Drive-By-Shooting Sunday: Book Club Classics

Soft music played from the radio, and James hummed quietly to the sounds while he watched the victim cross the street. He observed from behind dark sunglasses, tapping his fingers quietly on the steering wheel while he subconsciously calculated speed, pace and the way the victim seemed to have no fear.

They were all like that. They had no fear, no reason to believe that the ones who tended and cared for them had come to the Pen Men. They had no reason to worry about the very ones who’d created them giving the two words that made all the difference:

“Do it.”

Harry sat beside him, relaxed and watching the victim just as Jamie did. The unmarked car they sat in was unobserved, well parked in an area where no one would notice them. There were no obstructions, no chance of a miss.

James held the gun loosely, almost casually. The cold steel of the Glock in his hand felt good. He felt good. Last week’s hit had been difficult, but this time… The car was unobserved, well parked in an area where all he had to do was open the window and lift the gun to his eye.

And he did.

Today’s drive-by is Book Club Classics, the blog of Kristen, and here’s how the site looked at the time of our visit:

The first thing we notice is that the colors and theme are beautiful, like a warm, inviting cabin at the end of a colder day. The banner could use some work, though. The textured background is great, but the banner needs a more appealing font and maybe some enhancement with rustic imagery.

The title and tagline are slightly vague. We know the site is about either a book club or classic books – which is it? We know that the site is for serious people who like to have fun. So we have the what, the who… what’s the why? Why should we stay? What’s in it for us if we do?

What the site is about – at a glance – isn’t clear, and I think letting people know right away what they’ll get if they hang around might be beneficial. “A book club for serious people who like to have fun” would be much clearer.

The navigation seems well organized, though the font isn’t great. It’s a serif font and it might be more visible if it was a sans serif. Of course, that means you have to change the font in the banner, too, but since we felt the font choice for the banner wasn’t great, switching both out and changing them up might be a good idea.

Your blogroll is in your navigation. We think that’s a pretty bad idea, because you want people to stay on your site – yet right away, you present them with an option to browse other sites and click away.
We’d rename “Best Book Club Books” because it’s long and unnecessary and slightly vague. How about “Best Book Choices” or “Most Popular Books” or “Our Book Picks”?

“Discussion Questions!” could be renamed, too. Again, it’s vague. Is it discussion or questions? I had to click through to find out what it meant, and I’m still not sure, even after reading the page. How about “Questions for Critiques”? And why the exclamation mark? Should we be excited?
Rename “Bookmarks” to “Free Bookmarks”.

I’d do a little reorganization of your navigation, putting the most important links on the left and the least important on the right. Home, Best Picks, Standard Kits, Custom Kits, Free Bookmarks, FAQ, Questions, About, Contact

And why isn’t the signup in your navigation? If you’re selling something, it should be easily accessible, right here, right now – yet we have to go to another page to find what you sell.

We’d switch the right-hand sidebars and have the RSS on the right. Your “Five Reasons to Sign Up” should be bigger and more prominent, and there should also be a visible opt-in – where is it? What if we wanted to sign up right away without reading why we should? (Yes, people do weird stuff like that.)

The “Search Amazon” may or may not be a good idea, as it takes people off your site. However, you most likely earn some in come if they search and buy, so you’d have to take a look at whether it’s worth it.

If you’re earning a dinner for two once a month, look at a specific product widget that you review each month and rotate to another product the next month – or something else. If you make money off that, then great. Keep it. It’s not tacky or ugly.

In your middle sidebar, you have the Pages of your navigation. Remove that. It’s wasting space. We’d feature more recent posts instead (five is a good number) and we’d also remove the search bar. The categories could be higher up and more visible so that people can browse them.

In the right sidebar, remove the calendar, as it’s just taking up space in an already busy location.

The posts are well laid-out, with an author and a link to comments – put the link to the comments down low, not up high. People want to comment after they read, not before.

Also, the font for the posts is a serif font, which is not the preferred choice for screen reading. You may find that changing it to a sans-serif makes a big difference in the appeal of the posts and makes them easier to read.

Consider wrapping text around the images of your posts – the book that you feature in your main post comes off looking unprofessional simply because it’s left-justified and followed by a block of empty. If you right-justified and wrapped the synopsis around the image, the impression would be more appealing and seamless.

One suggestion may be to take the sales text on the right hand side and make it a static home page for the site. You could put a link to your blog posts in your navigation and turn the whole site into more of a sales-based location rather than have the sales as a sideline of a blog. Doing so would also clear up some space on your home page and give you more to work with to develop the business aspect of your venture.

All in all, not a bad look, but we feel that you may be losing potential of sales because of the lack of focus on the business aspect and more attention on the blog side. It lacks polish as a credible site to purchase from, but with a little TLC, it’d really look nice.

Push this to the next level and make it stand out. It’s a book club that people should want to sign up for, buy from and get into because it’s a valuable, credible resource, right? You’re doing the right things, but you’re waffling the line between hobby and business, and that makes people feel uncertain, too. So… Which’ll it be?

The shot rang out, and the victim crumpled to the ground. A clear shot, one that gave no warning and that had no mercy. That’s how it should be. That’s what they were hired for. They knew that their ruthless shootings brought forth ideas and focus in ways that were always for the better.

“Nice.” Harry nodded in appreciation and James lowered the gun from his eye to stare at the victim for a while. An easy hit, with no one to cry out, no attention to draw and no hard and fast running so they weren’t caught.

“Ayup.” He handed Harry the gun and turned the ignition of the car. It purred into life, a satisfying sound. It had been one of those days.

The radio was satisfying too. As the car pulled away from the curb, James turned the volume up nice and loud, the thumping beat and the strains of Queen singing carrying back to the scene of the crime.

“…and another one gone, another one gone… Another one bites the dust….”

Want more? You got it. Check out our upcoming hit jobs:

June 1 – Marketing Artfully
June 8 – Head Rambles
June 15 – Kameronmf.com

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