So John Scalzi finds himself needing a more professional website—plus he has this writing gig, you know, novels and stories and events and other little things like that, so he doesn’t have time to tinker with a website. And since I like reading his books and stories and, heck, his blog, I and pretty much everybody else in the Whatever audience support ads coming on Whatever, so long as they’re un-obtrusive, relevant, and are good-looking static images with maybe a little text. The money from the ads will go to hiring a skilled web designer/WordPress guru. Good deal all around.
Currently he has a test ad on his blog, and I think it looks alright—it’s off to the side, and it’s relevant, and it’s pretty, and it’s a static image with a little text under it.
I’m putting the rest of this under a cut, due to the images.
Here’s a bird-eye view of what his website looks like right now, with the ad in context in terms of the rest of the page:
Here’s a close-up of the ad and its associated text:
I think this is pretty good. And of course it’s All the Windwracked Stars by Elizabeth Bear, so it’s extra good.
I think a little styling would be to the advantage of the ad, so here’s my thoughts on that:
.largeAd { padding: 6px 2px 1px 2px; width: 100%; border: 1px solid #aaa; background-color: #eee; margin: 0 auto 0 auto; }
.largeAd a:first-child { text-decoration: none; text-align: center; display: block; }
.largeAd img { border-width: 0px; margin: 0 auto 5px auto; }
.largeAd .title { font-size: 1.3em; font-weight: bold; margin: 0 0 5px 0; padding: 0; text-align: center; }
.largeAd .author { text-align: center; margin: 0; padding: 0; }
.largeAd .quote { margin: 2ex 0 0 0; padding: 0; }
.largeAd .quote strong:first-child { font-size: 1.25em; font-weight: bold; display: block; margin: 0; padding: 0;}
.largeAd .quote .source { font-style: italic; text-align: right; display: block; }
.largeAd .bookLink a { font-size: 1.2em; font-weight: bold; text-align: center; margin: 1ex; }
.largeAd .info { padding: 5px 5px 0 5px; }
By the way, if this looks strange on LiveJournal, this is because LiveJournal is put together from bubblegum and Popsicle sticks, and you should click through to the real blog.