Build a Better Author Website With Me

I put Zoe in charge of building my website, but she spent all her time on Grumpy Cat memes.

It's important for authors these days to be accessible online, especially if you're starting out with self-publishing or going through a small press publisher who doesn't have the big budget to promote your work. 

I've loved my blog. It has remained my favourite form of social networking, and I've tried a lot of them! I will always blog, aiming to share any information I think can help other writers and authors. But now, I need to create a more professional website to host my blog. My page needs more than Blogger can provide.

Don't get me wrong, Blogger is still a great platform for new bloggers. It's easier to use than many others, and allows you to track your growing follower list. And I've no intention of deleting everything I've built here, but migration will begin soon to a new hosted site, using a professional Wordpress theme. My site will have pages to accommodate my upcoming vlogs for teens and kids on creative writing (iTeenWrite), information about my writing workshops, a book page, free resources and, of course, my blog.

I'm starting from scratch and doing this techie work myself, so it'll be a while off yet. So why am I telling you now? I'm going to record every step with lots of screen shots and voice over instructions, so if you take this path you won't make my mistakes. I'm hoping to make web building easy for you!  

Here's the thing. I can help you each step of the way if your process is the same as mine. My host site and domain name is Just Host, I find them reliable, consistent and fairly good value. I tried Squarespace but found it more than double the price for a platform that was too complicated for me to use and only produced a very basic site without an IT degree. I've heard good things about Crazy Domains, but haven't tried them. I can happily give Just Host a plug and have included an affiliate link below - have a look and see if it's for you. 

My first step will be installing Wordpress through Just Host:

You have homework! Even if you don't want to try this tactic for building your site, this is something you should do before creating any website. Write a plan, a list of all the important things you want to include on your website. Will you offer writers' workshop, school visits? Want a sales page for books? An email sign up form? Plan before you build, it'll make life easier later!

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