Nice Author Blog Layouts?

What blogging software?

I recently changed mine and love it!

ETA: My blog is via Blogger and I'm totally with the poster advising against dark backgrounds/light text. Cheers!

Click around on people's blogs, usually if you can find one AWer on blogger they're linking to others. See what other widgets authors are using. Make your overall blog unique and interesting, but don't bog it down with too many. For mine I used an html/javascript widget for the blogroll, a couple Links widgets for my favouite websites and helpful websites, I think the ones with the wordcount stuff are Text widgets. Search for free blogger templates on google, you should find some good sites

Thank you. There was a bit of fiddling with code but if you're familiar with what to look for it shouldn't be a problem. Check the link at the bottom of my blog for links to the blogger template site. Have fun!

I would suggest going with a Wordpress-powered blog over Blogger.

Granted, Blogger is free but you are constrained on what you can do with it whereas that isn't necessarily the case with a Wordpress-powered blog.

If you or anyone else is interested in starting a Wordpress blog, check with your ISP to see if they give you any free hosting space. Some do; some don't. If they do, ask how you can access it and such because you'll need to know this in order to setup your Wordpress blog. Then I would suggest doing some Googling on how to setup a Wordpress blog. It can be time consuming if you are new to FTPing and installing Wordpress but don't let that be a deterrent.

If your ISP doesn't offer any free hosting space, then you'll have to go with a hosting company to host your Wordpress blog. This can run around $80 - $100 a year. My advice here is not to go with the cheapie hosting companys because you'll get what you pay for- trust me! I use and recommend Blue Host. Setting up a Wordpress blog with them is a matter of clicking a couple of buttons on their easy-to-follow interface and presto- your Wordpress is ready to play with.

With Wordpress you have have so many options in regards to themes (themes are files which determine how blog's interface, layout, colors, etc.) and plugins (these give your Wordpress blog different capabilities which can help with SEO, social networking, graphics, etc.). And the best part is the majority of themes and plugins are free to use!

Blogger isn't a bad option but I just find you are handicapped using it. With a hosted Wordpress blog, you can do pretty much what you want with it. Good luck!

Wesley

A note on Wordpress: if you have your own domain name, you will need to pay them in order to have it forwarded to your wordpress blog. That isn't the case with Blogger. Blogger also has many themes that are easily adapted -- not something I found with Wordpress so it depends on your familiarity with code as to how comfortable you are with some of their templates.

So can anyone think of an author blog the remember and like the design of, that is not their own or that of a friend or associate?

wyntermoon said:

A note on Wordpress: if you have your own domain name, you will need to pay them in order to have it forwarded to your wordpress blog. That isn't the case with Blogger. Blogger also has many themes that are easily adapted -- not something I found with Wordpress so it depends on your familiarity with code as to how comfortable you are with some of their templates.

Click to expand...

Yeah, and if you're going to pay for that and have your own domain, you should consider just paying for web hosting and hosting it yourself. You can get cheap, decent hosting for $3-5/mo. A lot of web hosts even offer one-click Wordpress installation now.