Blog
Marketing Monday: Setting Up Your Site (Author Sites, Part 3)
The past two weeks we’ve discussed what an author site should do and your options for platform/format. This week, we’re going to discuss the steps required to secure your domain name and your hosting service. Most of these steps are geared towards the user who wants to self-host a WordPress installation for her author site. If you’ve decided to go with Blogger or WordPress.com, you can stop with registering your domain name. Simply follow Blogger/WordPress’s instructions for mapping a custom domain to your blog, and you’re good to go. If you’re going to hire a web designer, he or she most likely can help you with your web host selection and registration.
Registering Your Domain Name
What Domain Should You Choose?
Before you do anything else, you should register your domain name. As a matter of fact, if you’re even thinking about becoming a writer or launching a business that will require you to brand your name, you should do this first. The best option, of course, is to select a domain like www.yourname.com.
Most readers, when looking for your site, will navigate to that address rather than a perform a Google search. Avoid hyphens whenever possible (e.g. www.your-name.com). Additionally, it’s generally considered a better idea to use a variation on your name like www.yournamebooks.com rather than taking the less desirable www.yourname.net. Since .com addresses are still the gold standard for domain names, you’ll have confused visitors when they land on the site they thought was yours and instead find it to be a window-cleaning company (or worse yet, a site showing materials you don’t want linked to your name in any way.) You may also consider buying the .net address for any domain you select, just so someone else cannot come along later after you’re a New York Times Bestselling Author (hey, dream big!) and siphon away your web traffic.
Where Should You Register?
A lot of web experts recommend that you register your domain with a different company than the one that hosts your site. From my perspective, if you’re going with one of the bigger hosting companies, it probably doesn’t matter. I personally like to be able to renew my domain registrations and my web hosting at the same time through the same company, but if you feel better not putting all your eggs in one basket, go ahead and register your domain with a different company than the one hosting your website. There are hundreds of domain registrars. Some of the most popular include:
- Bluehost.com
- GoDaddy.com
- NetworkSolutions.com
However, there are many others that are perfectly on the level. Whichever one you choose, make sure it clearly states that you own the domain and you’re not renting or leasing it from the company. I recommend that before using an unknown domain registrar that promises a low price that you check them out through the Better Business Bureau. I usually also Google something like “[company name] scams” and “[company name] complaints” to see what other users think, keeping in mind that there’s always a small portion of disgruntled users who like to take to the net to air their complaints. On average, it should cost about $8 to $12 per year to register a domain name. You will also be given the option to pay for domain privacy for another $10 or so. This means that if someone does a “whois” search to find out who owns the domain, they will see only the address of the domain registrar, not your personal home address. If you’re registering your domain to a business address or a PO box, this is largely unnecessary.
Choosing Your Hosting Service
Now that you have registered your domain names, it’s time to select a web hosting service. These days, most reputable hosting companies offer very similar packages. If you’re running Wordress, you just need the most basic ones. Dedicated servers and IP addresses are for high volume users or those who are running very resource-intensive scripts on their site. For the most part, WordPress set up correctly will put very few demands on the host server, so you don’t need to worry about this. When you hit the New York Times Bestseller list and are generating tens of thousands of views of your vlogs, you may want to consider upgrading. A good web host should offer you:
- 24/7 tech support
- Unlimited disk storage
- Unlimited add-on, parked, and sub-domains (allowing you to host multiple sites and domain names on a single account)
- Easy install for WordPress via SimpleScripts or similar one-click installation applications
- E-commerce integration
Prices for this type of service will range from $4 to $8 a month for your first year, and up to $10 to $12 a month when you renew. Any host that charges you more than this for these basic options is probably not giving you a good deal. Look elsewhere. A few of the more popular companies that offer reasonably priced hosting services:
- BlueHost.com*
- HostGator.com
- JustHost.com
- GoDaddy.com
*Of all these services, BlueHost is the only one I’ve used personally, and I’ve been very impressed with both their minimal downtime and their technical/customer support. HostGator.com and JustHost.com come recommended by friends of mine, but I can’t vouch for them personally. I would urge caution before using GoDaddy.com for hosting. They’re generally known for having longer and more frequent periods of site downtime and for overcrowding their host servers, which results in slower page load times. (Plus, I find their advertising offensive, but that’s a rant for another day.) Still, they offer competitive rates and hold a large share of the market.
Connecting Your Domain Name to Your Hosting Service
If you opted to register your domain through the company you host with, the process of hooking up your domain is usually as easy as navigating to a tab inside the Domain Services section of your control panel and choosing a primary domain. If you registered through another company, you’ll need to map your name servers to the address your web host provided.
Was that as clear as mud? Basically, inside the control panel of your domain registrar, there will be a space to put an address next to your domain name. Your hosting service should have given you a primary and a secondary name server that looks something like this: “xxx.bluehost.com” or “xxx.hostgator.com.” This just tells the domain registrar that when someone types in your domain name, it should send them to the server that hosts your site.
If that’s still a bit confusing, you can usually find step by step instructions in your host’s FAQ files. Or, check out this thorough list from HostGator. If all else fails, talk to your host’s tech support. (This is why I recommend 24/7 tech support… because we all know that we’ll be doing this at 11:27 pm rather than between the hours of 9 and 5.) It can take anywhere from 24 to 48 hours to map your domain to the new servers, but in my experience, it generally happens in under four. Once your domain and your host are linked up, you’re ready to install WordPress and move into your home on the web!
What companies do you recommend for domain registration and web hosting?
Tags: DNS server, domain name, domain registration, name server, self-hosting, web host
Fictional Friday: Kiss and Tell (Beth and Carla Talk Writing Romantic Moments, Part One)
You are in for a treat for today’s Fictional Friday post! I’m so pleased to welcome a good friend, mentor, and all-around fabulous person, Beth K. Vogt. Beth is a non-fiction writer turned novelist, and when she does something, she does it in a big way! Her first two contemporary romance novels from Howard Books, Wish You Were Here and Catch A Falling Star, have gotten rave reviews, and I have it on good authority that we’ve got even more fun to look forward to next year!
When Beth and I get together, the conversation almost always gets a little giggle-worthy, so here’s a sneak peek of a conversation about one of our favorite writing topics: crafting memorable kisses!
Carla: Okay, Beth, I’ll admit it. I’d like to say that my favorite part of a romance novel is coming up with the settings and back stories and character arcs, but really… it’s that first kiss. The one that you spend half the book building up to. So my question for you, Beth: what makes for a great first kiss?
Beth: One disclaimer before I answer your question, Carla. I don’t think you have to wait until you’re halfway through a book to throw in a let-me-stop-and-reread-that-slowly kind of kiss. The hero and heroine of my debut novel were both surprised halfway through the first chapter by a kiss that rocked their world.
Carla: Okay, I have to admit, that was a good one. I reread that one more than once. And part of what made it so fun was the, ahem, forbidden aspect. Kissing the brother of your fiancé? Naughty, naughty.
Beth: Author Susan May Warren called that moment an “anti-kiss.” I called it one wild Inciting Incident. But back to your original question: The same things that make for an unforgettable real-life kiss are also true for a fictional kiss: a bit of eye-to-contact—before or after (never during!); add in some sensory aspects—he weaves his fingers through her hair or she notices how he smells like good, old-fashioned Ivory soap … and then …
Wait a minute, Carla. Weigh in here. When you write a kiss—any kiss—what is your one must-have element?
Carla: I love that turning point in a kiss when everything else goes away—worries, anticipation, whatever—and they just get caught up in the moment. How I write that moment is different depending on the characters. Sometimes it’s sweet, sometimes it’s a little more passionate. Alright, so… maybe I lean towards passionate more often than sweet.
What about you? You’ve written both sweet and spicy kisses in your books. Which is the most fun? And is one more difficult to write than the other?
Beth: Writing spicier kisses is definitely more difficult because, well, so many people are involved. Um, I better explain myself. When I write a kiss, I’m intimately involved with how it affects my imaginary hero and heroine, of course. And then I’m thinking about my readers … too spicy? Not enough spice? Everybody has preferences about kisses … How do you please everybody involved in the kiss? Do you find that you have to rewrite your kissing scenes, Carla, or are they perfect from the get-go?
Carla: Oh, no, I’m definitely a one-take wonder. *grins* If you believe that, I’ve got some lovely ocean-front real estate in Denver that might interest you. Of all my scenes, the romantic ones are the ones that get rewritten, tweaked, and revised the most. Like you said before, it’s difficult to strike the right balance: if the point of view is too intimate, the scene starts to feel uncomfortably voyeuristic. Not close enough, and the reader is left feeling ho-hum. I definitely don’t want anyone to finish reading a kiss and be anything less than thrilled that the characters finally got around to it, especially since I really like to build the tension leading up to it! But the most important thing for me is that it’s true and authentic to the characters’ personalities and relationships.
Besides, I think the way that characters approach kisses is an interesting part of their development. One of my characters in a WIP recently surprised me. I thought he was really reserved, until he grabbed the heroine and kissed her without warning. Do you ever find unexpected character traits coming out when writing romantic scenes and have to change course?
Beth: It’s fun to reveal character arc (how a character changes) through a kiss. And sometimes I highlight the tenor of the characters’ relationship through a kiss. I’ve written a kiss around “I’m not going to kiss you” and “I didn’t ask you to” because that was the emotional give and take of the hero and heroine’s relationship. But behind all that verbal sparring was a whole lot of attraction.
Carla: Oh yeah, I love those sorts of love-hate courtships. Reminds me of all the great old movies–which had some pretty great kisses themselves!
Well, I have lots more questions for Beth, but it’s time to get back to work writing those swoon-worthy kisses! Don’t forget to stop by next Friday for the second half of my coffee chat with Beth! But in the meantime, I have a question for you all:
What’s your favorite type of kiss: sweet, spicy, or in between?
[author] [author_image timthumb=’on’]https://www.carlalaureano.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/laughingBeth1-2012.jpg[/author_image] [author_info]Beth K. Vogt believes God’s best is often behind the doors marked “Never.” Despite being a nonfiction writer and editor who said she’d never write fiction, Beth’s second inspirational contemporary romance novel, Catch a Falling Star, released May 2013 from Howard Books. Beth is also the Skills Coach for My Book Therapy (MBT), best-selling author Susan May Warren’s writing community.[/author_info] [/author]
Tags: Beth K. Vogt, Catch A Falling Star, inspirational fiction, kisses, romance, Wish You Were Here, writing romance
Words for Women: Put Away the Comparasaurus
I love the website Pinterest Fail. Not because I have a sadistic need to laugh at other people’s misfortune (well, not usually, but let’s face it –some of them deserve a “what were you thinking?”) but because it feels like a show of solidarity for those of us who aren’t the perfect housewives and crafty mothers.
It’s not that I’m not crafty. Actually, I know how to do a lot of crafts: knit, crochet, needlepoint, cross-stitch, decoupage, scrapbook, etc. It’s just that I rarely have time to do it. So while the other stay-at-home moms are bringing gorgeous homemade cupcakes decorated like sunflowers to their kids’ preschool birthday parties, I’m the one bringing packaged cheese sticks or store-bought cupcakes with little plastic Spiderman rings shoved in the frosting. Don’t think I don’t notice those little looks of disapproval from you, Crafty Mom.
But, I think, I’ve written four full-length novels in two years! I blog three days a week. I write a half-dozen guest blogs a month. Crafty Mom hasn’t done that. Now, she’s probably stitched together a gorgeous book of family photographs for her children, complete with handmade paper, but that’s not the same thing.
And then I think: What am I trying to prove?
As my friend, Jennifer, told me once, “Put away the Comparasaurus.” It makes me laugh, because that’s exactly what it is. Keeping score on who can be the better mom, the better school helper, the better housekeeper (okay, so I gave up on that last one about twelve years ago).
The thing I’ve come to realize is… my kids don’t care. It’s more important to them that I show up for the school birthday party, even if it’s with store bought goodies. I’m home to help with homework. I’m free to chaperone school field trips and help on Field Day. I chauffer them around multiple times a day to their activities. And when that box of books that mom wrote arrived at the house, I saw their faces light up. They don’t quite understand what being a writer entails, but they get that it’s pretty cool and kind of rare to have an actual book with your name on it.
So, Crafty Mom, I’m sorry I thought mean things about the fact you brought handmade cards and a bouquet of roses that you cross-bred and raised yourself to Teacher Appreciation Week. I bet your kids think you’re pretty awesome, and they’d be right. But my kids think I’m pretty awesome, too, and that’s all that really matters to me.
How do you silence that little urge to compare yourself to others?
Tags: comparisons, crafts, Pinterest, stay at home moms
Marketing Monday: Choosing a Platform (Author Sites, Part 2)
As an author, you have a number of different options when it comes to building your website. Your first option, of course, is to have someone design and build a site for you. The cost of a custom designed or modified site can run anywhere from $500 for a customized WordPress theme to $7000 or more for a fully functional design that incorporates e-commerce capability and a back-end interface for updating content.
However, I’m going to assume if you’re reading this post, you don’t have seven grand to drop on a website. I’ll also assume that you’re somewhat of a do-it-yourself type that’s willing to fiddle around a bit to get a result you like.
Naturally, if you have web design experience, you can put together a site from scratch using HTML, XML, and CSS. If that collection of letters looked like alphabet soup to you, though, you’re going to want to use one of the user-friendly blogging platforms for your site.
Currently, you have two main options: Blogger and WordPress. (I personally believe Typepad, while once a viable option, is on its way out.)
Blogger
Of the two blogging platforms, Blogger is by far the easiest and has the shallowest learning curve. Anyone can get a Blogger site up and running in fifteen minutes or less, though it will certainly take longer to customize and add themes. And free themes are in abundance—an evening with Google will surely yield a design to suit any look and feel you want. Additionally, Blogger allows you to redirect to a custom domain for free. That means rather than having an address like “carlalaureano.blogspot.com,” I can redirect to www.carlalaureano.com.
There are some drawbacks to Blogger, however. For one, it doesn’t support categories, which can make your blog posts difficult to navigate. For another, it does not support e-commerce functions, so if you decide you want to sell books or other products from your site, you can’t just add a “buy now” button.
Should you use it?
That depends on your needs. If you want a quick and simple set-up, and you don’t mind that it will always look like a blog rather than a website, Blogger might be the option for you. However, its flexibility and customization options are limited, so if you want to be able to control exactly what your site looks like, it will most likely fall short.
WordPress
WordPress is currently the most popular platform both for bloggers and for site owners who want the flexibility of mixing static pages with blog posts. You can find plenty of free themes and even more plug-ins to do just about everything you could possibly want, from embedding iFrames (useful if you want to put Scribd excerpts on your site) to giving you multiple customizable sidebars. Because it’s highly customizable, it’s also considerably more complicated to use.
If you want to go the WordPress route, you have two choices: put your site on WordPress.com or self-host it via your own web host (WordPress.org).
WordPress.com
The advantages of hosting your site with WordPress is threefold: it’s free, it’s quick to set up, and most of the heavy lifting is already done for you.
On the other hand, you have fewer free themes to customize the look, you must pay for extra functionality (custom domain redirect, for example), and you’re limited on space. If you like to vlog or post lots of large photos, you might want to consider your memory usage before deciding to go with a WordPress.com site.
WordPress.org (Self-Hosted)
There are quite a few advantages of self-hosting WordPress through a web host. You have complete control. It’s more secure. Premium features are less expensive, and depending on your host, you most likely will have unlimited space.
The drawbacks are huge, though. You have complete control. That means if your site goes down and it’s not your webhost’s fault, you’re responsible for figuring out why. It does take longer to set up and install on your own site, and you have to pay a monthly hosting fee.
Which to choose?
For my money, I’d go for the self-hosted WordPress site–and in fact, I have–but if the prospect of maintenance scares you, you can always host it with WordPress.com and pay $18 for custom domain mapping.
Next week we’ll talk about the process of selecting a web host, buying a domain name, and taking the first steps to constructing your home on the web! If you missed part one last week, don’t forget to read it here to learn the three things that your home on the web should be doing for you.
Tags: blog, Blogger, blogging platform, self-hosting, web host, website, wordpress
