My question today is how useful would a website be to an aspiring writing. Just like anything that I do, I have been doing research. I have read on many publishers' blog that they google writers who have submitted manuscripts to get a broader range of their writing talents. One of the things that they look for is blogs. I have that one covered but another thing is websites. So do you get a site before you are published or after? Is getting it before incredibly presumptuous that people would be interested in following it? As an unpublished and increasingly frustrated author, what would I put on it?
Then comes the big question, how the "beep" to do construct a website? I am not the most computer illiterate around but I can't even imagine how to go about it so that it looks professional. Also I would assume that it costs money. Nothing in this world is free. So putting up money before getting published seems like throwing money out the window. But then a little part of me says that if I do have a site, it will be ready when I do get published to help with promoting my story. I am really torn on this an any advice would be greatly appreciated.
On a good note, the college that I teach at is on Spring Break this week. So I don't have a long day today. After staying up late (for me) to watch Dancing with the Stars, I am tired! Go Ralph! He was such a teenage crush. I fell in love with him in The Outsiders, along with about half of the rest of the cast!
Wish me luck, the husband goes to see the tool at 9:45. I am expecting an annoyed phone call by 10:30.
Peace out,
MRD
I'm glad I had a website up and ready to go by the time I sold a book. One big, hectic thing I didn't have to worry about once things really got crazy and I had to deal with contracts, edits, promotions, joining chat loops and so on. It gave me time to tweak and get it just how I wanted it before people really started to stop by and visit too!
ReplyDeleteTo keep it cheap, you can always create your website out of your blog and simply add pages. When you press on add new post, there's a navagation bar in that screen with an add page option. So you could add a "Bookshelf" page or a "bio page" or whatever!
But it you want a full-out website, you can always contact my alter ego, Linda Kage. She gets off on creating websites and would probably whip up a fairly simple one for you!!! But paying for your domain name and paying a website host (like Yahoo or GoDaddy) is around $15 a month, so its mostly about how much you want to pay, ugh.
The Karate Kid is on Dancing with the Stars?? I'm going to have to check this out. Thanks.
Good luck.
Thanks Miranda. I might give your alter ego a shout out soon!
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