Author Websites for Dummies

Literateparakeet

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I have seen countless suggestions that authors should have a website. I always wanted to do it, but somehow I had an idea in my mind that I would need to pay someone enormous amounts of money to do that. (My definition of enormous is anything outside of my budget. :) )

Awhile ago, I watched some videos and upgraded my blog (my closest thing to an author website). I did it, but there was much hair-pulling and screaming involved. Somewhere in the process I thought I had lost my blog entirely (five years with of posts). Needless to say this is not something I would recommend to someone who isn't comfortable with computers or the internet.

But today, my husband asked me if I would help him make a website for his business. (He made this request remembering my enthusiasm after watching the afore mentioned videos...apparently he forgot the hair pulling since he wasn't home for that part.) I sighed and told him I would try.

I started to do it with the service that I use and he said, "Can you do it with GoDaddy? That's where my domain name is registered."

Now I was really worried...uncharted territory! Yikes.

But you know what? GoDaddy is created for novices like me, I swear. So far creating my husband's website is a breeze. If I tried to add an establish blog there might be some screaming involved again, but fortunately, I'm not going to do that so I can't say.

The point is...if you want to make an author website, but didn't know how, GoDaddy.com is a really good place to start. I'm debating whether or not I should switch...but no. I still haven't fully recovered from the last time! :)
 
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Old Hack

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Please don't use GoDaddy.

I've heard several nightmares about them. More than a couple about how it was impossible for people to move their data to a different place, so they could either lose their whole blog and site, or just abandon it.

There are all sorts of better options.
 

jimmymc

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Most hosting have Wordpress installed. It's simple to use and many tutorials are available on you tube. Hostgator is good. One and One is a bad one unless they've changed in the last year or so. I've had no trouble with goDaddy, but I haven't used them in a while.
 

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I was a customer of GoDaddy for YEARS with no issues. But then suddenly I started having problems and my sites would go down for days. Finally I got so fed up I moved to HostGator and I've been a pretty happy camper for more than a year. Their 24/7 chat service is pretty amazing, though sometimes you get a dud of a CS rep. They can't be perfect though.

I'm a HUGE fan of Wordpress, though all my experience has been with .org, not .com. I think if you want to start your author blog, .com is a good starting point and that way if things get bigger, you can always export/import your content to your own domain with a self-hosted Wordpress blog without much fuss. (Ages ago I moved from Blogger to WP.org software and that was a pain in the butt.)
 

Literateparakeet

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Thanks WeaselFire and Pikko!

My trouble was that I had a Wordpress blog and I wanted to upgrade so that I could add an email list with MailChimp and so more with my template...somehow in the process I thought I had lost five years worth of posts! I didn't...but phew, that scared me. I'm still not clear on whether or not I lost all my followers...it doesn't show them under the dashboard anymore. :( The problem is likely just me.

I only recently figured out how to use the email. I am really excited about that though.

You are right though, wordpress is an excellent format to use. I think I just forgot that because of the issues I had transferring.

Thanks JimmyMC, I never heard of One and One. I need to get out more, right? LOL.
 

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Ah okay. That's an upside of self-hosted Wordpress: no limitations! The only way I can think of to move your followers would be to post on your WP.com blog and let them know your new domain.

Plus, on self-hosted you then get to go theme shopping, but this is often a bad thing for the wallet. I'm a theme shopping addict.
 

BradyBones

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I use BlueHost. It seems to work for my needs. I used GoDaddy for my first blog and I don't miss them.
 

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I have vistaprint.com and I know some people absolutely hate it... but after using blogspot for over a year, I changed over. It is MUCH easier... I love it. I got the upgraded site... i think they start for $7 per month... mine was $25 per month or $150 per year. You can get a free month to test it out... they also have a cool email campaign creator. I got that for free for a month also... but decided not to pay the $5 per month after that because i really have not established a large email list yet.
 

Literateparakeet

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Ah okay. That's an upside of self-hosted Wordpress: no limitations! The only way I can think of to move your followers would be to post on your WP.com blog and let them know your new domain.

Plus, on self-hosted you then get to go theme shopping, but this is often a bad thing for the wallet. I'm a theme shopping addict.

About the shopping, LOL! I love shopping for anything. :) Thanks for the suggestion, I'll try that.

I use BlueHost. It seems to work for my needs. I used GoDaddy for my first blog and I don't miss them.

I hadn't heard of BlueHost before. Thanks. I'm not going to switch now, but I think it's great for people to know all the options out there.

I have vistaprint.com

Wow! Vistaprint too! I had no idea there were so many options out there. Thanks for sharing. :)
 
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chelsie00xx

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I use squarespace and I've been really happy so far... although it is almost 100$ a year. I felt it was worth it, being that it is my "hub" if you will- for all my works. This is with the domain name included. It didn't take too much time to organize and I wanted a really clean look.
I do know a good amount of HTML and I used to build websites way back when- but I wanted a clean, simple, easy to use so I forked over the cash for it and hopefully readers appreciate the easy on the eye layout ;)
 

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Squarespace is another new one for me. I had no idea there were so many options available!

Squarespace is pricey, but it's a truly elegant and well-supported option.

I routinely recommend to people who have a budget that matches, especially if they're well-established as bloggers/writers, or creating a magazine or "long reads" kind of site.
 

Literateparakeet

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Well you guys inspired me so I have been looking around my HostGator CP trying to make heads or tails of it :). I found Weebly...which looks like just what I wanted. Woot! Thanks everyone!
 

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I've been looking at Weebly but I can't find anywhere on their website that actually says what price plans they offer.

I really feel that having a website with a unique domain name, as opposed to something free that's ''at Wordpress'' or a Blogger blog is essential to get taken seriously as a writer. So I've refrained from doing something like that until I can decide for certain which paid provider I want to go with.

All that said, what's the point of a website for promotion? As in, how does it help to have one if you still haven't got people who are going to go and check it out?
 

Literateparakeet

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Tom,

I decided not to do Weebly because I didn't want to pay the extra on top of the fee I'm paying for hosting.

I'm sure there are better examples than me...but I'll what I have done in case it is helpful.

I use Wordpress on HostGator. You can use Wordpress without having .wordpress is your URL. I have two websites now (I'm on a roll! LOL!) One for my blog and one for my second book (the links are in my siggy).

Wordpress really does offer a lot of possibilities, but for some of us there is quite a learning curve. For me http://websitesmadeeasy.tv has been a lifesaver. I learned a lot from his free videos. (He is also on Youtube if you don't want to give up your email addy to get on the site). Also HostGator has 24/7 tech support. They helped me twice yesterday...but I think I am set now. :)

As far as the why . . . I write non-fiction so my reasons my differ from yours if you write fiction. But my second book is about healing from abuse and so I have been writing to therapists. My website/blog is in my email signature and I noticed an up tic in my statistics that roughly matched the number of therapists who responded to me. So it seems that they did look at my website. Fortunately, it doesn't seem to have scared them away, :) unless of course the people that looked at my site were the ones that didn't answer. One therapist used the contact page on my website to respond to me.

HTH! Good luck!
 
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I wouldn't use Weebly or Wix; you don't have full control over your content, and there's not really an effective export or backup function.
 

Literateparakeet

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Thanks Medievalist!

Hey everyone! I finally pulled everything together. I'm so excited. For awhile, I've wanted a static page with a tab linking to the blog. (Those of you who are more experienced...don't laugh all right?) I've finally done it. I don't know whether to be immensely pleased with myself, or embarrassed because once I realized what I need to do it was so simple. Anyway, now I'm a happy wordpress/hostgator user!
 
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akaria

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This thread is kind of scaring me. I signed up with GoDaddy the other day to secure my author name domain and I'm using the website builder option they offer. Was this a mistake? I wanted something really simple and it seems to fit my needs, but if it's going to cause problems later I might as well try another vendor.