- Since my author’s website will expire in 20 days, I’m transitioning this blog into a website–to the extent that’s possible. The first thing is a new books page which contains most if not all of my books.
When I’m playing hookey from my writing, I read a lot. I roar through books at the rate of one or two a week. I re-read many of my books and have found myself transitioning over to non-fiction a lot of the time for a change of pace. This week, it’s Jeff Shaara’s Rise to Rebellion that focuses on the events leading up to the revolutionary war. I wish I’d had his well-researched novels in history class since I’ve learned more from them than I did in the classroom. I met Jeff when he was a teenager, though he wouldn’t remember me since I was one of his father Michael’s many students who came to the house once a week for our college creative writing class.
I link some of my books (in promotions, etc.) to IndieBound as a book-store friendly alternative to Amazon. Now I’m linking my books to Bookshop.org as well because it supports bookstores rather than supporting the Amazon near-monopoly. All of my books are there since the hardcover copies are printed by Ingram.
My wife and I watch a fair number of noir movies on the TMC (Turner Classic Movies) channel. One of my favorites (it’s hard to choose) is the 1975 version of “Farewell, My Lovely” (from Raymond Chandler’s novel) starring Robert Mitchum as Phillip Marlowe. (Wikipedia notes that Mitchum was the only actor who portrayed Marlowe more than once.) As always, I like the deadpan voice-over dialogue of noir movies along with the gloomy cinematography and the plots filled with down-and-out people. This movie is usually referred to as neo-noir since it wasn’t made during the 1940s/1950s noir period. However, the movie was set in 1941, and the cast, director, and photographers get everything right and was a nice change of pace from the films on Netflix.
Malcolm R. Campbell is the author of the three-volume Florida Folk Magic series that begins with “Conjure Woman’s Cat.” (Click on the book graphic to see what’s its Bookshop listing looks like.)
Malcolm's Round Table 
Although I do still have an author website, I pretty much just let it sit and use my blog as my author website. The WordPress format works well for that. If you want it to really act as a website, you can do a sticky post as a sort of front page. I did that for a while, I think, but went back to the usual blog format. You’ve made me think about the financial aspect of keeping a dedicated website, though, so I might start phasing it out. It will take a while, though, since I it’s paid up for the next ten years. When I first got the site, it cost almost nothing, so I paid for the maximum number of years allowable, and now I just keep up the yearly fees, though it’s sort of a silly expense.
My site is newer: I put it up when Conjure Woman’s Cat came out. I had another site before that but discontinued it when they came out with a new software version I didn’t like. So now, my site is costing me more than I make. So getting rid of it wasn’t optional.
They came out with a new version of my site, but so far, they’ve let me keep the old way. When they make me change, I don’t what I’ll do. Mine also costs me more than I make, so that will be a consideration, especially if I have to pay to use their new web designer and their horrible templates.
Let’s hope they let you keep what you have without having to pay for the new stuff.
Yes! I do think I might start scaling back, though. I don’t need to have it paid ten years in advance anymore.