We all have a dream. We all have our stories to tell. We want to share them with the world and bring in the money for ourselves. But how do we do it? How can we make our website work for us, keep us on track, and be successful? Writing is an art form that takes hard work and dedication that many people don’t feel they can muster up these days. And unfortunately, most people think they can’t do it like an American novelists word whizzle.
I want to tell you that you CAN do it! You CAN be a successful novelist and you CAN make money doing it. With some hard work and this step-by-step novelists guide, I’ll walk you through how to start your own successful author website.
There’s no need to make excuses. Don’t say that your novel isn’t ready yet or that no one likes your genre of books or that you’re not good enough yet.
1. Get a Domain Name
The first step to creating your website is to get a domain name and web hosting. I’m going to assume that most of you already know how to do this, so I won’t go into much detail here.
Step 1.1 – Register your domain name at a registrar such as GoDaddy, Network Solutions or 1&1 Web Hosting. Make sure you type in the right extension!
Step 1.2 – Once you have registered your domain name, you will then want to set up web hosting which is where everything will be hosted on the internet. Your webhosting will allow you to upload files, make changes to your website and so on. If you use your own domain name, you will be able to have your own email address as well.
Step 1.3 – Once you have set up web hosting and purchased your domain name, you need to create a hosting account with them. This is where your website files will be uploaded.
Step 1.4 – Next, let’s begin building our website! For this step, I am going to be using BlueHost as my web hosting provider (which is highly recommended if you ask me).
If you do not have this, follow these next steps.
Step 1.5 – Go to BlueHost.com and click on the “Get Started Now” button.
Step 1.6 – Input your domain name in the box and click “Find Available Domains”.
Step 1.7 – Choose the domain name you want, input your contact info and other required information, then click the blue button to purchase it with your credit card or Paypal account.
2 . Create Your Website
Step 2.1 – Go to BlueHost and click “My Account”.
Step 2.2 – Click on the “Web Hosting” tab, then the “Domain Box”.
Step 2.3 – Input your domain name into the box, then click the big blue button marked “Create Website” to get started!
3 . Start Blogging About Your Work
Now that you have your website up, it’s time to start blogging! It’s time to start sharing your story with people everywhere!
In this step, I will be using WordPress (which is highly recommended). If you do not have this, follow these next steps.
Step 3.1 – Go to WordPress.org and click on the “Create your free blog” button.
Step 3.2 – You will be asked to input your email, password, and a host of other information. This will be used to create your account with WordPress as well as a username and password that you will use to log into your website later on.
Step 3.3 – Once you are logged in, it’s time to begin setting things up! You will see a sidebar on the right hand side with several tabs with information in them. Click on “Settings” first, then scroll down until you find where it says “General”.
Step 3.4 – In the General tab, you will need to input your blog name/domain name, your title for your website, enter a description for your website, then input a description for the purpose of this website and choose the “option” that says “What kind of blog do you want” and make it say “Webpage/E-Zine/Blogging/Personal Blog”. Then choose “Blog as a static homepage”.
Step 3.5 – Next, click on “(Appearance) > Widgets”. Then click on the theme you want (I use Minimalist), enter your URL in the box (where http://www.yourwebsite.com is), and select “Primary” from the dropdown menu.
Step 3.6 – Click on the tabs in the sidebar and choose your primary content, then choose your secondary content, choose “then select one or more categories for your blog”. In my case, I’m going to choose my two main categories of Writing (which contains all of my novels), and Publishing/Editorial (which contains all of my writing tips). Then click on the “Settings” link.
Step 3.7 – Next, click on “Reading Settings”. Choose “Only show popular posts first” if you want people to see your recent posts first, or if you want people to see all of your posts at once. If you want people to only see your popular posts first, enter the number of posts you want to show (in my case, I’m going to choose 50).
4 . Share Your Website with Your Friends and Family
Step 4.1 – Go to Google and type in “how to share your website with friends” or whatever keyword you want. You will see several results on the top, and then click the first result (which is usually the most popular). You will see a page that has all different ways of sharing your website. I’m going to show you how I do it by sharing my website on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.
Step 4.2 – From your home page, click on “Share” then “Facebook”.
