Shannan Rivera Harrington
Dr. Gu
ENGL 8123
8 December 2024
Final Project Rhetorical Analysis
Context
Overall Background and Document/Project Goals
As an aspiring author currently querying a young adult fantasy novel, I was surprised by many of the things that I learned while sending out my first round of submission documents. A significant amount of research went in to mastering the proper conventions for writing query letters, manuscript synopses, brief biographies, and story pitches, but something I was continually surprised by during this process was how often submission forms asked for the writer to include a link to their professional website.
I had assumed that an author created a website after they published their work and had a following that wanted to keep up with them, but I discovered that agents, editors, and publishers want to see a writer’s website to get a sense of who that writer is. They want to know that the writer is reliable, consistent, involved in the industry, keeping up with the trends, and, most importantly, they want to see samples of that writer’s work before they commit to doing business with them.
This makes sense, especially in the technology-driven world that we are in today, so I kept telling myself that I was going to create a website when I had the time to commit to it, and this project afforded me the perfect opportunity to finally get it done. This class also gave me the knowledge I needed to ensure that my website was thoughtfully and effectively made, so that I could represent myself in the best way possible. I created a cohesive, intuitive, and attractive website through utilizing various design principles that we discussed in class.
Project Constraints, Controversies, and Conflicts
The only conflict I can imagine that might be a potential barrier to success is the issue of publication rights. Because I do not currently have any creative pieces published, I do not have links to provide writing samples for agents, so to ensure I had samples on my website I used the a few lines of unpublished materials.
This could create an issue with publishing houses that want first publication rights because they may consider the materials “previously published” on my website. However, I can easily take the material down, and the first few sentences can be revised if that is a concern that a publishing house has with the material on my website.
Strategies
General Writing/Design Strategies
Creating this website posed a unique problem because I was not sure how to tackle creating a writer’s website without having any of my creative works published yet, but when I looked at the websites of my favorite authors, I realized that they had more to them than just a list of their books. They had about pages, events, contact information, advice for writers, and things of that nature, so I took the elements that I was seeing on these pages and found ways to make them fit where I currently am in my publication journey.
Content Design Selection
I decided that I would create the following pages for my website: home, about, creative writing, recent reads, publishing adventures and events. I knew that I could create authentic content for these pages that would highlight my experiences as an aspiring author while still meeting the expectations of my target audience or literary agents, editors, and publishers.
For my about page, I wrote a brief biography that discussed my professional experiences, but I framed the content to highlight how my education and professional background are tied to creative writing. I mentioned how I taught creative writing classes and that my concentration in my master’s program was creative as well. I also included contact information on this page, choosing to use my professional writer email address and my professional writer social media accounts, which I made when I started querying since agent submission forms asks for these items as well.
For my “events” page, I kept the content fairly simple. I created a grid that lists the writing and book conventions that I attend annually. While I don’t speak at these events, I did still think this page was worth creating because members of my target audience will be able to see that I am engaged with the writing community and that I am familiar with the structure of these events, which I believe would give them confidence that I am reliable and knowledgeable.
This same line of reasoning led me to create the “recent reads” page. Every query form that I filled out asked me to list comparable titles to the manuscript I was submitting for them, so I determined that creating a page that showed agents, editors, and publishers what I’m currently reading, what I’m planning to read next, and what some of my favorite reads are was a good way to show that I know what the current trends are in the genre that I write in while also giving them a since of my writing style by pointing to authors and stories that I love and continually go back to even though I don’t have creative credits.
Despite not having creative work published, I, along with the rest of our class felt that it was really important to somehow display samples of my writing, so I did include a “creative writing” page on my website that describes my current writing projects and where I am in my publishing journey for each one. I also chose to include the first few lines of each project so that there was a small snippet of my creative writing without posing too much of a risk to potential publishers who want first publication rights on submissions.
The final page I decided to include on my website is “publishing adventures.” It is my hope that this blog will mirror the style of blog posts from that authors that give writing advice, but instead I will create posts about querying advice while also documenting my querying journey. I hope that these posts will give agents, editors, and publishers a sense of my voice and who I am as a professional; however, I don’t have any posts written yet in this section aside from an introductory post letting readers know how I came to love stories.
Organization and Format Design Strategies
I organized my website to highlight the information I thought would be most important to agents, editors, and publishers. The homepage is a landing page that features a short blurb about what information can be found on my website. Within the introduction paragraph, I link to my about, creative writing, recent reads, and events pages because I know from my querying experiences that agents are interested in who you are, what you write, and what other titles the can compare your materials too. The “Home,” “About,” “Creative Writing,” and “Recent Reads” pages are also emphasized by their prominence in navigation menu. Visitors can easily see and click on these items without having to scroll over the “More” tab.
Under “More” are the pages for “Events” and “Publishing Adventures.” They are still easy to access, but they are not as readily available as the other items because they are not as important. While I do think it is good for my own ethos to highlight my involvement with the writing community and to show that I attend writing events, I have never been asked by an agent about writing events or what my publishing experience has been like, so I do not think it will make their experience navigating my website any less enjoyable to have these pages under the “More” tab.
I previously discussed my decision-making process with content selection and how it conformed to audience expectations under “Content Design Selection,” so I will focus this discussion on other design choices I made to make my website appealing for my users. First I selected the American Typewriter typeface, which resembles a vintage typewriter’s lettering. This style is still very prevalent and popular in book communities. Also, the serif font creates an academic and professional aesthetic.
I chose a blue color scheme because color theory suggests that the color blue is tied to feelings of trust, peace, and education, all of which I want associated with my professional persona. The blue tone that I chose also has hues of green and grey. Green is symbolic of calm, balance, and growth, and grey is connected to wisdom and strength. I also made sure that these colors were carried out consistently through each element on every page so that the design was cohesive.
To help readers access information, I used the different forms of navigation highlighted in our reading “Website Navigation Design: Everything You Need to Know,” including content-linking, keyword searching, and structural browsing with menus in multiple places. In my written content, I linked to other pages on my website and other websites for events I mentioned as well as my social media pages. I tried to implement keyword searching by including a search bar; however, Wix’s search bar element only searches content on associated blog posts, not individual page content. I tried to make this clear to users by changing the search bar wording from “Search…” to “Search my blog posts…” that way the limitation of the search feature is obvious to users, but I still think this could present a problem, so I might end up removing it. I also included structural browsing with navigation at both the top and bottom of the page as well as including tabs and galleries when appropriate.
On my “Creative Writing” page, I included the IA principles of choice and disclosure by adding tabs to organize my writing examples. Users can click through tabs for “What I Write,” “Master’s Thesis,” “Short Stories,” and “Novels” so they do not get overwhelmed with all these samples on a single page and to give them options for what they want to know more about.
Style Design Strategies
I made the decision to use Wix because I knew that I wanted to send this out by the end of the year, and most of the author websites I reviewed looked like templates I saw on Wix. I wanted to make sure my website was of a similar quality, and I liked that Wix allowed for customization while still providing a professional look.
My tone for the written content was professional but conversational. I wrote in first person, speaking directly to my readers. I did this intentionally because I wanted the website content to represent my own voice. My creative writing tends to be in first-person, but also a few websites that I reviewed used the third-person voice, and, to me, those felt stiff and impersonal. In my writing, I also used words, phrases, and acronyms commonly used in book and writer communities on social media and in book promotional content. For example, I included TBR and trope lists. The phrases and tropes are very common among writers and will easily be recognized by agents, editors, and publishers, so I believe this language will build my ethos for my intended audience.
Overall, I am proud of the website I have created. I believe that the decisions I made using the knowledge I gained in class helped me create a cohesive design with intuitive navigation that follows IA principles. I am excited to see if adding this website to my submission materials will have a positive impact on my next round of queries.
Work Cited
“The 8 Principles of Information Architecture.” UX24/7, UX24/7 Ltd, 5 Dec. 2018, ux247.com/the-8-principles-of-information-architecture/#3_The_principle_of_disclosure.
“Website Navigation Design: Everything You Need to Know.” Trajectory, Trajectory, 17 Apr. 2021, www.trajectorywebdesign.com/blog/website-navigation-design-guide.