Sci-Fi, fantasy and speculative Indie Authors Review discussion

I'm not sure I this falls under tech support, but didn't find any other place for it. The thing is I have been thinking about building a website, but there are so many choices that it has left me scratching my head and going around in circles.

So I thought I might ask my fellow authors that have already built their own websites, what has been your experience? I'm not that good at the tech stuff, but would like to learn so I thought I would go for Wix, Godaddy or one of those places that have templates to make it easier. What do you think, whould that be a good choice for me?

It depends on what kind of investment (time/money) you're willing to invest but in most cases I'd opt for Wordpress.

Wix might look flashy but it'll cost you far too much and reviews of their support aren't great.

Wordpress takes a bit of getting used to compared to Wix's drag and drop template (so if you're very particular about the look you want for your site there might be a bit of a learning curve) but there's a hell of a lot of community support for it. Also, the free templates aren't too bad.

Also, are you set on having your own domain? Do you have any basic coding experience (or are willing to learn)? Finally, will it just be a landing page or do you see yourself updating it regularly?

What I did was buy a domain and hosting through webhostinghub.com (great support and cheap options) and then build a site using wordpress's free toolkit.

http://www.michaelscoinsauthor.com

I have negligible coding experience but managed to create something that I think looks rather good (only needed the coding to make a few tiny edits to the template and layout. All in all, it took me about two weeks to put together (that includes the research I did into the different building tools out there).

Also, the whole package is costing me about $80 a year.

If you're not sure what you're ready for, I'd advise getting a free account with wordpress.com and having a play with their tools first to see how they serve you.

Hope this helps.

Hi Michael,

I have no coding experience at all, but I'm willing to learn. I had a look at your site and it looks good. So Wordpress sounds like a good choice. I think I'll take your advice and begin with a free account at Wordpress.com to see what I can do with their tools.

And thanks, it really helps.

You can start with a free one, at Weebly.com, and see how you like it. To see how it looks I'm afraid I'll have to plug mine: www.kendoggett.weebly.com. If that looks good to you, try that first before you buy into one with real money.

Ken, your site looks good. Did you have to have some coding experience before to get it like this or, are you using their templates? I ask because I have no coding experience at all and I'm trying to figure out how much learning would be involved if I would go with Weebly.com.

I'm using their templates. It takes a little practice, but you can craft a nice website without coding experience. I certainly don't have any, and I'm not exactly a whiz with a computer.

I have to check that out. Sounds like a good place for someone like me that hasn't got any coding experience. Thanks Ken.

Hey all - actually have a question about this (Goodreads) website...I can't seem to figure out how to add books to my 'currently reading' list? There's the 'want to read' option and the 'rating' option but absolutely no 'Currently Reading' option...?

Scott, you use the 'Want To Read' option: at the right-hand end is a little graphic of books - click on that and you get a drop-down which includes 'Currently Reading'.

I do my websites through Wordpress - navalairhistory.com and airandseastories.com

I find Wordpress tricky to figure out and use but I like the result

Hi Matthew, I had a look at Airandseastories.com and I like it. It looks good. After looking around it seems to me that Weebly might be a little simpler to use, but there are things about Wordpress I also like. So I'm going to create free accounts with both Weebly and Wordpress to see if I can't make a good site on either one and which system I like the better.

That's a good idea Hákon. I set up both of mine and spent a long time tinkering with them before I went 'live' so to speak.

If anything I prefer navalairhistory.com, which uses a template (or 'theme' as Wordpress terms it) called 'Oxygen', but I didn't want to use the same theme for both my websites as I wanted them to have a distinct look. I may try to find a better one for Air and Sea Stories, but changing theme is a big undertaking as it can mean all your featured images etc no longer work

I actually build websites for a living - and one thing to keep in mind is - if you use a template you might not be able to get the right branding experience for your viewers that you are wanting. I know you can customize most templates on WordPress with a little html, so research on that could really be a benefit for most going that route. :)

Website design is a lot like electronic device design. There are so many people who fancy themselves experts and so many people who make things that give the entire field a bad name. Even Goodreads, which is mostly a great site, commits fouls that I would kick a designer in the bottom for. (For instance, when I have a monitor that is wider than it is tall, which is basically all the time, I want to use the _entire width_, not the receipt paper space sites want me to read in. Those bits of monitor they condemn to basically get wasted are MY bits of monitor, site designers!)

But all kidding aside, I would try every provider you can try for free, try them all as thoroughly as you can, and keep trying them until you find something they offer that you need and they want money for, or you find a rough edge that scours your hand. I would love WordPress, for example, but they live in this fantasy land where everyone can write code or is capable of learning to write code. That is why I never buy anything from them (I hope one of their staff reads this).

When I was a little boy, so many tasks were prophesied to be as simple as pushing a button in the "future". Well, now is the future, and even watching a picture show that does not hurt my eyes is, unless I make use of my expensive equipment, like beating my head on a fractured panel of glass. When a service, site, or whathaveyou is available that makes creating content as pleasant for you as it would be to just *read* the content, make sure you let me know about it, too. ;)

I'm glad this question popped up. I've been debating for a while about shifting my emphasis from my wordpress blog to a domain that I've had for a while. I've got some BASIC coding skills, and a book (HTML for dummies) to help, plus I've got the tools I purchased/used for developing the site the first time. My only question now is:

Has anyone done a shift like this, and is it worth it? I'm mostly satisfied with the blog, even though I need to clean it up some more (in the process now, I hope).

I've used a free wordpress account for a little over a year for blogging, but have just launched my author website on the basic $18 a year -

www.jeffreycollyer.com

I can't do any coding, but find it fairly straightforward. I think it looks professional enough. Only when the millions of pounds come flooding in and my fame spreads far and wide will I need to think about something flashier. So in other words, I think I'll be just fine with this one....

I will restate for emphasis that I put up my first webpage in 1995 or 1996, so when I say that the level of difficulty in implementing some things in future-now makes liars of promised-future, I know from whence I speak.

I made up my mind a while ago to just focus on writing my manuscripts for a while, and let my online journals just rot. I do not regret that.

Starting with a free wordpress blog is a very good option. You don't need to code anything, and it's fairly easy to use.

Wordpress.com and Weebly both seem like decent options, from what I've heard. If you get hosting somewhere, Wordpress is not that hard to install and set up, but it helps if you know a bit of coding.

Two things about installing Wordpress on your own site: 1) hackers love to go after it, so they are updating it constantly. Therefore, you need to keep on top of that. Unfortunately, the WP community, in the endless pursuit of "cool", tends to introduce more problems than they solve. (I've been maintaining WP sites for years now.)

2) Having your own site on your own domain, in addition to usually costing money can make it harder for people to find and follow you, since you have to set up those sorts of things yourself. Wordpress.com takes care of that and the maintenance issues.

Personally, I do not recommend hosting with GoDaddy. I've found them to be a pain to deal with and spotty. (Full disclosure: I've run a hosting service since 2000, so maybe I'm biased.)

Edit: Keep in mind that Wordpress is a blogging platform that they are basically trying to make into a full-fledged CMS. So it has a lot of overhead. If you are doing a lot of posting, it's probably the way to go. If you only need something more static, I've heard weebly is easier to deal with.

My website is on Weebly, and I'm pretty satisfied with it.