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:

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.