Wordpress as an Author's Website

Spy_on_the_Inside

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Lately, I've been contemplating starting a blog for myself as a writer. I have it down to either Wordpress or Blogger (leaning Wordpress). But in my research, I have actually found authors and publishers who use Wordpress as both their blog and their author's website.

What I am hoping is to get other author's opinions on using Wordpress as an author's web page server verses another server, like Squarespace or Wyx.
 

Marissa D

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I use Wordpress.org (self-hosted) for my website, with the Weaver Extreme theme (which is almost too versatile--I'm probably not utilizing a quarter of its capabilities.)

I've heard good explanations for why sites like Wix and its ilk are not a good bet, but honestly I didn't pay much attention because I never really considered them. You might want to have a look through the archives here about website platforms; this isn't the first time someone has asked this question.
 

sivart_sf

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I actualy started using word press as of yesterday.

It wasn't as easy as I thought and i still have a Long way to go: see the link and you will see what I mean

https://sivart-sf.blog/

the only Thing I wish to say is be consistent. I now have a Website, a Blog site and a fan page. I jumped in too quick and now I have unleashed a Monster


stick with Word Press. I have tried many other Solutions: one.com / Go Daddy and found it to produce the best results... even though it is hard to navigate
 

Marissa D

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Following up on the vaguely-mentioned problem with Wix and others in my previous post--it's that if/when you decide to change platforms from them to something else, you can't transport your pages--you'll have to rebuild them from scratch on the new platform.
 

cool pop

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I started out with Wordpress when I was doing blogs. I never had a Wordpress site though but if you like how it works then I see no issue with it. I use Weebly for my website. It's my favorite out of all I've used. It's cheap and easy to manage. I had Wix for a year and didn't like it at all. It was too complicated to design and too expensive. Weebly allows you to have a domain name without having to pay for a premium site. So you can have a free Weebly site with a domain name and there are no ads so the free site looks good. Wix makes you upgrade to a premium site if you want a domain name. With both you can sell books direct through the site, etc. It's all about what the individual likes.
 

screenscope

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I have used Wordpress for a few years and it's been fine and easy to use. I also like all the stats provided, so I can see where the traffic is coming from and which pages are accessed, which is particularly helpful when tracking reaction to promotions.

I've heard other platforms are better or preferred, but I'm happy with Wordpress.
 

veinglory

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These days Wordpress offers pretty much everything a traditional webhost would and many top level authors use it. Historically more authors were with Blogger but I think that is no longer the case.
 
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CathleenT

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I use Wordpress as both my website for books and my blog. (Separating them makes no sense to me. One of the purposes of a blog is to bring traffic to your website.) It's worked pretty well over the past four years.
 

Jason

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It’s threads like this that make me debate whether or not it’d be worth writing a piece on CMS, hosting, and domain registrations. Part of me thinks it’d be helpful to dispel some of the confusion that sets in when people consider establishing an online presence. The other half of me says most get the basics and the rest is just Coke vs. Pepsi debates. Lol
 

Sarah M

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I’ve also been looking into the best way to do my website and I'm a bit confused. What's the difference between the two Wordpresses, besides the obvious (.com/.org)? And which one do you think is better to go with?
 

mafiaking1936

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Another option I went with is to buy my own domain with Wordpress hosting. Still not sure if this is the best of both worlds or the worst...
 

EMaree

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I’ve also been looking into the best way to do my website and I'm a bit confused. What's the difference between the two Wordpresses, besides the obvious (.com/.org)? And which one do you think is better to go with?

Wordpress.com: a commercial service with an extensive free package. It will host your Wordpress blog for you and give you access to quite a few themes, but you'll need to pay to buy then then pay to use a custom domain name (roughly $10 fee to the domain supplier and then $10 to Wordpress, repeats yearly) and you'd need a premium package to use their premium themes or your own plugins.

Wordpress.org (often called 'self-hosted' Wordpress) is the same software Wordpress.com uses, but the whole package is entirely free and unrestricted--you can add all the plugins, themes, and custom modifications your heart desires. However, freedom comes at a cost: you'll need to pay for your own domain name ($10 to the domain host yearly, though most hosting packages include a free one every year making this $0), for website hosting (usually $10-ish a month, but you can really cut that down using deals or Wordpress-specific hosting packages), for any paid themes/plugins if you want (prices vary, though your free theme access is MUCH wider to the point where I'd say premium themes are unnecessary for authors starting out). You'll also need to be on top of updates and have a strong technical knowledge to monitor security (cost: chunks of time), or use a one-click install service provided by your host which shifts the updates and security patching workload to them (free, provided by most major hosts including Dreamhost and Bluehost, would strongly recommend this if you're not very technical but learning, or you just want the freedom of .org Wordpress).


Here's the easy way to tell the two versions apart: Wordpress.COM is a COMmercial service, and Wordpress.ORG is a free service provided by a charitable ORGanisation (called the Wordpress Foundation).

Both versions of Wordpress are great. A lot of the choice depends on your technical skills, comfort levels, and free time.
 
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Auteur

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This is the part I'm not looking forward to... the book promotion aspect of being an author. Blech.
 

Aimless Lady

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I use Wordpress as both my website for books and my blog. (Separating them makes no sense to me. One of the purposes of a blog is to bring traffic to your website.) It's worked pretty well over the past four years.

This. I also used wordpress and I'm happy with it. I'm not techy, and wordpress is easy to use.
 

Kathella

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When I was looking into setting up a site for a poetry blog, I did some googling to see what peoples' opinions were.

On the whole, Wordpress outshone Blogspot in terms of personal reviews and user experiences. The only thing that deterred me was the technical aspects, as several of these reviews cited needing to have servers set up, maximizing bandwidth, the GBs available to utilize pages, and a lot of other computer-tech systems I have no experience with. This seemed to be in regard to high-traffic sites on a professional level, but I didn't know how much that was involved with personal sites. I myself have NOT used Wordpress (.com or .org), so I can't say how accurate any of that information was.

I ended up going with Namecheap(.com) to purchase a domain, and they have an "app" for Easy Wordpress. It comes with a variety of basic templates that can be tweaked and adjusted to suit your needs, with TONS of options for customization, integrating links to social media, even adding advertisements. Setting up with Namecheap took roughly a day, but they walked me through every step of the process, and I managed to get my site up and running in less than 48 hours.

I also manage a site for a friend's collaborative blog, and his was much more convoluted in the set up process. Namecheap sources their domain name options from various sellers, so depending on who you buy the website domain from, you'll get different prices and processes both.

As far as cost goes, it's been reasonably cheap, and I have a .com domain rather than a .org domain. I pay $2.88 a month for the Easy WP app, and $10 a year for the domain. My friend's site is $2.88 for the app, and $2.99 a month for the domain. Compared against $10 a year for the domain and $10 a year for hosting, it sounds a little less cost efficient than the standard WordPress package. The only major difference is that none of the themes are behind a paywall through the Easy WP app. I didn't want to pay for Premium on WordPress, so that freedom of choice lured me to the Easy WP app over the classic WordPress site.

All in all, I'm very happy with the results I've gotten from the Easy WP app and the way my poetry blog turned out. Just some information to chew on while shopping around for the best site to host and set up your own site. I wish you luck!
 

mafiaking1936

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When I was looking into setting up a site for a poetry blog, I did some googling to see what peoples' opinions were.
I ended up going with Namecheap(.com) to purchase a domain, and they have an "app" for Easy Wordpress. It comes with a variety of basic templates that can be tweaked and adjusted to suit your needs, with TONS of options for customization, integrating links to social media, even adding advertisements. Setting up with Namecheap took roughly a day, but they walked me through every step of the process, and I managed to get my site up and running in less than 48 hours.

I use them as well, and this was my experience, EXCEPT for the process of setting up the security certificate. That is positively Byzantine, even for renewal.
 

AubreyTCopeland

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If you're on a budget, Wordpress is the way to go. I use my blog there as my official website. It may not have the flashy url that you'd get by purchasing a domain, but it's free and relatively user-friendly. Oh, and you have a blog. Did I mention the blog? :hooray: