What Are You Made For?

What are you made for? This is the question we ask ourselves all our lives. Since it's never too late to start, even if at 60 years old, knowing what your purpose in life is can help make decisions.

The best way to figure out if you're meant to be a doctor or a writer or an artist might be by talking with people who know you the best: Who do YOU think you are? What do YOU like doing the most? What would YOUR friends say about what kind of life would suit you best?

The author tells her readers that it's never too late to find out their purpose in life, and gives them examples of some websites that give advice on how to discover this new information.

This is an example of a good use of social networking by the author. It's one way to reach out to people and spread the word about her book. If a person knows you utilize social media, it can help to make your work known.

It's unnecessary, however, to include "Check out our website here". Most readers will not be able to visit the website and most likely won't care enough to read through it.

Additionally, "With a little effort we believe you'll find what you were made for." Does not exactly convey how the site operates or what they have in stock or whether they even sell it (which I doubt).

The sentence should be changed to: "With a little effort we hope you'll find what you were made for" or something else more fitting.

This is what the site looks like in the book: http://www.whatareyoumadeform.com/

If someone clicks through from this link and visits that site, here is the result: http://www.whatareyoumadeform.com/index2b-index4a-index4c-index4b.html

From a website designer's point of view, it is a basic template made with html code. The two columns of content could be split into two imaginary boxes and the whole thing could be resized to fit the readers' screen better.

I do not even know what that font is and it doesn't look appealing. Some other font should be used instead and perhaps some more white space around it so the text wouldn't be so conglomerate. There are only 4-5 paragraphs on the page, yet there are no spaces between them at all. It gives too much pressure on the eyes and makes them tire quickly.

From a reader's point of view, the content is not interesting. It goes nowhere, doesn't say anything useful, and looks like something thrown together quickly using a very simple text editor. If I were to click on "What are you made for?", all that would be on the next page is another link to some place else with more information about this book. There is nothing there to encourage me to buy this book or find out more about it. Is there even a website for this book at all? From such a poor website attached to the back of the book, I'm guessing that there isn't one at all.

I've removed all of the paragraphs from the book to clearly display how the web design is done in the book. I can't ignore that this looks like something thrown together quickly using a very simple text editor. If I were to click on "What are you made for?", all that would be on the next page is another link to some place else with more information about this book. There is nothing there to encourage me to buy this book or find out more about it. Is there even a website for this book at all? From such a poor website attached to the back of the book, I'm guessing that there isn't one at all.

The text is not in the correct format for a blog post or article. The author is a writer and should be able to fix this problem. I also don't feel that it's a good idea to include so many paragraphs on the same page. They are all too long and provide no additional information. They can be cut up into separate paragraphs. If this is going to be an article, then it needs more attention to detail, better style, and proper formatting. This book was published in 2006 and the internet has changed since then in lots of ways. I find it hard to believe that the author doesn't know how her website might appear only 5 years later when she wrote this book.

The flow of the content on a blog or website should be from left to right. From this book's point of view, you should read from left to right, just like a newspaper. This book is obviously not intended to be read as part of a newspaper or magazine because it was published in 2006. It looks like it was written as part of an article and then never published anywhere else.

The website on the back of the book is not at all appealing and very basic. There is no logo because the author used WordPress for her site, which has its own logo built into the users area itself. The book is supposed to be a way to promote her book and this site is a slap in the face to the reader.

I believe that there should be some way to plugin WordPress or some other blogging software to this instance so that it looks more appealing and professional. If you don't have access to such a tool, then at least find something that can make your site more appealing. The author has already done all the research for her readers, now she needs to do the same for herself!

This book was published in 2006, yet it doesn't appear set up for computers or even smartphones. It looks like it was written as part of an article and then never published anywhere else. It has the worst website for a book that I've seen yet.

User-friendliness is really important in the way a website is designed. The author did not think through how the people who would be reading her book would read her website when they are finished reading it. It looks like this site was never intended to have visitors and therefore should not have been online in any case.

The professional look of this site could be achieved quite easily with a much easier to use CMS (Content Management System) such as WordPress or Drupal.

After removing all of the paragraphs, here is what I ended up with: http://www.johnpauljunkins.com/

From a website designer's point of view, there is really nothing special about this site whatsoever, other than how it was built and what technology was used. The author has made a very basic blog site with just a few short paragraphs on each page. This site was probably intended to be like the one in the book and then never published anywhere else because it looks like something thrown together quickly using a very simple text editor.

This book was published in 2006 and the internet has changed since then in lots of ways, yet the author doesn't even bother to update her website at all until 2013.

Conclusion

I find it hard to believe that the author did not at least research available technologies and how they would affect her readers in 2005 or 2006, yet she seems to have written the book without doing so. The author actually describes this book as being a "how-to" guide, but all she's really done is explain how someone else has done what she wants to do. She doesn't even provide any advice on how best to use this "how-to" guide other than just saying what she did. I can tell you how I would do it better if I were writing this book, but that's not what this book tells me to do at all.