New Look for Website

We've just done a nice update to the website at www.robinhobb.com I'd like to invite you all to drop in and then to let us know what you think of it!

You will also find there information on how to share your fan art with us, for display on the website or Tumblr.

Please do give us some feedback on what you like or dislike about the site. Are we missing something that you'd like to see there?

And yes, I know I look peculiar at the start of the Hebben video. Still do that to me when my mouth is open and my eyes are blinked!

Thanks for dropping by!

Robin
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Published on March 05, 2016 12:35
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message 1: by Alyssa (new)

Alyssa Looks great, though it doesn't look like your Rain Wilds series is listed under the novels!


message 2: by Robin (new)

Robin Hobb Chase and Keith are still catching up with getting the books and covers up there! Thanks for noticing that. They will be up soon!


message 3: by Greg (new)

Greg Looks great, I could't agree more with GRRM's quote. Looking at the novels page, what came to my mind was that perhaps the series could be arranged chronologically for those who are new to your work. For example, Tawny Man is last on the page.


message 4: by Justin (new)

Justin  hight Mrs Hobb ,I know this is a random question, but have you ever read anything by Sean Russell ? He wrote the Swans War trilogy. I discovered him around the same time I discovered you .not that long ago. You both write in a traditional medieval style fantasy world. But write realistic gray area characters and plots. You are both awesome .no one writes this way anymore; everyone nowadays is afraid to write in a medieval fantasy world. They are too concerned with being groundbreaking and different. That's OK but the story and characters still have to be good. And you always deliver great characters and story. Anyway ,hope you check out Sean Russell sometime if you already haven't .sorry for the random message but I couldn't see you space on your page to ask questions. PS. You are awesome.


message 5: by Laurana (new)

Laurana Looks awesome!
Just 2 minor questions:
vol 2 of Fitz & the Fool's Trilogy seems to be missing from the list?
For the 3 "amazon.com" link buttons on the novel pages, would it be possible to explicitly have "amazon.de" or "amazon.fr" displayed on the button so that we have an indication of which one to click?
PS: Love all your books and can't wait for the next Fitz and the Fool book to come out :)


message 6: by Kat (new)

Kat Looks great - nothing new I can add except that I love your books!!!! Looking forward to Vol 3 of Fitz and the Fool. I have to say I love the Rain Wilds, too - food for the imagination. Thank you for your gift of creativity that you share with us all. Peace & blessings!


message 7: by Christian (last edited Mar 07, 2016 03:14PM) (new)

Christian Maulsby The website looks great. Thank you for all your amazing stories. I think at times we view/admire our favorite Authors from the perspective of the charterers and story .. meaning, I attribute certain emotion and feelings that relate to the stories you have written. My point is that you have always given me an instant memory of genuine joy and a real emotional connection to the characters and the story setting. You truly take us to another place. Its hard to explain, but I enjoy recalling your stories, as they often are filled with those same emotions we experienced through that characters journey, I just wanted to share how your stories do give more when places back on the shelf, and Thank you for that.

As for advice, I hope you find my suggestions useful. Here are a few tips from my bag of tricks: If you don't already have it setup, add google analytics to your website. Its free and integrates with word-press and easily added via HTML. I would change the YouTube video to not show related videos. But rather any other videos from your channel. https://goo.gl/I72UV3 You may wnat to remove Meghan from the bar and create a list sub-page that links to that page, google frowns upon a navbar linking to an outside site. Lastly you can add a logo or to the tab of the browsers http://goo.gl/vsSYF3 hope this helps.


message 8: by Matilda (new)

Matilda I really liked the look overall, the map and fanarts sections were an especially nice addition. Only suggestion I would add is that I found the novel section a bit confusing as to it's order. I remember having some trouble to figure out in which chronological order to read the books and I think it would help if they were listed like that. Also if the Soldier Son triology would be seperated from the others since it takes place in a different universe :).

Also I just have to add I absolutely love your books, you're my absolute favourite author and I've never read any other books with as many female characters I could relate to.

/ My best regards
Matilda


message 9: by Andrea (new)

Andrea Pappalardo There is an issue with mobile display. When I selected Novels on my iPad the series title overlaps the image of the the first book for each series. I switched to full site and I got the same results. I do know that mobile settings can be an issue with websites but I'm guessing it's a large percentage of your audience.

That said. Keep writing. I love your work and recommend you all the time.


Watermarked Pages I'm curious why Fool's Quest isn't listed under novels? I also agree with previous comments that a chronological listing of the books would be helpful. I am eagerly awaiting the final book in the Fitz and the Fool trilogy! (Or better yet...NOT the final book! :) )


message 11: by Peter (new)

Peter First: I love your books - they have a depth that sometimes makes me afraid to read them again (especially the first trilogy) - they're fantastic.
On the website front - it looks great, but it's extremely inefficient - please get your web-dev to try this on a slower connection!
The css and javascript should be minified, at least, and the images need to be properly down-scaled! They're currently loading the large 1254x2064 image for the small links.

Please keep writing!


message 12: by Naomi (new)

Naomi Scott Love, Love your books.
Constructive Crit for the landing page:
That background image is too big (1024 x 1024px is huge for a bg, especially if it is the same on mobile) and loads too slowly. It needs to be a smaller tiled texture rather than a large repeating single image. http://subtlepatterns.com/ has some amazing tiling paper textures that would look much more sophisticated and make your site run much faster.

Your logo has not been cut out properly - there is artifacting where the pixels should be transparent and the edges of the font are jagged. Your logo is very important and should look much smoother than it does as it is the showpiece of your website - just like it is on your novels. However the drop shadow looks a bit dated, they aren't typically used for text on websites these days (look up flat design if you are interested).

It seems strange not to feature your current trilogy on the home page. If it is about the "3" rule you have going, just have a title coming soon for the next book. Design-wise this particular carousel is possibly not the best use of space as there is a huge amount of white space that is at odds with the balance of the site - a single frame containing pictures of the whole series would look much nicer as well as be able to convey more information.

I'm not sure why you have opted for both a grey and black outline around your "Author Bio", the grey one should go and the div with the black outline should be bumped up a few pixels so that the articles and bio are aligned at the top (top alignment is more important than bottom alignment). Some of the CSS probably needs fixing for this, some wayward margins and padding are probably at fault here.

Hopefully I haven't gone too far and these tips are useful.


message 13: by Arian (new)

Arian Hello. Looks good overall. There is a "lost" sentence in the About Robin Hobb area. The sentence is:

Over the course of the next forty years, as they followed the needs of his career.


message 14: by Danny (new)

Danny Murphy Love the 'white space' uncluttered look. Not mad about the font choice but that's just nit-picking. Love your work - it rekindled my interest and belief in fantasy novels.
Thank you
Danny


message 15: by Jared (new)

Jared Moen 2 star i liked it rating does not make a lot of sense.


message 16: by TryggveB (new)

TryggveB If I ever have a daughter, I will name her Bee


message 17: by Aaron (new)

Aaron Singleton Hi Robin. Been a fan since 2002. I absolutely love your work. Thank you for so many hours of enjoyment.


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