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Seeking info on making a webpage
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Cris
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Jan 31, 2014 08:27AM
Hi all. I'm very new to this and was wondering if anyone had any info on the best way to go about making a webpage. Who is best to use? Is it truly worth the expense? Any info at all would be very helpful. Thanks.
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I use weebly,com. It's free you can have up to two pages and it's very easy to use!
Thanks so much, I truly appreciate. I would also like to check out your webpage would you mind giving me the link?
Must say I like the layout and will look into weebly, thanks. Also liked the excerpt from Wendy Won't Go. I will definitely check that out. I write Middle grade/young adult fantasy and my first novel is Destiny revealed, book one in The Destiny Trilogy. It's currently available for kindle on amazon, but hopefully things will grow from there.
Grab all of the opportunities to promote that you can, there are lots of blogs looking for authors to review and do interviews with. Getting your webpage set up will help quite a lot as will filling up your author page here. Weebly gives you a lot of layout to work with and ways to modify them to make them more personal too. I hope you like it if you get to read it :) It's my first publication with the publisher's I work for J Ellington Ashton Press, I'm an editor there as well.
Thank you so much for the useful information. I do intend to get your book. I have a trip coming up and I think it would be a good inflight read.
Chris - I, like you, are new to the webpage game. Having utilized other free offerings from Google+, I gave Google Sites a try. Though I have nothing to compare it to, I was able to eventually feel comfortable enough with the rules/instructions to complete my webpage. If you navigate to www.jondkurtz.com you can view the result. Keep in mind, I probably did not utilize the full functionality of Google Sites because of my lack of knowledge. Hope this helps.
I like the look of your webpage. Apparently I have a lot of sorting and figuring out to do. Thanks for the help.
I also use the free weebly. It's very simple to do and easy to maintain.
Cris wrote: "Hi all. I'm very new to this and was wondering if anyone had any info on the best way to go about making a webpage. Who is best to use? Is it truly worth the expense? Any info at all would be very..."Hi Cris,
I use a package called Sandvox (for Mac) to create my websites - it's not free, but there are no limits on the size you can create. I use 1and1 as my ISP and have had no trouble with uploading and maintaining my sites.
If you want to see what they look like, here are some URLs:
http://www.off-the-wall-plays.co.uk (My 'main' website)
http://www.katisha.co.uk/henry-morgan/ (one of my books)
http://www.perfectrecall.co.uk (this one has videos etc to show what can be done...)
Best wishes,
Nigel
Hi Chris,Yes. It is definitely worth having a website.
At the very least you should get your domain name now. You'll want to include a link to it in your books. Once you have your domain name, if you change your hosting service your readers will still be able to find you.
I did sort of the same thing that Jon did. I started on a Google site (blogspot) to get started. That let me try a few things without too much risk.
Before I published my first book, I decided to host my site through namecheap.com and use Wordpress to manage the content.
For the last few weeks I've been playing with the layout of http://keithkeffer.com/ I'm almost happy with it. I expect I'll make a few more changes over the next week, but so far all of the changes I've been making have been very easy.
One nice thing with wordpress is that you can probably Google just about anything you want to try.
Cris wrote: "Hi all. I'm very new to this and was wondering if anyone had any info on the best way to go about making a webpage. Who is best to use? Is it truly worth the expense? Any info at all would be very..."I would recommend starting with something simple like http://wix.com or http://about.me
When you feel ready to go beyond that, try http://wordpress.com
All of these are free.
If you want to really create your own website on your own domain, and spend some money (about $10/yr for your dot-com and $5/mo. for hosting,) I recommend http://godaddy.com
Getting your webpage set up will help quite a lot as will filling up your author page here. Does the Author page here on GR really help promote and/or sell books?
Definately use Wordpress. They're free and the prompts for set-up are very intuitive. I had mine up in a few hours and editing and tweaking it has been simple.You can see mine at www.darylbuckner.com
I have created a website with fatcow and I think it's terrific if I may say so. It's not too pricy depending on your needs. Check out my website and you will see a link to it and you can see how my webisite s set up
www.claudettealexander.com
Thank you all for your input. I have a lot to research.
I've been using Wordpress for two blogs since around 2008, and I love them. It's as intuitive as Apple products.One of my blogs is general writing, about everything from baseball to erotica. The other one advertises my writing and editing services. I'm thinking of changing the second one to a web page for my books, as I don't have a dedicated site for them! That blog is more appropriate since it's already promotional. Only thing is, I have way more followers on the other site. Not sure what to do. Any ideas?
I think blog spot would be good. I think it's free, and a lot of authors use it.
There are several free blogs just google 'free blogs' and they will pop up for you.
I have both blogger and wordpress. You have more control in wordpress but I found blogger to be less spammy. How about the rest of you?
Hi, I have two websites on line. The first I used Go Daddy, the second is with Ipage. Both companies are very good and I found to be reasonable in pricing. Ipage is the better of the two on fees. Both have easy to use website builders especially for a novice, which I was when I first put up my website. Go Daddy has excellent tech support for any issues, problems or questions. I have not had to utilize tech support with Ipage so cannot comment on their service. My links are as follows if you wish to look at either site:www.txcr3.com
www.anitadickason.com
I use Bluehost (as host) for my sites. I have quite a few.With the add-ons they provide I can put up a WordPress site in about an hour.
I can monetize the site in many ways.
Places like Weebly and Go Daddy (I've used both in the past) limit your ability to grow.
My Bluehost total out of pocket cost is under $20. year for one site.
The free stuff available to make your site great is amazing with the widgets, etc.
I have not yet spent much time at all on my author site. It is my top priority the next couple of weeks as my first full book will be published May 5th.
http:/www.JeanineJoy.US
There are lots of great sites to make free ones. Then there are paid things.You should look at each site and try it free before you pick something that is paid for.
With weebly, you get a very simple layout.
Personally, I love wix.
Wix is high customizable with some beautiful layouts. I think you can make something beautiful and professional out of it that doesn't look like 50 other sites.
If I were you, I would tinker with the free ones and see what you like before you pay for anything.
If you are paying somebody to put it up for you, I guess it matters less about your experience with it, but from a professional standpoint, you need to find a website that is highly customizable. You want a look that looks professional, suits you and your authorship, and stands out. You don't want it to look like others' sites.
It's easy enough if all you want to do is use the free web builders and then just pay for a domain name to attach to it.
I would also like to add that blog sites and websites are very different with very different appearances.
Blogger is great, but it is very much a "blogsite" while something like weebly, wix or even go daddy can give you a professional looking website with profile and everything.
I would advise that if you were to pick something, try testing things out before you finally pick.
I personally use weebly, wix and blogger. All of them.
*bump* I have a couple of questions related to this and didn't want to start my own thread when there's already so much info here.
First, I already have a personal website (copywriting portfolio) as well as a long-neglected Wordpress blog, and need to make something specific to my books. I'm leaning towards Wordpress, but since my blog has some "adult" language and posts and I'm writing children's books I want the two blogs completely separate.
Does anyone here have experience with Wordpress and found a way to keep different blogs totally separate (including usernames) but still accessible with the same account?
Second, for those who have experience both with things like Wordpress or Weebly and building your own sites, have you seen any advantage to doing one or the other? My portfolio is built with iWeb, which is easy enough, but I haven't used the blog feature of it yet.
I created my own website - LauraDrakeBooks.comI have experience in creating WP website, and another (Network Solutions). Do yourself a favor - don't go with anyone who you can't use Wordpress with.
I wanted to attach a WP blog (free) to my website with NS - oh, sure, for $9.95/month. Are you kidding me? They weren't. Their blogging platform for free was the equivalent of DOS. Really bed.
Then, when, at the end of 3 years, tired of constant up-selling, I got fed up with Network Solutions. Their website development tool is proprietary - I couldn't port my site over to Wordpress. I had to start all over.
Wordpress is the industry standard. I paid for a developer's upgraded theme, and wham. Done.
I don't think you can administer more than one WP blog at a time - but maybe someone else knows better.
Best of luck to you!
Try Simplesite.com The first month can be free whilst you develop your website.
I use Weebly too but go through ipage. iPage is incredible, they are open 24/7 and always know the answers to my questions. and the first year or so is about $2/month. When you go through ipage you can choose to use Wordpress or Weebly. Weebly is very simple drag and drop. BTW, I would absolutely recommend ipage regardless but if you decide to use ipage click on it from my site (http://www.getajobin90days.com) and I get a referral fee! Email me at kat@katquest.com if you need any help.
Morey wrote: "*bump* I have a couple of questions related to this and didn't want to start my own thread when there's already so much info here.
First, I already have a personal website (copywriting portfoli..."
I would definitely go with WP over something like Weebly.
I don't use wordpress at WP.com, I use it with a service where I buy the hosting account (Bluehost.com is the one I'm using now, much better than four I've used in the past).
With the hosting account you can have it set up so you have privacy on Whois.com -- that would keep customers from knowing you have an adult blog and are also writing children's books.
You would want a URL for each that was separate.
I've used several drag and drop sites and hired a guy to built a Joomla based site for me (which I took over and converted totally to WP two years later http://www.happiness1st.com).
WP, with widgets and plugins, is very powerful.
I have about a dozen different WP sites for a variety of businesses.
One thing about WP is you know it is here to stay. My first site was a plug N play type site and they kept changing things so much that it became a chore to keep the site up to date and the changes were significant. That site (and this is not atypical of plug and play sites) made it very difficult to transfer your URL to another host provider. I tried for over a year, even enlisted help to transfer it, all without success so I finally abandoned the URL rather than continue using the service.
WP is so easy and bluehost has help that is just a phone call away.
Laura wrote: "I created my own website - LauraDrakeBooks.com...I don't think you can administer more than one WP blog at a time - but maybe someone else knows better."
You can have unlimited blogs at one time, attached to different URL's.
I have three- my author site, my business site, and my non-profit site.
Laura wrote: "I created my own website - LauraDrakeBooks.com...I don't think you can administer more than one WP blog at a time - but maybe someone else knows better."
You can have unlimited blogs at one time, attached to different URL's.
I have three- my author site, my business site, and my non-profit site.
Jeanine, Just to be clear, when you use WP with a separate hosting site, do you have a different account with each one automatically? Is it completely separate, or do you still go to WP itself to look at the dashboard and stuff like that?
I was thinking that at least for the beginning I'd just use the regular free WP stuff, but it's starting to look like it might be worth just getting an independent URL after all.
Also, just to clarify: After reading how it looks up above, I want to assure everybody that when I say "adult blog" I just mean I'm not editing myself and sometimes use off-color language. Not that it's an "ADULT blog" ifyouknowhatimean. :)
Is anyone else using Crazydomains? I use it for my website but you can't archive on it and it isn't free. Maybe I should think about changing to Wordpress!I host guest authors each week. If anyone would like to be interviewed you can contact me through the site -www.ritaleechapman.com
Cris wrote: "Hi all. I'm very new to this and was wondering if anyone had any info on the best way to go about making a webpage. Who is best to use? Is it truly worth the expense? Any info at all would be very..."Just came across your thread and thought I'd give you my information as well. I used Google Sites to create my webpage. My daughter-in-law is a web page designer, and she thought the one I created on my own through Google Sites was great. Here is my webpage link. https://sites.google.com/site/rosecas...
I find it easy to work with as well.
I'm with Anita! I go my domain name from GoDaddy and then used ipage with Weebly Drag and Drop. Very inexpensive and very easy to use. The iPage 24 hour help line is incredible! If you go through my website to check them out http://www.getajobin90days.com and buy I'll get a fee, but I would recommend them anyway!!
By the way, forgot to mention... In North Carolina you are entitled to a free website if you are a small business. The vendor is web.com. DO NOT USE THEM. they are terrible, zero customer service, very difficult to navigate, etc. I wasted two days before I wised up and read their reviews which were horrible. There are a lot of good options that are free or very inexpensive.
I like all of your comments,I am new to Good Reads and for now just a reader, but I am working on a short story and who know maybe some day I might become a author as well. I have a few friends that are on good reads that are authors. One of them told me I should try and write. It is nice to know that everyone here is will to help each other out. I have made comments before and I felt that they were well received and even been invited to be friends with some of you. Thanks so much.
Let my daughter says, "Just write, don't worry if you can." Good luck! Kat
Well thank you, my friend said to write every day and you will get better, I have been trying to do that, maybe when I get a little better or get my short story done I will have someone look at it and see what I can do to make it better. Thanks Kat.
Hey folks, just a quick update to the above. I ultimately decided to create a blog/website through Blogger. It's totally free and ridiculously easy. I had it up and running in under an hour, with various tweaks here and there.Also, since I wanted a vanity url and already owned my own domain for my advertising portfolio which just uses my name (moreykunin.com) I decided that rather than spend the money on a second domain like moreykuninbooks or whatever, I could just create a subdomain on my existing site for free, and still look totally professional.
Thus, my blog can now be found at books.moreykunin.com. Eventually I'll fix the main page of moreykunin.com to include a link to the blog directly, but that will take a bit more work since it means changing the portfolio a bit as well.
Thank you all for your help!
