Book Trailers (tm) & Author Web Sites discussion

I have used this odd juxtaposition before, it's a thought-provoking study.
The sites belong to J.A. Konrath, and there are very few writers as good at promo, or who have used online skills to push themselves as far as he has.

First site is the one I first saw a few years ago:
http://jakonrath.com/index.html

"Garish" might be to strong a word, but it certainly has a relentless "blue light special" push to it. A flashy carnival barker of a sales tool.

Now, take a look at his more recent site.
http://www.jakonrath.com/

Suddenly, it's a grey flannel suit of a site: calm, professional, assured.

Now what can we draw from this? Konrath has never been inept: the original site served him well.

Is this a matter of maturing, or hiring a cooler designer? Unlikely.

I prefer to look at is as comparison of the way a writer might act when new on the block and out there trying to drum it up and flog it. No stunt left unturned, wrap it up and take it home, pal.

THe second site might be an example of somebody who has arrived.

What has crossed my mind is that this brace of sites might represent a sort of authorial coming of age. When you first come out, you are trying to attract readers. You want eyeballs, you want them to drag in more eyeballs. You want yout name tripping off tongues, you want cymbals and rockets.

But at some point your task shifts. Stephen King doesn't have to go out and ring bells to get readers. When you have a half-dozen titles out there and people are buying up the new ones cold, then what you are doing is maintaining a relationship.
It's like the difference between trying to seduce a girl and wanting to stay married to a woman.

Most people I've shown these sites to say, "Oh that first one is raucous and awful, the other one is dignified." But the question might be, Would the second site have brought him the readership he now enjoys?

I saw somebody on the web the other day say, Is it better for your site to be pretty, or effective?

You talk to a designer and they will want to be hip and understated. Maybe your own good taste would dictate pastels and earth tones and simple fonts.
But is that your best bet?

My web host designed a somewhat generic home page but fortunately after a few months the fellow assigned to 'keep the author happy' contacted me to let me know he had read through my bio and perceived how much fun I'd had writing my novels. Consequently he redesigned the site to be more in keeping with my tagline, 'Putting Fun Into Scifi'

I loved the changes and it's possible that made me more willing to add content. So far people say they love the site but I'm always open to suggestions. The address is http://www.ScifiAliens.com