If you are multi-talented in areas beyond writing, such as music and art, should you put them all on one website or make separate websites for each?

I'll get back to this, but for now, here's Vanya's question:

I am by no means an expert on this, but I have two suggestions:

First of all, it depends on how much content you have for each interest. If you have published six books and have worlds developed for all of them ( OK, that's a lot of info...) you might want a separate writing site or maybe even a sub-site for each book. On the other hand, if you've messed around with graphic design some and you've published one book, they could probably be combined =)

Second, I think it's important to keep the items separate. Even subdomains like the following can help with that:
http://www.writing.katielynndaniels.com
http://www.music.katielynndaniels.com
http://www.interest#3.katielynndaniels.com
Most web providers allow you to add unlimited subdomains for free, so this can be an easy way to keep them separate while still 'unified,' if you know what I mean.

I would however (as a web designer ) highly, highly recommend that you keep the design of the individual sites the same, or at least similar, so that you can build a cohesive design that unifies everything

That's my two bits...

eru

Good info Eru, but I wonder what people would have to remember to type to get to the right site and if they would get it right. I also wonder if someone would rather type katiedaniels.com anyway. Maybe make that the landing page? I agree if you have a lot of stuff for each, that making different sites would make readers feel less cluttered if they subscribe only for one area. Is there another side to the argument for keeping it all on one site and just dividing it up by pages, even if you are productive in all categories?

That all sounds like great fun to tell my dad some day.

My dad is my web provider, just so you know.

Tim, that is more what I meant, that each URL would be a part of the main site, which would be at katiedaniels.com That way people would just go there to find out stuff about you. But at the same time, if you have someone interested in your music, you can just say: here. go to music.katiedaniels.com

eru

Oh, ok. I'm not too familiar with how to do that. I may need to do that with a couple of divisions I have...

What are the differences between using music.author.com or author.com/music aside from the obvious, and what makes one better than the other?

HW uses holyworlds.org/forum rather than the other one. I don't remember why though... but Jay said it was better.

If Jay said it is better it is likely better. I didn't know it made much of a difference. Either way, the concept's the same

eru

I think that, in Katie's case, having a "homepage" that's under the katielynndaniels.com address, with links leading off to the various branches, would be the most effective. That unifies everything under her name while keeping the various branches separate, instead of having just one blog with all of the stuff jumbled together.

Something to consider is - do you want to promote your various skills together? If you're a filmmaker and do both composing and producing, promoting one skill promotes the other, as it's all filmmaking. I'm currently keeping all of my writing together (novels, screenwriting, poetry, and so on), because I'm promoting my skills as a unit. If one of my books becomes successful, I want that to promote my screenwriting as well by publicizing my pen name in general, and vice versa. I've made the executive decision to include my art with my writing at this time, because certain things like manga are a combination of both. I don't do a lot of art, though, so that might change.

However, I also have a handicrafts business. I market that under a business name and my real name. For me, writing and crafts are completely separate and I do not cross-promote in any way. I do not want them connected, partly because I do the crafts under my real name, and partly because they are so unrelated.

holyworlds.org/forum is better, in my opinion, than having to type forum.holyworlds.org/whatever. (*is by no means an expert on this subject*)

I understand not cross promoting because of wanting to keep your real name secret, but I'm not sure I agree that you shouldn't cross promote them otherwise - even if they seem unrelated. I posted a thread a week or so ago called "Cross marketing with a wider net" that links to a well known writer who wrote music to promote his writing to people who might be interested in both, but don't know it yet. You could very easily assume that people who like crafts also like poetry, movies and fiction, so why not try and sell them both?

I shall have to read that thread! Even though I could probably generate extra interest by cross-promoting, I don't wish to mix these facets of my life. Primarily it is the real name vs. pen name issue, but I consider these two hobbies of mine separate business. I like to keep them divided. It's probably just my personality.

@Philli: I have done my best to unify all three areas of my life: my faith, web design, and writing. They overlap to such a great extent that only collectively do they form 'me', if that makes sense. That being said, I still don't have one website which covers everything (http://www.139-23.com used to but I am dropping that brand everywhere I can), but I have plans to set one up this summer (design is on my Picasa, BTW). Hope some of that made sense

eru

I had a eureka moment yesterday while riding my bike and taking pictures. What if we had a blog post where we inserted pictures to represent setting in the story. I took pictures as I rode along a trail, and on the road in a country setting. I wouldn't use all of them in the story, but some may fit key points in the story. If I learned photo manipulation, I could even insert images like a bloody handprint on a sign, or change the lettering in the sign to be my story title.

Related to that, I have an even larger idea, and that is to make a page on my website, kind of like the forum is for holyworlds.org where I can post the pictures and have a blog for these stories. Is this possible? What is this called so I can start another thread? I don't know enough about web design to even know how to describe such an action.

It sounds like an interesting idea, and possible, though I'm not sure what it would be called.

That does sound intriguing, but I don't know what you'd call it either, Tim. I'd start a separate thread for "Blog idea" and solicit help that way.

On a slightly related note, I've heard that it's good to have an image with your posts, to generate interest in reading the text. As a lot of my blog is excerpts from my writing, it's hard to find suitable images. Do you think looking for images is worth the extra time? Do you think it would be a good idea to team up with a photographer/graphic designer to find fitting images?

I find that images are always worth it, and always try to include at least one in my blog posts. You can find usable images through this search portal:
http://labs.creativecommons.org/demos/search/?beta=1&q=

(These search for images you can use for commercial use. I'm not sure if Blogging counts as commercial use but better sure than sorry.)

It's also nice to credit people who provided the pictures

eru

Thank you for the help, Huey!

No problem It's fun to see my two major hobbies overlap like this

eru