Getting Help Creating A Website: Who Should I Go To? Why?

You should see this thread: How to promote your book

And spend some time browsing in the forum where that thread lives: Book Promotion Ideas and Advice

Hi there! This info may be found on the links already provided, but I took Jane Friedman's online class through Writer's Digest and built my site after taking it. It wasn't easy, but I got it done, and I'm happy with it. I didn't have the money to pay someone to build a personal one for me. You can check it out with this link: https://www.writersdigestshop.com/live-webinar-create-an-author-website-in-24-hours-or-less (I'm not a shill for them; it just worked for me.)

Good luck!

Hi. Just this past month I purchased a domain and hosting from namecheap.com to make a platform for my fiction. Wait, this isn't spam, really! I got a year of hosting for about $28 total with a curated Wordpress environment, which is designed for people like me who have no idea what they're doing. The price doubles after the first year, after they've got their hooks into you, but maybe it might satisfy your needs. I think they're based in eastern Europe, since all the names on my tech support tickets look like it, but they've been very responsive to my amateur questions. I do NOT have an agent, so if you're premature then so am I, and considering how much work I've put into this thing, I don't want to consider that!

If you're just looking to start a blog: https://amylynnandrews.com/how-to-start-a-blog/

I believe a website gives you more control over the looks and features, but that may be more than you need. For my site I used goDaddy - not the cheapest but they have good service. I've been writing HTML since version 2.0 and coding javascript since it began, so it's easy for me. GoDaddy has a tool for creating your own site but I've not used it so have no comment.

Maybe try using facebook - create an author page (attached to your personal one if you already have an account).

indianroads said:

Maybe try using facebook - create an author page (attached to your personal one if you already have an account).

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Think very carefully about separating you-as-author from you as a private person with a life.

Think about setting up walls now. Use a separate email address for you as writer. Do not give out your private email address.

Do not publicly associate your personal Facebook account where you interact with friends and family.

Really, truly, you want a web page to be the hub of all contact and traffic.

So for instance, you might have a post announcing a book, once you're ready to publish yourself or have a publication date, on your Website. You write a short summary on your Facebook page for you-as-author and you use URL for that page on your Website so traffic will be directed to your Website.

You do not want to rely on Facebook or any third party for contact with readers; you want them all to end up on your Web site.

Read that thread I linked to.

AW Admin said:

Really, truly, you want a web page to be the hub of all contact and traffic.

You do not want to rely on Facebook or any third party for contact with readers; you want them all to end up on your Web site.

Click to expand...

This, in thirteen-foot tall electric neon day-glo letters with surround sound.

A better place to ask this is in the following forum: Blogs, Podcasts and Social Media.

https://absolutewrite.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?90-Blogs-Podcasts-and-Social-Media

But before that follow AW Admin's link to how to promote your book. It's short, clear, practical, and the best advice I ever came across - and I did an enormous amount of research on the subject as soon as I got serious about writing.

The basic fact is that promoting your books is a lot of hard work and takes a long time to be effective. Facebook, Twitter, and so on are not terribly effective. Having your own web site is not terribly effective, but it's the one place where you have complete control of the face, the "brand," you present to the world.

You can hire a service to do the job for you, but the cold fact is that none of them are terribly good at selling your book. And there are lots of scammers who superficially look good but are best at selling themselves.

The profession of author is a tough business that we have to work at for years before making headway. Even the "overnight" stories of first-book successes such as those of Harry Potter and Twilight and others took a much longer time to take off than articles about them make out.