Creating your own website

JustHost is fantastic.

cjcassada said:

I'm thinking of creating a website for the release of my second book. Since this is my first time doing it I'd like some advice. Besides info about the book what else should I include? How many times a week should I update the site? And which web hosting company should I go with?

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Well, it depends on your book and its audience. The site I'm putting together for my alternate history series currently has some non-spoiler bios of key historical figures, and a list of some of the books I've read whilst researching it.

I would suggest some kind of author bio as well, as readers often like to know a bit about the person behind the book. It doesn't have to be particularly revealing about your private life - mine is actually pretty vague! I have a separate blog, on a different site, mainly because I don't want my blog to be all about book promotion, but there's no reason why you can't combine the two.

As for updates, the consensus seems to be that regularity is the most important factor - if folks know you have an update out every Monday, or Friday, or whatever, it gives an air of consistency and professionalism. My feeling is you should start with modest ambitions and only ramp up the frequency when you feel you can cope easily with your current output.

I won't comment on hosting - I'm a highly technical user and have different requirements from most writers. It depends on what features you want and how much hand-holding you need, I think. A simple blog site like Wordpress or Blogger may be sufficient, particularly if you don't have much experience with website creation. I run my website on the Wordpress software because it has lots of handy plugins so I don't have to write my own web code (too much like my day-job!).

I would urge you to register your domain at one company, and host at another.

Even if you go with a free solution, at least to start, like Blogger or Wordpress.com, register the domain for your author name.

Seconded, on both counts.

I decided I wanted to write under my married name (because it's short, easy to spell but surprisingly rare) even before we tied the knot, and registered it as a domain shortly after we married. I recently registered the name of my series as well, for a specific book promotion site. It doesn't cost much, after all, and makes a big difference to how professional you look online.

If you set up a free blog at Wordpress (and possibly at Blogger, I can't remember), you can "attach" a domain name for a few dollars a year...

I use HostUltra to host one of my websites. The other one, if I recall right, is hosted by SmartAcre. (Honestly, I'm really techno-challenged; I have websites, I know how to update them, and except when I get the bills for the services I don't remember much else.) I only pay a few dollars a month total for hosting. I own both domain names, and those cost me about $20 each every two years. Both sites are on Wordpress, which I find very easy to work with.

I try to update each site once a week, though sometimes I fail. I have a blog on each site, so each time I update I also do a new blog post. (The other updates are usually things like upcoming online appearances, where my books are in the writing-editing-publishing process, etc.) I don't have sites for each book, though my publisher and I are working on sites for my two YA urban fantasy series, just for each of my author names.

I pay yearly for my doman from namecheap ($10.00) and pay yearly to my host ICDSoft ($58.00). Then I use WordPress and templates for my websites.

I try to update my blog once a month and I just update my website to tweek it here and there once in awhile.

I use WordPress for the cms and www.dreamhost.com. They're really good because they have this "one click install" function which can have a WP site up and running in literally minutes. It does all the configuration for you.

Plus you can run as many domains as you like under the one plan. Very cost effective.

Chris_Wilkins said:

I use WordPress for the cms and www.dreamhost.com. They're really good because they have this "one click install" function which can have a WP site up and running in literally minutes. It does all the configuration for you.

Plus you can run as many domains as you like under the one plan. Very cost effective.

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What's the cost?

I've also been really happy with NameCheap.

As to what to put on the site, that's tougher. It depends on a lot of things. If you already have a big following (mailing list), then it can be more of an announcement thing, with less content. But if your plan is to generate interest and sales through the site, then conventional wisdom says that you need to include a good chunk of content on the site for search engines to sink their teeth into.

As to updating, again, it depends. Blogs are all the rage these days, but they require a ton of ongoing work to remain fresh and relevant. Personally, I'm using a static website to try and promote my book, with no plans for regular updating. I'll tweak it as I have new ideas about making the site better (mine is strictly a do-it-yourself affair), but it is not part of my plan to keep posting new content.

My own opinion is that if you are trying to promote a single book using the site, that a regularly updated blog is not a good fit. I'd instead design a nice simple site, include some good chunks of content from the book, and focus my energies on marketing rather than updating.

But again, it depends a lot on your situation. Best advice is probably to spend a lot of time clarifying and refining your goals for the site before you put a lot of work into it. I can tell you from experience that changing course mid-stream on a website build is not optimal!

NewGuy

Please please please don't rely on Flash for a book-related site.

It doesn't work for screen readers, pages are generally not capable of being linked to--say if someone wants to link to a page with purchase information about your books--and unless there's an alternate back-end text version, Google won't spider your site, and neither will any other search engine.

I just wrote a glowing review of a self-published niche book, and I can't link to the purchase page because it's a Flash-driven site; the page as a page doesn't actually exist. It's all Flash-rendered.

Also, Flash won't work on an iPad or iPhone - I tried to visit a cover artist's website recently, and the entire thing was a Flash-driven portfolio

Yeah, I agree with not using flash, for the good reasons stated above, but also because it really isn't necessary. It can be tempting to create a really fancy site with lots of bells and whistles. But the danger is letting all of that detract from your content, which, ultimately, is what will sell the book.

NewGuy

For a website you only need to update it when you have new information.

If what you really want is a blog you can get one for free and map a domain name into it for about $10 a year.

Just a quick question, but one that concerns me as I debate the site / blog question. I'm wondering if I put a site / blog up as an unknown author, it'll just sort of sit there. How exactly have site creators here built up traffic for their sites? Just wondering.

I can say I worry to much about traffic for my site. It ranks well for my pen name and titles, and says where you can buy my books. That is really all i want it to do.

Writer'sNotes said:

Just a quick question, but one that concerns me as I debate the site / blog question. I'm wondering if I put a site / blog up as an unknown author, it'll just sort of sit there. How exactly have site creators here built up traffic for their sites? Just wondering.

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Your concern is completely valid. Getting the site up and running is most definitely the easy part. It will just sit there unless you do a lot of work (or unless you already have a big audience that will be receptive to the announcement of your launch).

Getting traffic is a ton of work, and there are many strategies/approaches/philosophies to it. On the technical side, you want the site to have a lot of good content on it and solid SEO so that you can hope for some organic search traffic. On the marketing side, you need to do all you can to get backlinks to your site. There's social media. You can pay for clicks through google adwords or facebook advertising, you can write guest blog posts. Etc. Etc. Etc. It really can be an endless process. (You can google any of these topics and come up with dozens of good hits for each.)

The web is a giant churning ocean of information, and getting yourself noticed and into the main traffic channels is no easy task. Once you get a little bit of traffic going, your further efforts -- with luck -- will cause a bit of a snowball effect, and your second thousand visit are easier than your first. As far as I can tell, though, dogged persistence and not getting discouraged are key.

Best of luck!

NewGuy

Writer'sNotes said:

Just a quick question, but one that concerns me as I debate the site / blog question. I'm wondering if I put a site / blog up as an unknown author, it'll just sort of sit there. How exactly have site creators here built up traffic for their sites? Just wondering.

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What do you want your site to you?
How do you see its purpose(s)?

If you just want a presence, don't worry about traffic.

If you want to sell something--your books, yourself/PR, then yoy need to think about traffic.

A site isn't required. You might want to try a free blog at first.

Writer'sNotes said:

Just a quick question, but one that concerns me as I debate the site / blog question. I'm wondering if I put a site / blog up as an unknown author, it'll just sort of sit there. How exactly have site creators here built up traffic for their sites? Just wondering.

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1. If you blog, do it on a regular schedule and make it interesting and thought-provoking, something that will make readers want to comment and/or sign up to your feed. You can blog about anything you're passionate about, whether or not it's related to your writing, but the key thing is passion. No-one wants to read a "blah" blog

2. Be active online - join in discussions on places like this, be interesting and entertaining on Twitter (where of course you can announce new blog posts), so that people want to find out more about you.

Basically, if you want regular traffic to your site, that means content which changes often and/or a site that is sufficiently content-rich to reward repeat visits. Think of the kind of sites you like to visit regularly!

Unless you start with the basics - making your site worth visiting - no amount of SEO or advertising is going have any long-term effect.

My site is with blogger. I've tried several hosts before deciding on blogger for ease of use. I am fairly good with HTML and CSS for tinkering but it is simple to use even for a beginner.

I paid $7 to transfer a domain name to godaddy(before the elephant video) and got got a year free. Blogger is a free host so I basically paid $7 for my website for 2 years. I designed simple graphics on photoshop but there are a ton of free templates available both on blogger and other sites. Blogger and wordpress both include pages that can be used for bio and book information meaning your blog and site can be together.

I have a second test site set up free though blogger that doesn't show up in listings. I use to to try out changes before I apply them to my original site. You could also save a template before trying out anything new but my test site means no down time on the original when I'm playing around.

I even have a dropdown menu for blogger designed although I haven't put it on my main site yet. There seems to be a stray piece of coding on my main site and it's stopping it from working although it's fine on the test. I haven't had time to go looking for it.

Just wanted to say thank you for the replies to my earlier question. They're helpful and giving me a good deal of solid, factual info to consider.