I didn't see this post when I posted my previous comment. I can't ignore it, I'm afraid.
Despite popular belief, being a "good author" is not always enough. The average process for publishing a book (mind you, not self-publishing, but going through an agent) has the following odds for PUBLISHED work (not people who think they're good, but those that actually finally make print and end up in stores).
Being a "good author" implies to me that you're an author who behaves nicely, like a well-trained lap dog. "Good author! Sit! Stay!"
Being a good writer is a lot different. And you're right that it's not enough if you want to be published, and sell lots of copies. To achieve that you have to be professional and courteous, and find out all you can about how to best submit, the most appropriate places to submit your work, and how to react to subsequent opportunities. Oh, and you have to keep writing.
For every 50 queries a "good" author sends out, they will receive 1 interested "nibble" from an agent. Out of those interested "nibbles," about 1 to 2 out of 50 are actually "printable." Out of the "printable," only 1 in 3 print. That means that with "a good book," someone has a 1 in 7500 chance of making it big. Those numbers are pretty generous and worse if this is someone's first book.
You can extrapolate all the "odds" you like from the submissions process but that doesn't make them an accurate representation of how this really happens.
Every single author, every single book, has its own odds. Some books are so wonderfully good that their authors would have to never submit in order to avoid publication; some books are so terribly bad that they have no chance whatsoever of publication, no matter how hard their authors work at refining their queries and formatting their hard-written pages.
For a manuscript to be "printable", it only has to exist in a form that will stream into a printer. Being publishable is an entirely different matter, and I suggest that if you're going to lecture us then you might want to make more of an effort to get your basic terms right.
Also, your logic is wrong and you don't seem to realise the point you're actually making. Yes, 50 x 50 x 3 does equal 7,500; but by presenting this in the way that you have, you imply that if a writer sends out 7,500 queries they'll get "printed", without exception, and that's clearly not the case.
Your "odds" are meaningless. You need to rethink this.
Every little bit of professionalism in appearance helps when it comes down to it. Have your name out there...being SEO savvy...building your presence to the public...all good things at the end of the day when you're going for the big push to be successful. More so, if you're not trying to go the classic publishing route, but trying to self-publish, getting your name out there as much as possible is even more important.
Getting your name out there isn't going to help you get pubilshed unless you're an A-list celebrity, which most of us are not.
And SEO is pretty much worthless for most writers. Trying to manipulate one's website to provide good SEO is pointless for a writer: writing more good books is a far more useful way for writers to use their time.
Now...whether or not you should be investing in a website at all if there isn't any income yet?....that's a different point entirely. There's a lot of free hosting alternatives out there to get your start if money is tight still. If you have the income, however, it is definitely worth the investment when the likelihood is it only costs $5 more to get the domain and then have it redirect to your main site. PLUS, there's the additional benefit that others won't be able to buy it out from under you if you do become the next bestseller....
Writers should have websites if they want them, and only then.
Worrying about nabbing domain names which match the titles of our works in progress is ridiculous, as titles change so much between drafting and publication. They often even change after acquisition. A single book can go through ten, twelve or fifteen titles. Are you suggesting that authors should register all those domain names? For goodness' sake.
hero to us all and 1 in 7500 (generous odds). I do hope that is the case, though. I'd love to be that guy who can say, "I remember when..."
And now you're making even less sense than you were before.
Best of luck, regardless!
And the best of luck to you too.
I strongly suggest you stop underestimating your audience here. While you're at it, you could also stop telling us how publishing works because it's obvious that you know very little about the business. You might also want to stop displaying your lamentable lack of understanding of logic, fallacy and statistics; and you should definitely stop trying to persuade us that SEO is the answer to all of our problems because SEO is only significant for the writers who are writing self-help, market-your-way-to-success, how-to-earn-money-fast books, and very few of AW's members come into that category.
I hope that's clear.
And if they do, sorry. I'm just opinionated.