Hi Guys/Gals

I've recently put up a website that i'll be using to market my fiction work, I wondered if some of you could have a perusal on the site and give me some feedback, there's little content on there at the moment, and I'm sure there are some broken links or display glitches that I haven't noticed (I'm using a mac, so IE might be playing up).

http://colinfrancisbarnes.com

Thanks!

P.S I've also recently joined facebook, twitter and myspace, so if anyone would like to add me just go ahead and mention your from traineo, and lastly if your interested in getting regular short 'flash fiction' then by all means subscribe to either my RSS or Email feed - both are free.

Wow, looks like you've spent a lot of time on the site! I read "Tundra" - it wasn't nearly long enough! It definitely grabbed my interest. Makes me wonder how he got on the Tundra in the first place... hmmmm.

Good luck!

Thanks for the feedback angie, the 'flash fiction' are intended to be super short to peake some interest, it's also so that can I quickly brainstorm idea's. My intention is to add one each day, this should give me a little discipline and keep the ideas coming.

Since it's supposed to be kind of a dark website maybe if you made it black background with white text, it would fit the whole thriller theme better. Just a though.

HI Rachael, thanks for the idea. It was something I considered, but discounted because most other authors of that genre have that, and also I find it quite hard on the eyes reading white on black for an extended period. I'm sure overtime the colour-scheme will evolve a little. Thanks!!

I like the page colors and layout. I agree with you Colin that a black background web site can be hard on the eyes. I like the three column layout. You are using Wordpress for the web page content correct?

Hi Joe,

Aye, I'm using wordpress, I'm hosting it myself rather than there free one, so I get a lot more control over the code, and styling. It's a real nice system.

Yes, Wordpress is great to use. I also use Joomla and Postnuke on a few websites that I run.

How do you find Joomla? I've heard some good things about it, but not looked into it myself.

Joomla is very easy to use. I even let a non-tech person work the content on their own website (The website is no longer out there). My brother in law uses Joomla on our family's cabin website and he likes it a lot better than Postnuke.

http://www.johnstoncabin.com

Joomla uses add-ins called "Extensions" to add content. To change the look of the website, there are many themes they call "Templates". The user community is huge and their website for support is highly organized and easy to find a solution.

The site looks very clean overall, which I like, but I would change a few things:

* I would move the navigation column to the left of the content. It seems cluttered with the two navigation panes side-by-side.

* I would get rid of the external navigation column, if possible. MyBlogLog? I'm not sure what that is, and maybe you want it, but if it's just there for the sake of being there, I would say remove it. If you do this there would be more room to move the author links to the other navigation column, giving you more content room (which you can never have too much of ).

* I'm exactly sure how to explain this next part, but I'll try . You might like it as-is, which is fine--the problem I have is with separators. I don't really like your use of separators (ie, lines/rules). The separators between each blog post are fine. The separators between each nav item (middle column) seem like overkill to me. A lighter colour might look better, but I think you could get rid of them.

* Header and footer. Some more separation issues... now I'm just being picky. Header and footer nav seems like each item would look better centered (either that or use variable-width items). Seems like their should be something to separate the header/footer from the rest of the document, but I'm not sure what. I don't think a line separator would look very good here. It's not a critical issue, just my own observation .

Ryan - thanks for the critique points. I've made some changes, which are based on some of the issues you have raised, and a couple of things that others have felt also (about the middle link column). I've now moved that to the left, which I do prefer, however it's not as effective in an SEO context, but I think i'll live with that.

I tried removing the separators on the link list items, but didn't like the look, so I've lightened the shade which I feel looks better.

I removed the MyBlogLog thingy before I read your post, and agree that there was no need for it to be there.

I'm going to experiment with a two column layout and see how that fits.

Thanks again for the feedback.

I think it looks really good now. The right hand column is less of an issue for me now with the nav column moved to the left and the MyBlogLog removed. Looks plenty clean. I see no reason to remove the right external nav column now unless you actually desire the space for the content area.

Lighter lines definitely look better in nav column and I would say there's no reason to remove them now. It looks good.

I think I prefer the single lines between the blog posts.

The line below the header looks good (I wasn't sure if it would work), but might I suggest having that line on the top in the footer?

Different font in the intro text seems out of place.

With some work (and bastardised HTML) you should be able to put the content in front of the navigation in the HTML. That could end up being much harder than it sounds, though . If you're using floats and end up with just two columns, you can put content before nav in HTML and just float right and left, respectively.

Thanks for the advice Ryan, I shall think on these matters tomorrow, for now I must get some sleep! Cheers

International Best Seller!! Loving the work Colin!!

Always glad to help.