I'm getting Quite Opinionated.

I'm trying to weed (current projects are YA Fiction and ongoing work in Mysteries and Adult Fiction) and have found some things that would really help me. So, Dear Authors, please consider these suggestions: 1. Please have a website. Especially if you are a tween/teen author, or write books for readers under 50, you need a website. It needs to be a real thing, not something you threw together with a bunch of clashing colors and sad little animations. MySpace, Facebook, Blogger? Fine, even if you don't have a separate proper site. But you've got to have something. Anything. Please. In the event you really can't come up with a website, or even a blog or a social networking page, you should at least try to make sure you have a Wikipedia entry that is actually correct, and that Fantastic Fiction knows who you are. 2. Please list *all* your books. Listing your most recent few books, the one that really made you popular, doesn't help when I'm trying to find out if I want to weed your late '90s pre-popularity novel. 3. Please list *all* your books. If Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Wikipedia know that you wrote a book a few months ago, your website needs to list it, too. Updating your website every 2 years is unacceptable. You're probably really busy, sure, but hopefully those book sales are generating enough money to hire a desperate college student to add a little content to your site. 4. Please list your books with relevant information, like ISBNs, publication dates, and, most importantly, series information. I do not want to have to wade through all of your books looking at the characters' names, trying to figure out whether my copy isn't circing because it's part of a series we haven't completed. Ideally, your compiled list of works would be in alphabetical order by title (not arranged by reading level, publication date, ISBN, or character first name), with series titles linked. Other things authors should know: 1. I make huge judgments based on your book's synopsis. It shouldn't just be the first paragraph. Know who wrote the blurb that's going out for your book. Your book's abstract needs to be true, or I'll never trust you again. It needs to be informative, or I probably will not buy the book. It needs to be well-written, or I'll think the rest of the book will suck, too. 2. I make huge judgments based on your publisher: our past history with that publisher, what I've thought about their previous publications, etc. Yesterday I threw away a whole catalog, because it was incorrectly bound and was in general low quality in its creation. If you can't put out a decent catalog, why would I think your book bindings will hold up? By the end of yesterday, I was weeding books simply because I couldn't find any information about them. If no one cares enough to have any information online, it must be a pretty sucky book.