Friday, October 29, 2010

the length of signatures

How long is too long, for an email signature?

I keep changing it, but this is my current sig, at five
lines long:

~Alice M. Roelke~ "The Space Station Murders"
sf / mystery novella, coming May 2011 http://bit.ly/dmHnj0
My writing blog: http://thewritinglifeforme.blogspot.com/
Writing credits: http://sites.google.com/site/aliceroelke/
Facebook: http://on.fb.me/avHvJ0

In my primary email address, my service provider allows
me five lines only for a signature. I've seen sigs that were
much longer, and ones much shorter. Right now, I'm
using all five lines. But is that too much? Too little?

I'd love some input, if you have any thoughts on the
subject of signature length. :)

You could tell me what you do, and how it works for
you...?


~Alice~

4 comments:

Unknown said...

I've been doing this for quite a while and I'm always shocked at the signature line of some that fill half my screen. No one is going to take time to read something that long...at least I sure don't.

Most loops prefer three - five lines rather than names of all your backlist. :) Here's my signature line:

SPICE UP YOUR LIFE WITH GINGER
2009 EPIC Nominee
LRC 2009 Best Historical Winner
http://www.gingersimpson.com
http://mizging.blogspot.com

If your signature reads like a book,, then it's time to edit. :)

Jim Hartley said...

I've been using a banner rather than text for my sig recently. I think it is more eye-catching. Works fine, except for a few loops that want text-only, no HTML, and most of the writers' groups are OK with HTML.

Larion aka Larriane Wills said...

i agree with ginger, and i've seen them longer than one screen long. the add an exceptional amount of scrolling to digests too.

Lum said...

Thank you, Ginger, Jim, and Larriane for sharing your thoughts! :)

The thing that made me wonder about this was something my mom pointed out to me in a book, about how the length of signatures was important, and I wondered if it was right, and, in practice, what other people found useful. :-)

I like your idea of using your nomination, Ginger! :-) A banner is a great idea, Jim, but wouldn't work for me, unfortunately.