It's the first Wednesday of the month and so it’s time for another Insecure Writer’s Support Group (IWSG) post! In an IWSG post, we writers bring our writing challenges and problems out into the open to share with each other and try to offer solutions. I hope everyone's having a great start during this new month of February. Mine started off great since I had the pleasure this past Monday of interviewing a fellow IWSG contributor and author, Diane Wolfe! In that interview she talks about her newest book of paranormal romance fiction, "In Darkness: The Alien" and the "In Darkness" series that it's an installment to. She had a lot of interesting things to say about the book, the series and her writing career. So, check out my interview with Diane if you haven't done so yet! Thanks, again, Diane, for letting me interview you! 

Most of the rest of today's post will be answering the IWSG Question of the Month which is What turns you off when visiting an author's website/blog? Lack of information? A drone of negativity? Little mention of author's books? Constant mention of books? While some of these have annoyed me, they haven’t annoyed me much more than the poor appearance of the author's website or blog itself.

When I go to the website or blog of an author who specialises in a specific Genre, especially a fiction genre, and its appearance doesn't even come close to reflecting that genre, there’s very little else that turns me off. It gives me the impression that the author doesn't take his or her genre that seriously. The author claims to write in a specific genre but their website looks like it could be for any genre. Even worse is when it looks like it can be the website of anybody, writer or non-writer. 

Because I'm a writer of mostly science fiction and horror, I'll use an example of a horror author's website. I go to that author's website, having learned that they write horror. When I, as both a writer and fan of the genre, hear the word “horror” I think of dark landscapes, graveyards and old decaying mansions or castles in a night time setting. As far as colours go, I think of black, orange, blood-red or an eerie green or blue. But when I go to this horror author's website, what do I see on the home page? A bright, white background and, at the top, a large photo of a potted daisy in a window on a sunny, spring day! 

Author, can you run that by me again? What genre did you say you normally write in? When I come to a site with graphics that make it look more like it’s a home-and-garden website than a horror author's and I know very little about that author’s work, I'm very inclined to leave that site immediately. 

I mean, did Walt Disney make his Disneyland in the appearance of an oil refinery? Did J.K. Rowling give the covers to her Harry Potter books illustrations depicting a southwestern US landscape with cowboys herding cattle? Who would want to walk into Disneyland on first seeing and learning of it if it looked like a gritty, cold metallic oil refinery? What avid reader of YA and/or children's fantasy would bother with a Harry Potter book if the cover depicted something that was for a western?

If you have that much of a passion for the genre you write in, then you need to reflect it in your website by making the graphics, layout and/or images represent that genre. Its appearance needs to reflect your genre of interest and specialty because if it doesn't, readers won't take it seriously.  

So, when you’re promoting your books in a certain genre on your website, your website's appearance has to reflect that genre. Fiction genres target specific audiences and a specific audience is going to expect to see your website or blog reflect the genre they read in and that you write for them in. If it doesn’t, they will likely not bother looking through the website.

Since I’ve posted twice this week, I’m taking a break from posting next Monday which is the usual day that I publish my weekly blog posts. But I'll be back with another exciting article the following Monday! When you visit the website or blog of an author who writes in your favourite genre, do you expect it to reflect that genre in its appearance? Or do you only care about the content itself? 

Today’s IWSG is brought to you by these super co-hosts: Janet Alcorn, SE White, Victoria Marie Lees, and Cathrina Constantine! IWSG was founded by awesome author Alex Cavanaugh, writer of the Cassa Series of novels! 

Until next time . . .