Author Websites

[PattiTheWicked]

I've decided I'd like to set up a writing web page, only to be professional about it I'm going to get my own domain (wwwdotmynamedotcom) rather than using my AOL homepage.

My question is for those of you who have an author website already. I know there are a ton of places you can register your domains through, as well as get web page development software. I want to be able to update my page regularly and include such things as writing samples, and eventually a shopping cart, but I don't want to spend a fortune.

Where have y'all set up your pages, and what do you like about them? What suggestions does everyone have for a NewWriterMakin'AWebsite?

[Richard]

You're looking for a service that offers at least one MySQL database, PHP, a decent amount of space, and probably 10-20GB of traffic per month, POP3 email included in the price, and which registers the domain under your name, not theirs (this is a pretty nasty trick to watch out for)

This won't be particularly expensive. I pay £45 a year for my site, and that's reliable.

Software wise, get hold of blogging software. I recommend WordPress (www.wordpress.org). It's very easy to install, you can use the 'Pages' system to set up the content on your page, with the blogging part handling your regular updates. This is a free download, and there are plenty of templates available to customise if you're not ready to make one yourself from scratch.

[Cathy C]

Well, I suppose it depends on what you consider "a fortune." We set up our own domain through Blue Domino (which was purchased by Coffeecup). http://www.bluedomino.com (http://www.bluedomino.com/) We pay $34.95 a month for hosting, which is their "ultimate" package, but they have another plan that only costs $9.95 a month. The major price difference is in the storage space and data transfer capacity. They have e-mails attached to the domain, and offer extras like guestbooks, chatrooms and the like. I was recommended by another author who has a HUGE site, with well over 200K visitors a month, and it had never gone down. That's a major recommendation, and I've been impressed.

The nice thing with the deluxe package is that I don't have to wonder whether I can add a new page, or put up the new version of our book cover. It's just handled. I'd also mention that with the Ultimate package, if you pay for a full year, they GIVE you $600 worth of software, including templates, graphics, clipart, flashing banner designer, etc. so that you DON'T NEED to buy anything else! But I still like FrontPage, because it's compatible with everything else on my desktop. We've been hosted with them since 2000, and NOT ONCE have we had a down site, and NOT ONCE has something failed to load.

Well, I tried to load the features, but it didn't play nice, so here's the link instead:

http://www.bluedomino.com/bluedomino/features.bml

[James D. Macdonald]

I have my site at http://www.SFF.Net but I'm prejudiced, and have a financial stake in how well it does, so ... take that for what it's worth.

We do have a large writers' colony there.

[Cathy C]

Oh, Richard reminded me! We have a hit counter that's free from Bravenet, http://www.bravenet.com. You have to include an itty-bitty promo that's about 1/2"x1", anywhere on the page. They also have a bunch of other free stuff available for sites.


Our Blog is with Blogspot, http://www.blogspot.com, which is also a free service. We can upload pictures and there are not limits on hits.

[Richard White]

I use Siteloutions (https://www.sitelutions.com/) for my web site. $9.95 a month for about 500mb of web site. LOTS of room for what I'm doing, and $8.75 for domain registration.

Some people used "counters", some don't. I did with my first web site, but I haven't bothered with the new one. Your choice.

[Richard]

We pay $34.95 a month for hosting, which is their "ultimate" package, but they have another plan that only costs $9.95 a month.

You pay WHAT?! That's insane! I've just taken a look at your website, and there is absolutely no way on this planet that you should be paying anything even close to that. However many visitors you receive.

The nice thing with the deluxe package is that I don't have to wonder whether I can add a new page, or put up the new version of our book cover. It's just handled. I'd also mention that with the Ultimate package, if you pay for a full year, they GIVE you $600 worth of software, including templates, graphics, clipart, flashing banner designer, etc. so that you DON'T NEED to buy anything else!

God, no, no, no, NO. You can get so many templates, clipart and banner creator programs that it's just not funny. Run SCREAMING from that deal. Run like you were being chased by the very legions of Hades Itself.

I'm sorry, but as a technical journalist, reading that's like seeing someone saying 'But PublishAmerica paid me a dollar and that's great!'. No, no, no, no, no.

All of that stuff is available for free, as is the guestbook and other such software - indeed, many hosting packages come with software like Fantastico that will both install and upgrade just about anything you want. FrontPage is a piece of genuine ****, but still, just buy it outright if it's that important. In most cases, install WordPress and it'll do everything you want. It'd certainly handle your site, for free, and from an easy web interface.

And any hosting package with its salt won't make you use counters - you'll get full statistics software like Webaliser or AWStats that just parse your server logs and serve the information up however you want. In many cases, you'll have several to pick from, without having to rely on third-party image-loader jobs.

[Cathy C]

Ah, but it's not the visitors that are the issue, Richard. I don't pay for the blog or the guestbook or the hit counter or the forum. I DO get all of the stats, including ratios of new visitors versus repeat, etc., etc.

It's the storage space and data transfer capacity that are my major concern. Each book that we write will get its own subweb with reviews, sample chapters, events pages, etc. We have the capacity to do whatever I can imagine. We CAN add 75 more pages to the site tomorrow if we chose. I'm already designing 25 more pages for our releases next year. I'm holding back loading them until the books are closer to done. I want sheer, raw power.


I'm perfectly happy with the cost because I don't ever have to wonder. That's very important to me. It's worth the money. :D

[Richard]

No, Cathy, it's not.

Look, I could add a hundred pages to my site right now and it wouldn't even blink. HTML takes up practically no space whatsoever, and nor do a few book jackets and other graphics of the kind you're using. My site is considerably more complicated and media heavy than yours is (that's in terms of technology - I'm not comparing them for content) and it has literally hundreds of pages. Total space? 150MB. I just looked it up on my server backend. That's nothing. Nada. Zip. Zero. Zilch.

That's including graphics, pages, the database, blogging software, heavy MP3 files, some video, templates, backups... And I have 800MB of space left on my account for any expansion. For about one and a half months worth of what you're paying every month, I get basically the same amount of space and more features up front for a whole year.

The only things - literally the ONLY extras that you're getting for your money are a copy of a thoroughly mediocre web editor that you'd be able to buy outright from the savings of moving plan if you wanted to, and the ability to handle traffic that your site will never, ever make use of.

65GB of file transfers a month is ludicrous for a personal site. It's like paying to rent a whole warehouse to store a suitcase full of clothes. You're grossly over-estimating what you need, and you're getting reamed for it each and every month.

Unless you're getting thousands upon thousands upon thousands of visitors and need the ultra-bandwidth to cope (which if you're not the likes of Neil Gaiman or JK Rowling, you don't), you're on the wrong package. Period.

And nobody reading this - NOBODY - should even consider signing up for that unless they literally spend their evenings throwing money into the fireplace to watch it burn.

[aka eraser]

I'm a techno-dweeb and don't do any tinkering with my site at all. A friend uploads my new stuff for me. I use http://www.doteasy.com/

I don't pay anything except $40.00 for my domain name (2 years). I get 100 MB of storage and up to 10 email accounts. They also offer upgraded accounts for $7.95 and $9.95/month where I assume you get more of everything.

I use a free counter from http://www.sitemeter.com/

[scribbler1382]

I'm a techno-dweeb and don't do any tinkering with my site at all. A friend uploads my new stuff for me. I use http://www.doteasy.com/


Yeah, I use doteasy, too. Can't beat free. If you upgrade you can get MySQL and php and a lot of other crap I'd never use in a million years, so why bother?

Either us boys from Durham are really smart or really cheap. :Cheers:

[aruna]

Can anybody recommend a good designer for an author website? I think the time has come for me as well - i did do one with Frint Page but it looks absolutely amateurish - which it is.

[Supafly]

Hey, listen up here. I might be able to host your site if you really want one. I have to ask a friend of mine first. I made my site together with him over night a couple months ago, you can check it out.

http://www.courtneyvaldez.com

[aka eraser]

I have to recommend the good folks at http://www.infinitewebdesigns.com/

They were sooooooooo patient with me and I'm very happy with the look of my site.

[Roger J Carlson]

I originally set mine up on DigiHost, but they've since sold out to another firm and I've had nothing but problems. Another hosting company is www.webhost4life.com (http://www.webhost4life.com/). Their simplist package is $4.95 per month. I'm seriously considering moving to their $9.95 per month package.

Cathy, I must respectfully agree with Richard. $34.95 a month is high in this market. Webhost4life will give you 2 GIG of space for $9.95, plus just about every extra you can imagine.

[aruna]

I have to recommend the good folks at http://www.infinitewebdesigns.com/

They were sooooooooo patient with me and I'm very happy with the look of my site.

Thanks, it's an intersting site, thanks too to other suggestions. I'll be looking into them all.

[tarra74]

My website is at www.tarrayoung.com. I get it through yahoo geocities. I only pay $11.95 a month and would never pay more than that. I know someone on here mentioned they pay $34.95 and was referred there by an author that gets 2000+ visitors a month. I get 2000+ visitors a month to my website and have had no problems.

[PattiTheWicked]

Wow, thanks for all the responses. Cheap sounds good -- I sure can't afford $34.95 a month -- and free is pretty appealing too. I'll look into some of these links you all posted and see what I can come up with.

[Christine N.]

I use freewebs.com. I'll register the domain soon, through them, and that will be about $17/year. For a bit more a month (I think it's $4.95 or something) you can get the Freewebs premium. Lots of space, and it's a WYSIWYG kind of site, so it's easy to manage yourself.

[RoseWrites]

I register my domains through godaddy.com which is only $8.95/yr then I get free hosting from 95mb.com. They have no advertisements on the free accounts at all, so no one even know's that it is free. Then I forward my domain to the website so I only pay the $8.95/yr and my website is good to go, great if you have a limited budget like I do. You also get free email forwarding w/the domain so your email can match your site.

[Supafly]

Trust me. Studiousmedia.com can design it. 1&1.com can host for good price.

[Cathy C]

An update: Since I am always open to good advice and learning new things, I've contacted my webhost and reduced my account to their basic package at $9.95 a month. We'll see how it goes and whether it affects my site handling.

Thanks, guys! :)

[Richard]

Trust me. Studiousmedia.com can design it. 1&1.com can host for good price.

Is it just me who's amused at seeing 'Ever wonder where a road ends' overlaid on a picture of train tracks?

[Kiva Wolfe]

http://www.domaindirect.com

[Kate Nepveu]

Chiming in late--

My domain is registered through http://www.gandi.net/ . My webhost is http://www.affordablehost.com/ , which I am very happy with.

[Sunny7L]

godaddy.com offers the cheapest domain registration

findmyhost.com has a search and many helpful user reviews, so it's a great source for finding a reliable web host

wordpress.org is the best blogging tool, though blogger.com is good too -- both are free (movabletype.org and typepad.com are alternatives, though there are others)

As a professional web designer/programmer I'd recommend a host that supports the latest versions of PHP and MySQL as well as one that allows FTP access.

Actual web space and bandwidth depends on your needs but for most it shouldn't be much. You just don't need 1,000 megs for a general info/personal site. Most web hosts allow for ample bandwidth -- 1 gig is apr. 50k visits/month and on average the cheapest plans will give you at least 3-5 gigs. A descent plan will give around 10.

No one should be paying over $200/year, even $100 is high.

You can install your own free scripts (guestbooks, counters, contact forms, message boards, etc.) -- hotscripts.com and cgi-resources.com are my favorites.

People have come to expect that every product comes with a website. As a reader, I appreciate it when an author lists a website, it's a great way to learn about their other work and/or be updated when new stuff's made available.

It's also probably the cheapest promo and one of the most effective advertising tools -- you can potentially reach millions.