This is a guest post by CalebJRoss (also known as Caleb Ross, to people who hate Js) as part of his Stranger Will Tour for Strange blog tour. He will be guest-posting beginning with the release of his novel Stranger Will in March 2011 to the release of his second novel, I Didn’t Mean to Be Kevin and novella, As a Machine and Parts, in November 2011. If you have connections to a lit blog of any type, professional journal or personal site, please contacthim. To be a groupie and follow this tour, subscribe to the CalebJRossblogRSSfeed. Follow him on Twitter: @calebjross.com. Friend him on Facebook: Facebook.com/rosscaleb. Circle him on Google+.
A domain name can be enough to prompt some crazy ideas for a website. I imagine the owners of www.bookcoverarchive.com might have thought the domain an interesting mix of words and then later thought, “You know, we have something here. People like book covers. Let’s archive book covers.” (okay, they were probably more focused than that). Then there’s those whose intentions are pure, but end up with an unfortunate address.
I am certainly not immune to the lure of a good domain name. In fact, I still kick myself for not grabbing calebross.com long ago when I could have (interesting note: the reason I go by Caleb J. Ross is entirely because calebross.com was already taken; my identity has been determined by the almighty internet!).
Domain sickness does not stop with my name. I’ve registered a few others, which I’ll share here in hopes of finding good literary uses for them. If anyone wants on board to help develop one of these sites, contact me.
I bought this one thinking I would capitalize on my growing position as what some would call a social media know-it-all (and most would call a social media annoyance). Those some people probably don’t care about me capitalizing on that position. So, this domain sits, unused.
What is the potential literary use? This site could be used as a hub or repository for social media information for authors. I imagine all of the blogs, podcasts, and online magazines that I read being aggregated in a single place for other authors to benefit from. How-to docs and videos would also have a purpose here. Aggregated Twitter streams, author website links, and even books on social media and interviews with their authors could all be collected at TheSocialMediaAuthor.com
www.NoirLiterature.com, www.NoirAuthor.com, and www.NeoNoir.org
I bought each of these wanting to someday use them to funnel readers of noir literature to some as-yet-built hub. My hope was that as the authors of The Velvet reading and writing forums continued to get better and more notable there would sprout a need for a distinct sister site.
What is the potential literary use? Obviously, the dream of a noir literature hub is what keeps these domains alive. Similar to what I would assume TheSocialMediaAuthor.com would be used for these noir themed domains could be a central repository for appropriate content.
www.BlogArticleWriters.com and www.BlogContentWriters.com
A friend and I thought of starting a content writing business that would allow independent writers to offer content writing services to companies and bloggers looking for unique, keyword rich content. Then we found out about www.TextBroker.com which already provides this service, very well, with many more bells and whistles than we were imagining. Once again, the internet defeats me.
What is the potential literary use? A lot of beginning writers (and far too many established authors) are out of work. Why not tweak the TextBroker.com model specifically for author blogs? Use these sites as always-on gathering places for authors willing to create guest post blog content for other authors. I’ve learned a lot on this 70+ blog tour and could surely help provide the boost a site like this would need.
This is a new one. Once again, I imagined a literature hub with this site. It’s a clever enough name to be catchy, but I think the breadth of content implied by such a general name would require way too much time and knowledge on my part. For now, I’ll just park the domain and redirect to my homepage.
What is the potential literary use? Besides the obvious (mentioned above) I think this site could be a great resource, in a meta way, for the evolution of literature on the internet. How has the internet changed literature (both in content and form)? How has literature helped shape the internet? Of course the burgeoning ebook industry would have a natural place on this site.
[...] them. In all I have about 20, all but 5 or so go unused. Many of the domains are literature themed. Today at Shaking Like a Mountain, I offer possible uses for these [...]