tips

The latest issue of The Author, the quarterly magazine of the Society of Authors, was waiting at my PO Box. I read a number of dour pieces on publishing, which is going to the dogs, and then come upon a piece by Norman Leaver on how to sell from your website. Mr Leaver explains:

Since getting that initial CD-ROM onto the shelves of shops in 2006, I have extended the range and I now have three training and revision CDs for plumbing trainees, a home study and reference book for both experienced gas engineers and trainees, and a series of six sets of study notes dealing with domestic gas appliances. I have picked up some useful information along the way which works very well for me, and may be of use to others.

...

Since putting the site up in September 2007 there have been well over 20,000 downloads. Installing these two areas was way beyond my ability, so I resorted to the professionals. And that was when I discovered Rentacoder.com.

(There is, of course, more. I don't think The Author is available online. But you can check out Mr Leaver's website, www.learnatrade.co.uk, and, of course, www.Rentacoder.com.)

I think the lesson to be learnt, sadly, is not that Rentacoder is the answer. If I had written a series of six sets of study notes dealing with domestic gas appliances, I think I too might well have achieved 20,000 downloads, with or without Rentacoder.

The Fourth, Unethical, Path to Ad Fixations

Jakob Nielsen on banner blindness

I've been reluctant to discuss one of the findings from our eyetracking research because the conclusion is that unethical design pays off.

In 1997, I chose to suppress a similar finding: users tend to click on banner ads that look like dialog boxes, complete with fake OK and Cancel buttons. Of course, instead of being an actual system message -- such as "Your Internet Connection Is Not Optimized" -- the banner is just a picture of a dialog box, and clicking its close box doesn't dismiss it, but rather takes users to the advertiser's site. Deceptive, unethical, and #3 among the most-hated advertising techniques. Still, fake dialog boxes got many more clicks than regular banners, which users had already started to ignore in 1997.