banners in summaries
Posted 22 Apr 09
At this point, I'm not even dropping reviews when i remove banners, because this announcement has been here over two weeks, and if you have a story with an oversize banner and the banner gets removed, then tough beans. You have had your warning, and if you honestly missed the front page bolded BANNERS IN SUMMARIES news post, then I have little sympathy. This may sound harsh, but I really just don't have the time.
please address any questions regarding banners and banner size in this comment thread. i honestly can't go through all of your reviews seeing if you dropped me a question in the answer to my notification of your banner removal. Thanks =]
I just thought I'd bring your attention to this rule regarding banners in your summaries.
Banners in summaries may not exceed 300x150 pixels in size.
300 x 150 banners should be smaller than or equal to this. If you don't have a photo-editing program that makes it easy to tell how big your banner is, download that box and use it as a size gauge wherever you make your banners.
The reason we have this rule is so that large images on the page won't slow down loading speed.
I'm not going to be super-nitpicky about size, but please don't make your banners that much bigger than that little box.
I'm bringing this up because the banners are getting insanely large here, guys! If you've got a banner larger than 300 x 150, then be aware that I am going through the archives and removing banners that don't comply with size regulations, and so if you find your banner has been removed, then it is too big. If you'd like to do me a favor and remove your banner yourself if it is oversize, please do!
I know this means that a lot of you will have to get new banners, but we do have a request section on our forum, there are so many places and people that will make banners regulation size, if you just include that in your request.
Thanks in advance for your understanding!
~ Iris (who is semi-back from computer probation :D)
EDIT (5/19/2009)
On another side note, but still about the rules...
If you do not submit one chapter at a time, all of the chapters (whether you submit two or twenty!) will be deleted from the queue and you will recieve a rejection letter asking you to re-submit them one at a time. I don't have the time and I know that none of the other mods do either to go through 70 submissions when 20 are of the same story and the first chapter can't be accepted because it violates the rules so we have to deal with what to do with the subsequent chapters. Please, just follow the rules.
-Jenn
Comments
By Iris Messenger
Posted 22 Apr 09
350 x 100 is plenty of space, actually, and I'm speaking as someone who has experience making banners that size.
By Ghostwriter71
Posted 22 Apr 09
OK, now I'm confused...which isn't that strange coming from me... Which are they to be: 350X100, or 300X150? Here you said the first, above you said the second...just trying to clarify.
By Ghostwriter71
Posted 22 Apr 09
Stop beating yourself up...I mix things around everyday! They call me "Ghostwriter The Confused"! Don't feel bad. And thanks for the clarification!
By Blonde Bella
Posted 22 Apr 09
Your banner doesn't need to tell the story for you; essentially, it's an advertisement to draw people in before they even read your story. Big banners are an unnecessary slowdown on the site, and, personally, I find smaller banners more, well, banner-like, attractive, and effective.
By Ghostwriter71
Posted 22 Apr 09
Ok, whatever...it took me long enough to get the one I had, and even then I needed tons of help, so I think I'll just have to forgo any more banners...
By Loch Ness Werewolf
Posted 22 Apr 09
I right there with you. On my third chapter, I just wrote in my summary what it was supposed to say because you couldn't read it at all.... Also the banner for His Little Sister was taken off and I loved the banner. I can't find a site where it adjusts it so it will be smaller... Oh well. I'm just ranting don't listen to me...
By Moonlight Hunter
Posted 23 Apr 09
i hsve no stuff on my computer to tell me the size! i got really upset last night when i saw a review and then found out what had happened! Also, why do you tell us in a review from a chapter halfway through the story? if you're reading the stories then i don't mind so much.
By Iris Messenger
Posted 23 Apr 09
um ... i'm not reading the stories, i just click on reviews and go down to the bottom box that says "leave a review" ... so I have no idea where the review shows up. I figured, however, that people would like some sort of notice that their banner had been taken down. that little box i linked to in the above announcement is 300 x 150, and that is how you can somewhat measure your banner size. if you need to scale things down, you can do that at imageshack where it says "scale" ... you can use your photobucket account to edit it smaller ... there are quite a few ways to figure out the size.
By Tundra
Posted 23 Apr 09
I know the banner size seems too small (it does look quite tiny on my screen...) but I'd like to remind everyone that big banners take long to load. My computer isn't too slow but it's also not the fastest kind, and it can be quite irritating to wait for some huge banner to finally appear. I can only imagine what it's like for people with older computers. Also, they use up a lot of space and that way a lot of good stories are hidden between them and go unnoticed, which is a shame. Just a reminder of why the rules are the way they are :) It's not without reason.
By Ghostwriter71
Posted 23 Apr 09
Yes, yes, Tundra, I understand rules are rules are rules...I do. I'm just sad that my story won't get read anyomre now...I couldn't make a banner to save my life, and now it's gone (Yes, I know it's the rules!!!!) I think that banner was the only reason my story had so many reviews...it certainly isn't my writing. So now I will duobtless be lucky to get anymore reviews...ah well...it was nice while it lasted...
By Blonde Bella
Posted 23 Apr 09
1. You shouldn't hide under your banner to make up for what you feel is not quality writing (though I do not think it is.) 2. Anyone who is more likely to review a story because of a banner mystifies me. Then again, maybe I just have short term memory loss and completely forget about the summary by the time I read the actually story. 3. The rules have been here and recorded this entire time. It's not a new rule that you dislike; it's not something the mods made up to ruin your fanfiction career (and I use that term loosely). It is here, and has been here, to make reading on the site more enjoyable for everyone. If you have a logical reason (not just people won't read my stories anymore) for why you dislike a rule, or a reasonable alternative, feel free to complain. But, in my opinion, whining about something without support or other options is utterly and completely useless
By Ghostwriter71
Posted 23 Apr 09
YIKES!!! I just got spanked...someonesure is fiesty...no need to put me down, you know...insulting me and what not...if you'd care to read, I know that it's the rules, I KNOW it isn't anything personal, I KNOW I suck at writing, I KNOW it wasn't made up to get at me, I kNOW it's been there the whole time...heck, I'm NOT taking it personally...but sheesh-what I DIDN'T know was that you hated me so much...yikes... But sometimes whinning is just ...fun!!! :D GO MODS!!!! :D :D But seriously, a lot of poeple do see a banner and just decide to rea it because of that...and for whatever I have done to make you hate me so much, I appolgize...:(
By awsomealice94
Posted 23 Apr 09
lol im not going to lie, i look at the banner before i read the summery-just as i look at the cover of a book before reading the back or inside flap. that or i'll choose something random but still. i do it. and yes-dun dun dunnn i do judge a book by its cover (I know i know crazy right? i can't help it). if the banner is really bad, i tend not to click on it. but the big banners are really annoying and just = bad story. i don't know-sometimes its better not to have one on a story at all.
By exgymnastbritt
Posted 24 Apr 09
haha... i was just looking at all of these comments. and sometimes people make me laugh. *giggles some more* simmer down now, simmer down. =]
By Tundra
Posted 24 Apr 09
Wow... I didn't mean to start a battle here o_O GW: Don't worry about the banner! People will read your story anyway. Stop putting yourself down -- you're a great writer, and you know it! To me, banners are just an addition to the summary. They don't influence my decision to read the story in any way. No actually, that's slightly wrong: ugly and too big banners make me skip right over the story. Consequently, banners can be more of a disadvantage than an asset. So if anyone's worried about not getting readers because you don't have a banner, don't be. When nobody has a big banner, nobody will be discriminated :)
By black2red
Posted 24 Apr 09
If you take a look on the "Most Recent" section of the Archives, it looks much, much neater and is easier on the eyes. It also loaded much faster for me xP
By Blonde Bella
Posted 24 Apr 09
Let me make one last comment on this, and then I am done. I was not insulting anyone or their writing, though I now see I was really unclear in my last post where I meant to say that I do believe it is quality writing. I also wasn't saying that read counts aren't higher because of banners, just that review counts won't necessarily be higher. As has been pointed out, a big, slow to load banner is a turn-off--you may have more success with drawing in readers with no banner at all. And, finally, I agree with Jacquelyn that the page looks much cleaner. Ok, I am officially going to shut my mouth (or fingers, I suppose, but how does one shut her fingers?) and leave it be, no matter how strong the urge to have the last word. Maybe I can channel that into writing, since I haven't posted anything in a ridiculously long time. Peace out:)
By Tundra
Posted 25 Apr 09
I have a question that has nothing to do with the above: I am trying to add a new story, but for some reason the preview keeps showing that it belongs to some series that I did not put it into (does that make sense?). It's happened before, but then it was fixed before I could say anything... Now it's been like that for over a day. Plus, the paragraphs have disappeared and I have to add them manually (I know that's not a new problem and there's nothing you can do). Am I the only one experiencing this problem? With the series, I mean?
By Loch Ness Werewolf
Posted 25 Apr 09
Wow. Umm yeah. Well I think that the big huge oversized banners are annoying but the one for His Little Sister, was a tad bit bigger and it looked nice. I think that it was small enough and it set the feeling for the story. Banners are useless if #1 you can't see what they say. and #2 they are to small to set a feeling for the story. If a banner's scary, you expect the story to be scary. I mean really. Who would put a big happy sun banner on a really really really scary story. Ghostwriter71 is totally right that most people look at the banner first. But no one would read your story if it sucked. So banner or no it must be a good story to have people read it.
By j3nn
Posted 26 Apr 09
1) Ghostwriter, I love you dearly and your writing does not suck so shush!! haha. Even without the banner I'm sure everyone will read it. 2) Banners 50 pixels over the limit in any dimension were deleted. If you had followed the rules in the first place, then maybe it wouldn't have been deleted. The banner doesn't make the story. Please, stop blaming us because you were too lazy to read through the rules.
By j3nn
Posted 26 Apr 09
Oh, and sorry tundra, but I'm not really sure what's going on :/
Have you tried clearing cookies and rebooting?
By Tundra
Posted 26 Apr 09
I finally got fed up and just put the story up anyway. And then the series just disappeared! It's strange, but I don't mind as long as things work xD
By iluvedwardcullen
Posted 29 Apr 09
I have a random question that has absolutely nothing to do with what is going on here. Does anyone know of a good site where I can post the novel I've been writing? I would post it here, but it has absolutely nothing to do with Twilight so... Any suggestions would be helpful! iluvedwardcullen xx
By Iris Messenger
Posted 29 Apr 09
fictionpress.com is basically like fanfiction.net, only it's for original writing. you could post it there, if you really want to post it online. :D
By eternal bliss
Posted 29 Apr 09
To iluvedwardcullen: you can also post stories on writing.com. And you can read other people's stories as well. If you know what DeviantArt is, it's kind of like that except with writing. Hope that helped :]
By cocoa-luvah
Posted 29 Apr 09
With banners, I know I read the ones that are really pretty. I know It's really 'judge-a-book-by-its-cover-y', but if the banner looks lazy, or at least not nice, I usually skip them. And really, resizing banners is not that big a deal. Go to photoshop, make it smaller and *poof* done. Re-uploading only takes a few minutes.
By exgymnastbritt
Posted 29 Apr 09
hey mods! can we get another challenge soon? i totally love them. haha.
=]
By SpaklesInTheSunlight
Posted 02 May 09
cocoa-luvah that's what I've noticed most people do. The story may be really excellent, but if it has a pretty -sorry to say- tacky banner then most people would skip it. Banners should be clear and precise and not overdone. Your banner is like the cover of your story. If you go to a book store and see a book whose cover looks like it's been to hell and back, would you seriously buy it? And don't say 'of course not' because looks really do count. And unless you sit down for about an hour, debating with yourself whether or not to pick up the monstrocity of the book, read it and find out it's beautiful, most of us really wouldn't buy it from first sight. ^^That's my advice to people who want banners for their stories. Clear and Precise, make it fancy if you wish, but make sure you can pull it off. And do as Iris says, one she knows better than us, and two, large banners screw up the page lol Stick to the Admin Rules and you'll be perfectly fine! =D xoxox K I R A ! <3
By red_eye
Posted 06 May 09
can i just say something? all this whining is really getting on my nerves. BIG DEAL you have to change the size of your banner BIG DEAL it's too small (i think the size is fine, personally) quit being such babies people and follow the rules!! (sorry just had to get that off my chest)
By Nymphadora_Cullen
Posted 10 May 09
Tundra, I just read you comment from April 25... I've been having that same experience with my "Ana Forrester" Stories! It started long before I turned it into a series, though (I also had problems on it with Another Day, Another Destinity, and my Jane One-shot). Do you think there's a reason as to why that's happening? 'Cause it gets annoying when you want to update in a hurry, but then you have to spend two minutes spacing paragraphs that were already spaced in the Word Document, when you have 100 things going on at home, or you want to check up on a friend's story. (Love your latest chapter, Ghostwriter!)
By Nymphadora_Cullen
Posted 10 May 09
Mostly the spacing, though... Only had the series thing happen once, but I ignored it.
By Tundra
Posted 11 May 09
It really does make fast updating impossible. It kept happening to me with several of my stories, and after a while I noticed that the problem occurs mostly when there are a lot of italics or other font changes in the text. But other than that I have no idea why the paragraphs disappear. Do you have a fanfiction.net account? I don't mean to advertise here (TA is much better), but an account there is worth it because it gives you access to their document uploader. A few weeks ago I noticed that by copy & pasting the story from the uploaded document, the spacing is just fine! It hasn't happened a single time since I started using it. You can try that if you're starting to despair :)
By Nymphadora_Cullen
Posted 22 May 09
No, I don't have a Fanfiction.net account. I considered getting one, but I never got around to it. I just find larger sites so confusing; I like small sites wtih a strong central base series (Harry Potter, Pirates of the Caribbean, Twilight...) and FF.net has... 100's of series. Everything from Chronicles of Narnia to Wicked. Maybe more. I don't like feeling confused and overwhelmed when I go on the computer; I get that enough at school.
By Tundra
Posted 22 May 09
Haha, I know the feeling :) I don't like FF.net either -- it's way too confusing. But the document manager is good, and it's the best way to avoid the paragraph thing. But yeah, I do understand your point of view. TA is the site for me!
By jaspersbabygirl
Posted 22 May 09
the most recent page really does look much cleaner without the huge banners. its not just the banner that draws people in, its the writing style. just saying.
By exgymnastbritt
Posted 23 May 09
my dearest mods, can we have a challenge soon? pleease pleease pleeease?
i know i'm probably just bugging you all and stuff. but i really want another challenge soon. because, like...it's fun. haha. and i'm super selfish and think only of what I want (sorry guys...). =]
okay. well yeah, sorry to be bugging you guys. have a lovely day =]
By black2red
Posted 23 May 09
=P The Mods have been really busy lately (or maybe it's just me), but as soon as we're all back on track, we'll discuss it for sure.
By Savannah_Cullen
Posted 23 May 09
Summer just started yesterday for me, so I am all ready for action! (Pfft... or apparenttttly just ready to be super lame.) So as soon as everyone else has the time, I'm all good to go for a challenge!
By awsomealice94
Posted 23 May 09
oh, a challenge would be lovely! Savannah_Cullen- you lucky duck! i have till June 12th-and that doesn't count the three weeks of drivers ed either ;)
By exgymnastbritt
Posted 24 May 09
yay! weee get a challenge, weeeee get a challengeeeee....yeah that was me singing. pick whatever tune you'd like. and i'm so happy...i get out on june 4th =]
By awsomealice94
Posted 26 May 09
in your story summery box there should be a bunch of little boxes under it-click the one that looks like a tree. then a new window should open, and you place the banner link in it. its pretty much common sense after that :) i hope that helps
By eternal bliss
Posted 27 May 09
Really off topic, but I was just thinking...instead of a writing/story challenge, has anyone ever thought of an art challenge? That would be pretty cool. (well, for those of us who can draw better than we can write...*cough*)
By iwishiwuzbella
Posted 29 May 09
like how would u put a girl, a guy, and a 4 year old girl in it? cuz all i can do is just 1 picture..... so i need help.
By awsomealice94
Posted 29 May 09
how about you ask somebody to make a banner for you, so that you don't have to deal with the mess-there are a number of people, including me, that will be happy to help. Try going to the twilight archives forum and looking under banners
By black2red
Posted 30 May 09
An art challenge, huh? Sounds pretty neat, though we had a banner contest last time ^-^
By awsomealice94
Posted 31 May 09
well, im not that great at art compared to writing. but what would be really cool is to have all three (writing, banner, and art) in one challenge somehow-that way everyone who is good at each could really get into the challenge.
By j3nn
Posted 04 Jun 09
You know what, Awesomealice.. you just gave me a really good idea.
Not saying this will happen right now, if ever, but just to bounce around an idea..
What if we had a three part challenge? First, the regular writing portion. Then, an art-work and banner portion... Like, we'd pick the winning story and then we'd have a second/third part to the contest for artwork that goes with it and a banner for the winner. Just an idea to throw around and see what everyone thinks.
By cocoa-luvah
Posted 08 Jun 09
Well... I love writing and drawing, and i just started getting into making banners... It sounds pretty cool. Me and my tiny little brain don't TOTALLY understand what j3nn is saying, but we haven't had a challenge in a long time and i'll definitely enter whatever comes up.
By Twihardteen
Posted 15 Jun 09
Okay i get ur point but i have dial up internet and no matter what it takes forever no matter what size so I just ignore the banners unless i really want to see one so it really doesnt make that big of a difference u should just chill a little tiny bit Thanks for all u mods do ~Hannah
By Ghostwriter71
Posted 22 Apr 09
Um, yeah...I know that's the rules and all, but seriously--what's the point of a banner if you need a magnifying glass to read it?? Just wondering...