Re-inventing the Wheel Part 1 – the Author Website/Blog
Today we are going to talk about Re-inventing the Wheel – or I suppose NOT Re-inventing the Wheel.
And the focus of today’s post specifically is the author website/blog.
In several of my books I talk about the author website/blog and I offer my suggestions for not only the platform that it is optimally based on, but many other things associated with it – like how to keep it up to date and how to back up the content.
I frequently see questions in author forums asking for advice when building a website. I often cringe when I read through the answers. The answers tend to start with “I use…” or “Since I’m not very technical…” In fact, I’ve had several reviews of my books criticizing my suggestions. As many of you are aware, I favor WordPress. But many who comment – be it in author forums or in reviews of my books – think WordPress is too difficult to learn by the average author.
I disagree.
I get that most authors are very creative people – and many creative people are not also technical. I know that I tend to view the world differently than most of the creative people that I work with.
I analyze. I’m methodical. I plan.
When I considered publishing a book, one of the first people I talked to was an accountant. Although my first question was about whether or not I needed to create a business, I got a valuable piece of advice from him during that conversation. After he reminded me that I wasn’t statistically very likely to make any money, he told me that publishing a book is running a business. He said, like many businesses, there are start up costs. He suggested that I front-load my expenses – creating a loss that I could then chip away at as I started to make money.
I listened.
I listen to several podcasts while I exercise the puppy each day.
Mocha being cozy & ready for winterSome of my favorites are the Self-Publishing Formula with Mark Dawson and James Blatch and the Sell More Books Show with Bryan Cohen and Kukral among many others. They, like the vast majority of authorities in the Indie publishing arena, will encourage authors to treat publishing like a business.
Although smaller in scale than eBay perhaps, being an author these days is still a business. Decisions should be made that are the best decisions for the business. As my accountant suggested, front load your expenses. Pay someone to create a website/blog for you. Take a course to learn how to manage your website or hire some help. Websites for authors range the gamut of prices from reasonable to requiring a second mortgage. I don’t believe that beginner websites need to be complicated or expensive. I offer a selection for a very reasonable price and I take care of them. Read more on that here. I’ll have more to say about managing a website in a bit.
Keep in mind that the cost to create and maintain a website – as well as any help you hire is a business expense and can be declared on your income tax. If you are uncertain how to do that, contact your local writer’s association and they can put you in touch with a publishing savvy accountant in your area. I don’t believe in paying the tax man 1 penny more than I need to.
Back to the topic of NOT Re-inventing the Wheel.
Let’s talk about the comment about WordPress being too difficult to learn for the average author. An author is not eBay, or Forbes or another large company. What authors need to learn to do on their websites is to create and publish posts. Not too different from managing Microsoft Word to create books. An author website is not rocket science. It is used to display/promote books and communicate to readers. Once the basic information is in place, it is not changed very often. Authors don’t publish books more than a couple of times a year at most. The only content that is regularly added to an author website is posts – easily learned by anyone who can manage Word.
Let’s talk about why I suggest WordPress as the base for your author website. As I’ve mentioned above, publishing a book/being an author is a business. You need to make the right business decision to ensure that your website/blog is easily findable on a Google search, it is reasonably safe from being hacked, and on a platform that you own. You want to own your content, not be concerned that factors outside of your control will take your site away.
So why WordPress? To start to answer that question – look at what the larger businesses are doing. They have deeper pockets and have done the research – they have asked all the questions. If it is good enough for Forbes….
Alex Schaffer wrote in his article entitled 8 Reasons why Fortune 500 Companies use the WordPress CMS on Vital:
So, to say the least, content is the cornerstone of today’s commerce—and the best and brightest businesses know it. From Fortune 500 companies like eBay, Sony, GM and UPS, to national news giants like Forbes, CNN, Reuters and The NYT, to tech tycoons like Samsung, IBM and TechCrunch, heavy hitters everywhere are rolling out slick sites with full-scale content strategies developed in and supported by the WordPress CMS (content management system).
He then goes on to say that 55% of the top 1 million most visited websites in the world choose WordPress.
All you need to do is Google “What are the negatives of ______” and you will find articles telling you why to NOT choose certain platforms. Some of the choices don’t allow you to change the theme or look of your site once you choose. Some of the choices have a history of getting into a pissing match with Google and having all sites removed from Google searches – potentially devastating from the beginner author trying to be found. Some of the choices have fairly strict rules that can result in your site being deleted if you break the rules.
Why do you want a site that you own? The quick answer is so that you can pack up your content and move away. All websites live on servers – fancy computers – and each server typically houses many websites at once. Think of a server as an apartment building. One address – many residents.
What happens when one of the apartments is used as a meth lab?
All the apartments are in danger.
To get away from the danger, you pack up your belongings and move to a different address – a different apartment.
Let’s take my apartment example to the world of websites. If a server houses a website that has been black-listed for some reason all the websites on that server may be painted with the same brush. There are many reasons that a website is black-listed – perhaps it has been hacked and is now being used to distribute malware to other sites. Often when one site is blacklisted – the IP is blacklisted. In normal language, the whole server that is used to house a collection of sites has one IP address. You can be painted black just because your site is on the same server as a bad one.
Using the apartment example, when one apartment is used to create a meth lab, all the units are put in danger. The other units or apartments aren’t doing anything bad, but they are in danger because of their location.
Back to websites
If you use WordPress.org for your website and the server your site is on is black listed, you simply pack up your site and move servers. If you can’t easily move – you will remain painted black until the bad sites are corrected or removed.
Google has lots of rules they want websites to follow. Lots of factors go into determining how Google views a website. Aside from whether your site is black-listed, Google expects your site to load quickly, be easily searchable by it’s bots and mobile responsive to name a few.
Do I expect you to know and understand all these things? Not necessarily. But I do expect you to make an educated business decision – perhaps with guidance – that will benefit your business over the long haul. Perhaps by asking for guidance from someone who specializes in author websites.
And if the only reason someone has for choosing a platform for a website is because it is easy – walk the other way.
Stop trying to re-invent the wheel – it’s already been invented.
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