So How To Go About It

Before you begin to start building your site, you have a few important decisions to make.

1. Buying a Domain Name

   The domain name is a web address of your site so for example, lamarshall.com, is a domain. You pay an annual fee to use it. Authors should, in general, buy the use of a domain that closely matches the name you are publishing under. This is not always as simple as it may first seem particularly if you have a common name. Unless you are a main line author we do not recommend domain names related to a book title. When the title is no longer of interest, neither is anything else on the site.

   If yourauthorname.com has already been taken, consider others like .net, .author or another version. Note that it is nice to have something matching your name but remember this is not generally how people find you. It's your sites content that really matters.

   You can buy domain names from many providers but we like easyspace.com who we have been using since the mid 1990's. Their pricing is one of the best we have found, typically around 10 euro a year.

2. Selecting a Host

   A host keeps your site up and running 24 hours a day and who offers help if you have trouble. Your options fall into one of three categories: free hosting, fee-based hosting, and premium or managed hosting.

   Free hosting: Such as Blogger or WordPress, are free website hosting services. While these services are typically user-friendly and hassle-free, they have limitations, such as:

   • You won't be able to fully customise your site,
   • Functionality can be limited, particularly when it comes to e-commerce,
   • You may not be able to get in-depth analytics about visitors or how people find your site,

   For self publishing authors, free hosting can often make the most sense, as you're not yet in need of the freedom, and complexity, that comes with a self-hosted site. But you must think of your e-commerce solution

   Think of how you can transition later to self-hosting if you intend to build a large content site.

   Fee-based hosting or self-hosting: Self-hosting means you have complete control over and access to your site environment, platform and files. Consider self-hosting as analogous to home ownership but think of what happens when you're responsible and something goes wrong.

   Self-hosting is best for established authors, and can pay others to do it, or anyone who wants to monetise their site. The advantages of self-hosting include:

   • The ability to fully customise your sites' design to decide fonts, colours, page templates, headers, footers and the list goes on. This can be critical for long-term author imaging.
   • Record site traffic and check on what marketing efforts are working,
   • Freedom to add functionality to earn money from your site such as advertising, e-commerce, membership or premium areas,
   • More effective integration of email newsletter sign-up tools,
   • Some of the most common hosting providers are Bluehost, HostGator and DreamHost who all offer one-click installation of WordPress and 24/7 support, cost as little as 15-20 euros a month. WARNING: It's generally a bad idea to use a an on offer fee-based host's service. They are not usually long-term solutions and carry high second year fees.

   Remember with self-hosting you become responsible for your own sites security, you have to back up your site if your host provider doesn't; and if your site should go down, it's your problem to solve which usually starts with a call to your host. If that worries you, consider a managed or premium hosting service.

   Managed or premium hosting: Many users find that with a bare-bones self-hosting arrangement, you get what you pay for. With managed or premium hosting, you pay a higher price, up to 30 euros a month, for services such as regular backups, site security and superior support. For authors with little technical background or experience, no time or inclination to get up to speed then managed hosting may be the right answer. One of the most popular managed hosting solutions for WordPress sites is WP Engine.