*Your online conduct should be nothing to be ashamed of. Things travel fast on the Web and you could have a questionable reputation like *that*.

a) If you’ve already got a site, you obviously know a bit of HTML. Stories are easier to work with than webpages because they only need p’s, br’s, and a couple links once in a while. But you still should know enough HTML to meet your authors’ needs. One thing that aggravates me the most about being a hosted author is that things are not italicized or made bold where I originally wanted them to be. If your author e-mails you his/her story and it has no italics or bolds whatsoever, perhaps there’s a bit of a mistake (assuming that the author had those in the first place) and you should ask that your author sends you his/her story in a different format, as to preserve the appearance (and it will help you greatly when you place paragraph breaks), i.e. attachments, HTML format, or maybe a couple HTML tags at an italicized/bolded word. This will put out the original story and please the author and public at the same time.

b) When inserting HTML tags into a story, for goodness’ sake, look at the original to make sure you’re doing it right! Another pet web-hosting peeve of mine is to find paragraph breaks in the middle of a sentence, or a paragraph, for that matter. Paragraph breaks should be smooth and should not jumble the story. Wherever the author obviously hit the “return” key is where the break should be and whenever a new character speaks:

“Hi,” Bertha greeted me.
(paragraph break="p" or "br")
“Hi,” I replied. “How are you?”
(paragraph break="p" or "br")
“I’m fine,” she answered smiling.

In the “p” tag case, it will look like this:

“Hi,” Bertha greeted me.

“Hi,” I replied. “How are you?”

“I’m fine,” she answered smiling.

Some people prefer the “br” tag, which would look like this:

“Hi,” Bertha greeted me.
“Hi,” I replied. “How are you?”
“I’m fine,” she answered smiling.

I personally feel that it is best to use the “p” tag in a story because it’s cleaner-looking and it fills up the page well. If you use the “br” tag throughout a whole story, the text will be smooshed to one side and there will be a lot of space between the text and the right side of the screen.

c) Keep as close to the author’s original appearance of the story as possible. If there is too long of a paragraph, find a decent, not-jarring place to break the paragraph and separate it. This makes it easier for the reader so that they don’t lose their place while reading. If a paragraph is too long, it also is hard on the eyes. Use your own judgement on length, but make sure you don’t break in the wrong place.

d) Since YOU are the host/hostess, you also double, in an unwritten way, as the editor. This does NOT mean, however, that you are at liberty to delete whole passages from a story because you deem them “trash”. What I mean is: if you see misspelled words in your author’s story, CORRECT THEM! If words are not Capitalized correctly, FIX IT! If there are obvious grammar mistakes, HELP YOUR AUTHOR OUT! They sometimes are in such a raptured state over their writing and forget to glance over it. Spell check doesn’t catch everything. Proofread your author’s story and help them without changing it.

e) Be careful what kind of backgrounds you choose for a story. Something too bright or too busy will hurt the reader’s eyes after a while and they also make the text harder to read. Pick something nice that won’t hurt the eyes or distract the reader too much.

f) Also, be careful what kind of font you use for a story. Flowing, lacy fonts are really nice for titles and the like, but they should not be used for a story. These are also hard to read and sometimes discourage readers from going on. Choose readable fonts like Times, Nimbus Roman No. 9, Bookman Old Style, Baskerville Old Face, etc.

g) MOST IMPORTANT: WHATEVER YOU TAKE TIME TO DO FOR YOURSELF, YOU MUST ALSO TAKE THE TIME TO DO FOR YOUR AUTHORS.

If you spend hours trying to find the perfect background for your story, do that for your authors. If you illustrate your stories, don’t get uptight if an author asks you for the same thing. Whatever you do for yourself also should be done for your authors. If you aren’t sure if your authors would like some of the things you do for your stories, leave that open when they ask you to host: “If you want a special background, picture, font---just ask! You want a banner? Tell me what you’d like it to look like!” I take time to make graphics for my stories and if one of my authors were to ask me for a banner or a button, I would make it. I have seen pages where it seems like the host/hostess spent a lot of time laboring on their own story while their authors’ stories are just words thrown onto a plain-colour background in a few quick minutes. Take the time and make the effort to make your authors’ stories nice and they’ll appreciate it in the end.