Once again, Dean from Liquid Reality Studios has come through again. I call and whine and make inarticulate suggestions – Dean nods and smiles (internally pointing and laughing) and comes up with something terrific in a very short time.
8 June – We decide to make a change to the site.
Dean – Do you have a theme in mind?
Me – Ummm… theme?
Dean – Theme. You know… what it looks like when you open the site.
Me – Ummm… something different, but easy and not fussy.
Dean – Have a look at this and see if you think it might work? (Sends link to a theme. I spend the evening going through the demo and looking at options.)
9 June
Me – I don’t know about the gray border.
Dean –We can change that. How about the layout? This could work really well with the book link buttons.
Me – Buttons?
Dean – On the pages that displays the book and descriptions. We can link to all the sellers. We can even set up a link for you to sell your own books that you sign if you want.
Me – I saw those. That’s cool. Is this theme easier for you?
Dean – Yes. (Spends several minutes telling me about stuff I don’t understand. He seems pretty excited about some of it.)
Me – Okay. Let’s use it.
11 June
I received a link to look at my new site. I wasn’t too excited by what I first saw. It’s got the gray border of the sample and the first block on the Home page is the “About Me” block. Ick! However, the more I look at the other things on the site, the more I like the layout and the ease. I spent some time working my way through all the stuff and clicking all the new buttons.
12 June
Me – I like a lot of it, but can we change the home page around?
Dean – Sure. (We do the Any Desk thing and he takes over my desktop so I can see what he’s doing while he asks questions.)
Me – I don’t like the gray border.
Dean – What color do you want?
Me – Ummm… not pink or purple.
Dean – Earth tones? (He does some sand colored things and I’m not excited.) How about greens?
Me – I kinda like that sage green color from the cover of Saving Emily.
Dean – No problem. (Thirty seconds later, he’s made the changes and the colors work.)
I drink coffee and answer questions as he clicks and types. As usual, I don’t have a clue what he’s doing. Fifteen minutes later, the site is basically done. We ended the call and he went to work adding new images for the books so they’d display properly. He also created a couple images for me to use on the blog to replace things that would now look wonky because of the size changes. My job was to replace the featured images on the blog pages and make sure all the text showed properly.
2 hours after we end the call, I sent him mail:
Me – Ummm… you shouldn’t trust me… I managed to delete the cover for A Shared Fear. Yes… I am a loser and embarrassed….
Dean – Fixed it. 🙂 Try not to delete ANYTHING in the top 3 rows. 🙂 Thanks.
3 hours after that mail, I received mail from him:
Dean – You apparently deleted the Parker image that I was using for the coming soon counter page. 🙂 I went ahead and updated it with the new Boots Image. 🙂 I think it looks really good. Just figured I’d let you know.
Me – Hahaha – I am a total loser.
He had the good grace not to reply.
13 June – My new site goes live and looks terrific.
There aren’t enough words to thank Dean for all he does for me when it comes to my websites and getting my books out there. There might not even be enough money for all he has to put up with from me. The poor man will have to go through it all again in a week or so when we change and upgrade my genealogy site.
Me – What does that button do?
Dean – It will make me hang up and never answer another call, email, or text from you.
