Webmistress, Webmistress, Make Me A Site

 JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: So far, this week has been all about me, me, me. I'm sorry, but the only creatures around I can talk to are the 4 dogs/2 cats, and they only respond to three words: "treat," "out," and "car." So you, dear readers, are the captive audience for my announcement:

After more years than I care to count, I have a real, live, working website again!! Behold the fully functioning www.juliaspencer-fleming.com :

 

 I started out with the bare basics back in the early '00s. Author presence online was so new my brother-in-law did my first web site for me! (Thanks, Dan!) It chugged along for a few years, but then came the days when you had to have a blog and a scrolling update and a social media platform, etc. etc. You all may remember these websites - they went on and ON and on, because before Facebook, Twitter and YouTube were around, authors were trying to cover all those communication styles on their own home pages. 

This era was closely followed by book trailers. No, I never had one, but I had to admit, I really liked them. Why don't we do them anymore?

Anyway, my new and improved web site chugged along just fine as I put out books year after year (with one or two gaps between.) I had all sorts of bells and whistles when THROUGH THE EVIL DAYS came out in 2013. 

Then... stuff happened. As many of you know, I had a lot of real life obligations and events that kept me away from my writing. And between the paperback release of TTED in January of 2014 and handing in the manuscript for HID FROM OUR EYES in August, 2019, I had SO many expenses* and not a great deal in income. I let nonessential items slip, and one of them was the old website.

 *College tuition and vet bills.

Eventually, I neglected to renew the domain itself, and - uh oh! It got picked up by what appears to be a Chinese gambling triad. What fun! However, not so convenient for readers looking to find info about me, instead of cryptocurrencies and point spreads.

It was like having a leak in the roof - you know it's awful, you know it has to be fixed eventually, but you get so used to placing buckets around the rooms you just let it slide.

Well, it has slid no more! I finally got enough slack in my budget* to get the gorgeous, useable, updatable, flexible website I've always dreamed of. Maddee James and the Xuni.com team did an amazing job (she also designed Jenn and Lucy's sites and manages our blog right here!)

*Now paying master's degree tuition. The dogs need dental surgery. Sigh.

You can pre-order books! You can sign up for my newsletter (yep, I'm getting back to doing a newsletter as well.) You can send me email and it will actually reach me, not go to the Stygian depths of the internet. 

And I owe you, dear readers, thanks, for sharing your opinions a few months ago on what you liked and looked for in author sites. When Maddee and I were hashing out the details, the info I got from you all played an important part.  

Here's where I would usually put a discussion question, but I honestly can't think of one, so... click over! Look around! Kick the tires! And let me know what you think.