view-source:http://www.andthecitadelfell.com/images/citadel.jpg"]images/citadel.jpg[/URL]" alt="" align="top" border="0" width="498" height="322" style="position:absolute;left:252px;top:116px;width:498px;height:322px;z-index:2">
<DIV style="position:absolute;left:242px;top:462px;width:524px;height:45px;z-index:3" align="left">
<FONT style="FONT-SIZE:26pt" color="#FFFFFF" face="CityBlueprint">A new book by author David Lloyd Wilson</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="position:absolute;left:430px;top:533px;width:157px;height:45px;z-index:4" align="left">
<FONT style="FONT-SIZE:26pt" color="#FFFFFF" face="CityBlueprint"><A href="[URL="http://www.pilotsofamerica.com/forum/view-source:http://www.andthecitadelfell.com/story.html"]http://www.andthecitadelfell.com/story.html[/URL]">THE STORY</A></FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="position:absolute;left:378px;top:610px;width:238px;height:30px;z-index:5" align="left">
<FONT style="FONT-SIZE:18pt" color="#FFFFFF" face="CityBlueprint">Hit F5 to refresh the page</FONT></DIV>
<IMG src="[URL="http://www.pilotsofamerica.com/forum/view-source:http://www.andthecitadelfell.com/images/moon_small.jpg"]images/moon_small.jpg[/URL]" alt="" align="top" border="0" width="50" height="49" style="position:absolute;left:305px;top:125px;width:50px;height:49px;z-index:6">
</DIV>
</BODY>
</HTML>
I wish this gave line numbers, but that's ok. Towards the end of your code, you have the same code repeating over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over....

Using CSS, you could very easily create a class that contains font size, color, typeface, etc.

You are using z-indexes as well, which seems a bit odd considering you don't have any objects or elemnts overlapping each other.

Using position absolutes on a page that is pretty much just a vertically aligned page seems like a bit of a waste as well.

This may just be my preference, but using pixel sizes vs. percent sizes is going to eat you alive when someone views your site in a resolution other than you designed it in.

You have a link in your code before your HTML code. That is bizarre.

I'm sure there's other stuff, but this is all things that will help clean it up a little for you.

edit: final thing - and its just a "drives Nick crazy thing," but since you're not writing BASIC, there's no need to capitalize every single HTML tag you've got.
Code: 
<html>
  <head>
    <title>
      This is the title
    </title>
  </head>
  <body>
  This is the body
  </body>
</html>

Looks so much better than

Code: 
<HTML>
<HEAD>
<TITLE>This is the title</TITLE>
</HEAD>
<BODY>
This is the body
</BODY>
</HTML>
 
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smigaldi said:
It is a vanity publisher, different business model. This VP is one of the better ones.
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Oops, misread. Agency, not agent. I'm still wondering about the deal. Is this like self-publishing, or was there an up-front payment to the author, or does David collect royalties? What kind of print run are they expecting? What is their publication schedule?

My royalties from sales suck, but the last couple years my payments from subsidiary rights have been pretty good. I might have finally earned enough that my salary for my efforts to write the book have surpassed minimum wage.
 
smigaldi said:
It is a vanity publisher, different business model. This VP is one of the better ones.
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Scott - you're an expert on this stuff (I'd expect, at least, since your constituency keeps putting you in office :D)..

Are my parents vanity publishers?

Here's their business model:

They select books that are shown to them, and they produce the books at their cost. Then, they sell the books to book stores, and give a percentage of the sale to the original author, and keep a chunk themselves.

The whole process started as a means to publish my mother's own books, and has expanded to other authors.

Their books are on Amazon and B&N and are listed in the LoC and have ISBNs and my dad has a bunch of ISBNs to use for other books....

Is that vanity? I think my dad is trying to avoid Vanity Publishing, so I'm curious if he's succeeded?
 
SkyHog said:
Scott - you're an expert on this stuff (I'd expect, at least, since your constituency keeps putting you in office :D)..

Are my parents vanity publishers?

Here's their business model:

They select books that are shown to them, and they produce the books at their cost. Then, they sell the books to book stores, and give a percentage of the sale to the original author, and keep a chunk themselves.

The whole process started as a means to publish my mother's own books, and has expanded to other authors.

Their books are on Amazon and B&N and are listed in the LoC and have ISBNs and my dad has a bunch of ISBNs to use for other books....

Is that vanity? I think my dad is trying to avoid Vanity Publishing, so I'm curious if he's succeeded?
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Sounds like a small publishing house. Do they provide an editor to look over the manuscript and come up with the design and marketing ?

There is nothing wrong with VP, especially the better ones. There are some out there that do print-on-demand and charge the authors for that service. Those are the type you want to avoid.
 
steingar said:
Never used an agent, sold both my books to my publishers myself. What's the deal?
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I found an literary agent online and submitted my book. They accepted it but asked for a second party critique which cost me $89. After I edited the things from the critique I sent them the new manuscript. Now, they are looking for a buyer for my book. They keep 10% of whatever I make on the book.
 
jesse said:
What's up with the HIT F5 TO REFRESH THIS PAGE? Why would someone want to refresh that page?

I also wouldn't show your page counter on the page. People quit doing that years ago. If you want statistics then use an analytics package like http://www.google.com/analytics -- a page counter makes you look very small. The large fonts are also very old-school.
Click to expand...

If updates have been recently made you must hit F5 to see the changes. I like haveing the counter on the page, sorry.
 
David_L_Wilson said:
If updates have been recently made you must hit F5 to see the changes. I like haveing the counter on the page, sorry.
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Still isn't showing the full title, Dave. See attached image, just taken now. Yes, I pressed F5.
 

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Ok one more try. Let me know if you can see everything ok. You must maximize your window.

Again, thanks for all your advice. Don't forget to hit F5 if you have viewed the site recently.
 
Ok, one last change. I took your advice and made the text into images. Now everybody can view the site the way I want it.
 
David_L_Wilson said:
If updates have been recently made you must hit F5 to see the changes. I like haveing the counter on the page, sorry.
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If F5 is required to see a change you made and you'll never see it without pressing F5 then you've got some headers that are rather jacked.

Ever notice how other pages change on the internet and they don't tell you to press F5 in huge font on their page? Ever notice how after you click on a thread in PoA you don't have to press F5 to view the new posts in it?
 
David_L_Wilson said:
Ok, one last change. I took your advice and made the text into images. Now everybody can view the site the way I want it.
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Making the text into images isn't a good solution either -- now search engines can't index your website :) Isn't web design a hassle? That website, more or less, isn't going to get on Google in any useful way now.

If you really want to use obsceure fonts then one of these will do it:
http://www.mikeindustries.com/blog/sifr/
http://typeface.neocracy.org/
The typeface method is pretty damn cool. Either will work and maintain the ability for Google to index your site.
 
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jesse said:
Making the text into images isn't a good solution either -- now search engines can't index your website :) Isn't web design a hassle? That website, more or less, isn't going to get on Google in any useful way now.

If you really want to use obsceure fonts then one of these will do it:
http://www.mikeindustries.com/blog/sifr/
http://typeface.neocracy.org/
The typeface method is pretty damn cool. Either will work and maintain the ability for Google to index your site.
Click to expand...

Again thanks. I added invisable text with my keywords. You cant see them but they are on the bottom of the page.
 
See for yourself.
 

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David_L_Wilson said:
Search and the citadel fell and I am on google
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David_L_Wilson said:
See for yourself.
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The part you're showing on Google is when they last crawled it -- and when they last crawled it-- you had real text, not images.

Your hidden text matching the page color might help you, but doing that is discouraged by Google and if they detect it (they often do) they ignore it.

I'm just giving you some advice -- you can take it or leave it -- the web is what I do for a living :)

The proper way is to use a font that most have for the majority of the copy and the places you do want some weird font, try to keep it small, and use one of the methods I showed above.
 
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