Your Author Website?

[BWFoster78]

Okay, I'm just about ready to start work on my website. I've done a bit of research. My understanding is that I need the following:

1. Some sort of service the helps in the creation of websites. I can either go with something like Wordpress or hire someone to design a site.

2. A domain name.

3. A webhosting service.

The only one of these things that I fully understand is 2. What did you use for your website? Any recommendations? What about webhosting? Any help or advice at all would be appreciated.

Thanks!

 

[Devor]

I would suggest just using WordPress for your site. I recently did some of the research, and the reality is that for most non-programmers, WordPress is the best choice because of how much community support is readily available and accessible. There are other good choices, however, so I don't mean to tell you not to look around, especially if you have something specific in mind.

Above is a mockup I did once of what I would want my author's webpage to look like if I ever go that route, based on the idea of having it all on one primary access page. I feel that it de-emphasizes the blog and puts more focus on the books. I'm just including it in case you might be interested in how others have approached the concept.

 

[BWFoster78]

Devor,

This is a huge help! Thanks!

 

[ShortHair]

Here's a site that will host your stuff for free, as long as you don't go over 1.5GB. As you'd expect, you can get more for a small monthly fee.

Free web hosting

The catch is that you have to have your domain already. You're going to pay for the domain or the hosting or both. If you find a host that will give you a domain and the hosting service, I'd love to hear about it.

As for design, if you're comfortable creating documents, you can make your own site. Word, for example, will export a page in HTML--boo-yah! instant web page.

 

[BWFoster78]

I have some ambitious plans. I'm considering checking craigslist for programmers.

 

[yachtcaptcolby]

I've had a lot of good experiences with WordPress and I use it for my site. Google Sites aren't terrible, either, as long as you don't want to do too much custom coding. Their templates and WYSIWYG editor do a decent job of letting you set up a simple, decent-looking site without needing any HTML knowledge. And they're free!

 

[BWFoster78]

I've had a lot of good experiences with WordPress and I use it for my site. Google Sites aren't terrible, either, as long as you don't want to do too much custom coding. Their templates and WYSIWYG editor do a decent job of letting you set up a simple, decent-looking site without needing any HTML knowledge. And they're free!

I bought my domain name through WordPress. Now, I'm trying to establish email addresses through the domain and am having a ton of trouble. Did you do the same?

EDIT: Nevermind. I somehow figured it out.

 

[Aosto]

If you are on a budget then wordpress.com has a decent hosting solution and allows you to use your own DNS name for $18 p/year. This takes a lot of the work out of uploading your files to your own host. I find wordpress to be the best option for non-programmers who want control over their content.

 

[TWErvin2]

I have a website and a blog. My website is for more static information and blog is more frequenly udpated. I update my website about once every month or two.

I use HostGator.com, which has been excellent. Having them, for example, has allowed me to do things like have an interactive quiz on my website. I am not sure wordpress or other setups would have that ability to host.

I did my own website design and layout. It's okay, but certainly not what a professional in the field could create, but it does well enough for me.

You can see the link from my signature file. If I had to do it all over again, maybe I'd go with something like wordpress, but I started my website back before my first novel was published and the option and ease wasn't available back then.

 

[BWFoster78]

As stated above, I decided to go with Wordpress.

As far as I can tell, they have widgets that allow you to do just about anything that you want. It's going to take a lot of work for me to get everything set up the way that I want, but I think it will be worth it in the end.

A programmer wanted to charge me $220 to do it. I think I would have went with her for $100, but, for that price, I'd rather figure it out on my own. Besides, since I'm doing it myself, I'll gain a better understanding of the process for future modifications.

 

[Aosto]

Uploading templates and widgets are extremely easy in WordPress. I'm very experienced using it so if you ever have any questions feel free to sent me a message.

 

[BWFoster78]

Uploading templates and widgets are extremely easy in WordPress. I'm very experienced using it so if you ever have any questions feel free to sent me a message.

Fantastic! I will definitely take you up on that.

Right now, however, I don't even know what I don't know.

If you're up for it, I bet posting a primer on using WordPress would be useful to the community at large.

 

[Aosto]

Sounds like a fantastic idea. I will put something together.

 

[Christopher Wright]

So, websites...

Let me say out front that WordPress is a fantastic platform for creating a database-driven website... up to a point. The more you develop on it, and the more features you want to add, the harder it will be to maintain WordPress.

Eviscerati.Org was originally hosted on WordPress back in 2004 or 2005. I moved to Drupal because I needed more functionality. That meant I needed to spend more time tinkering, too, and the learning curve was a lot steeper.

You're probably safe going with WordPress. It can about 99% of what I think most people need with an author site. That said, as soon as you get into that last 1% it becomes a mess because it requires plugins that most of the WP community doesn't need so it's not as well supported.

On the other hand, if you move to something like Drupal, you need to be prepared to either spend the money needed to get someone to build it for you or devote the time you need to learn it... and some of that time will not be fun. I love Drupal, and version 7 is easier to use (generally) than any of the previous, but at times it's positively counter-intuitive and will make you hate... juuuuuust about everything. It's ridiculously powerful though.

 

[Ankari]

Christopher,

I use Joomla. I did so because at one time our company used Mambo and Joomla evolved from Mambo. My question is, did you compare Drupal to Joomla? If so, why did you go with Drupal?

Another question. Is Christopher Wright a pen name?

 

[Christopher Wright]

Joomla excels at some things Drupal is harder to work with on, and is weaker in others. I started using Drupal before I ever heard about Joomla, so I'm pretty committed to it at this point. My Drupal database started in 2006 and has over 2000 individual webcomics, not to mention various fiction projects and essays, on it, and it's easier to keep using it than it is to try to convert that sucker into a Joomla database (though I did consider it at one point during the D6 to D7 upgrade -- that was brutal). Drupal handles taxonomy a lot better than Joomla does (it handles taxonomy a lot better than just about any other CMS I've looked at. I'm sure there are some that beat it but I suspect you have to pay money for them) but Joomla is a lot easier to administer overall (though Drupal 7 has improved mightily on that front.)

Christopher Wright isn't a pen name, it's my real name. I mean, I guess it is *also* a pen name, since it's the name that I use when I write (which is unfortunate because there are at least two other authors named Christopher Wright out there who write... very different things...) but it's also my real name.

 

[writeshiek33]

i have basic website for now but will have a wordpress one asap

 

[boboratory]

As a publisher (and an employee of a large hosting provider), and a sucker for taking on his author's sites- I use Wordpress for them, the majority of the work fits in Wordpress' scope well, and it has good flexibility. For the publishing site, I use Joomla, for some heavy lifting, additional features, options, and organization.

Most providers now have Wordpress specific hosting packages that are very reasonably priced, free is you get what you pay for in the hosting world, and the controllables (up time/hacker protection, etc.) are very different between providers. It's worth taking some time to look at and making a good decision.

 

[Benjamin Clayborne]

I'm just using blogger for now, as I don't really want to spend a lot of time setting up a more custom site for myself. That's my day job, and I've got enough personal web projects going on as it is.

 

[BWFoster78]

I'm just using blogger for now, as I don't really want to spend a lot of time setting up a more custom site for myself. That's my day job, and I've got enough personal web projects going on as it is.

Even though I'm basically just running a blog at the moment, I want more functionality in the future, and I don't want to have to change sites. I plan to add, at the very least, the following:

Pre-Order form for autographed copies of my book
Downloads of my short story in exchange for signing up for my newsletter.

I'm given to understand that WordPress can do these things, though I don't have the foggiest at the moment.