Net Benefit:
How (And Why) to Set Up Your Own Website
By Anne Lyle
Copyright © 2007 by Anne Lyle, All Rights Reserved
This article follows
"Image Counts: Your Professional Website" by Linda Adams, which appeared
in Vision Issue 11 (September 2002). That article addressed the basics
of site design; here I shall be considering hosting options.
Why have a website?
Maybe you're still
wondering if you need a website. Won't creating and maintaining it eat
into your precious writing time? Well, yes, a little, but the benefits
can far outweigh the costs.
Although web-based
stores like Amazon are the main place that people will find your book
online, the Internet has become such a central feature of 21st-century
communication that you'll look a little old-fashioned if you don't have
your own web presence. Many agents (and publishers) nowadays expect you
to be business-savvy enough to exploit the Web to promote your books
(see
http://misssnark.blogspot.com/2005/10/author-websites.html), and
loyal readers will appreciate news "from the horse's mouth." Even if
you've yet to have a manuscript accepted for publication, a website can
be out there working on your behalf. For example, it's a good way for an
agent to find out a bit more about you without having to ask directly.
If that sounds a bit like cyber-stalking, you have to remember that most
agents (and editors) have encountered writers who take anything more
personal than a form rejection as a prelude to acceptance. Not only do
they not want to get your hopes up, they don't want to be inundated with
questions about your work and why it hasn't been accepted yet. An
anonymous trip to your website avoids potential awkwardness.
Of course you can
always put off setting up your website until you are ready to start
submitting work to editors and agents. Working on your new site can be a
great way to take your mind off your anxieties whilst waiting for a
response!
What about a blog?
In the last few
years, blogs have exploded into the mainstream of Internet culture, and
there are plenty of sites offering free blogging software (the two
best-known are probably
LiveJournal and
BlogSpot).
Blogging is an easy
way to try out having a web presence without having to know anything
about web design or HTML. You just sign up and post your entries via a
simple web form. There are lots of ready-made templates, so you can
personalise the design of your blog and have it looking professional
even if you have no artistic skills whatsoever!
One caveat on blogs:
there's nothing worse than a blog that doesn't get updated. In
a 2003 survey, two-thirds of the blogs that were included had not
been updated for two months, i.e. had been temporarily or permanently
abandoned. To avoid this happening to your blog, you need to have a
definite purpose in mind. For writers, an obvious use is to serve as a
public progress report, for yourself as much as anyone else. Or it can
be a place to have fun with writing, to work through patches of writer's
block, or just to build up the discipline of writing every day. Do
beware of posting fiction intended for submission, however; publication
on an open blog can negatively affect a piece's chances of being
accepted elsewhere. Why would a publisher pay for something that's
already freely available online? (Exceptions have been made, but they
are special cases and unlikely to apply to the ordinary novelist.)
Also, the majority
of blogs are read by only a few people, typically the friends or family
of the blogger. Unless you have a large and loyal group of friends -- or
until you have a substantial fan-base! -- you are unlikely to get many
comments. In fact, I have turned the comment feature off on my blog, so
that it isn't littered with depressing '0 comments' notices. Maybe one
day I'll have enough traffic to make turning it back on worth it...
Free websites
If blogging's not
your thing, or you want a 'proper' website with content laid out however
you want it, you may be tempted by a free web host, many of whom have
been around since the mid-nineties. However, I would strongly advise
against it.
This might seem an
odd stance to take, when free blog hosting is perfectly acceptable to
me. However, you have to bear in mind that a) a blog is expected to be
informal, and b) ordinary people are not expected to be able to install
or write the software needed to run a blog. A conventional website, on
the other hand, is expected to show a degree of seriousness and
professionalism. And now that paid hosting is available for only a
couple of dollars (or pounds, or Euros) a month, even being an
impoverished writer is hardly an excuse any more for choosing a free
alternative.
The other issue with
free hosts is that many of them claim copyright of all content posted on
their servers (or at the very least, all content posted on publicly
accessible pages). If you are tempted to get one of these accounts to
practice on before paying for hosting, check their terms and conditions
very carefully!
Commercial hosting
As mentioned above,
nowadays you can find plenty of commercial hosting packages to suit even
the tightest of budgets. As I'm in the UK, the examples below are
British companies, but you can get similar -- or even cheaper -- deals
from companies based in the US and Canada.
A quick word first
about server operating systems: the majority of webservers run on Linux,
as it's cheaper and more secure than Windows. If you're just writing
simple HTML pages, either operating system can easily cover your needs.
So, unless you need specific Windows programming languages or databases
(which is unlikely for a writer's personal site), I recommend choosing
Linux hosting if possible.
Ready-made websites
If you're not very
technologically savvy and don't want to learn to use web design
software, you can get a ready-made site template, similar to a blog but
with the ability to have permanent webpages. They are not the cheapest
option, but you are paying extra for ease of use. In some cases, you may
get additional features apart from the webpages you write, such as an
integrated blog, forum software, feedback forms, etc.
For an example, see
InstantSite from Pipex:
http://www.123-reg.co.uk/instantsite . Note that, in the case of
this service, you need to buy a domain name as well, and fees are based
of the number of 'static' pages on your site (i.e. excluding
database-driven pages such as blogs).
Shared hosting
If, on the other
hand, you want to design the pages yourself, you can get a much broader
package for about the same price as an instant site, and of course a lot
more flexibility in design and layout. A basic shared hosting package
should offer the following as a minimum:
* The ability to
host HTML pages. Most will also allow either PHP (Linux) or ASP
(Windows) pages for dynamically-generated content (if you don't know
what that is, ignore it!)
* A number of
free POP3 mailboxes, plus webmail (rather like a Hotmail account,
but using your own domain name)
* Web
statistics, so you can see who is visiting your site. For example,
http://www.123-reg.co.uk/web-hosting/
The above will
probably be enough for a lot of writers, but for only a little more each
month you can get a package with a whole slew of extra features. My
website is hosted with
UnitedHosting, which provides, for 5 GBP a month ($8), all the
features of a basic shared hosting package plus several databases, blog
and forum software, remote login, and loads more.
As with most things
in life, you get what you pay for. I find that the best value comes from
companies who are reasonably well established, but who aim their
products at general users and not big companies with deep pockets!
A caveat regarding
domain names: a lot of small companies offer free domain names with
their packages. This is a tempting deal, but I can't entirely recommend
it. If the company goes bust, you may have to go through a lot of hassle
to get control of "your" domain name so you can carry on using it. This
is not to say that small companies are bad, just that putting all your
eggs in one basket can lead to problems. I know; it happened to me
several years ago! Since then, I have registered domains with an
established company and simply "pointed" them at my inexpensive web
hosting account. Now if I need to move a site from one company's servers
to another, I can update all the redirects via my registrars' website,
instead of being dependent on the helpfulness of the hosting company
(and let's face it, I wouldn't be moving away from them if I was happy
with their service!).
Conclusion
Having a web
presence has gone from being the exception to the rule; you just need to
choose the approach that's right for you!
* * *
About the author
Anne Lyle
has been creating websites since 1997. She is currently a
programmer for
Ensembl, an online genome browser used by scientists and
medical researchers around the world. You can find her personal
website at
http://www.annelyle.com.
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