An Excellent Question

by

In today’s Journal

* An Excellent Question
* I Was Going to Finish-Up on Payhip
* Of Interest
* The Numbers

An Excellent Question

I received an excellent question about Payhip yesterday in a comment, and it’s about something I haven’t discussed here yet: websites.

The writer mention she doesn’t have a website yet, and wondered whether she should set that up before going to Payhip.

Payhip stresses that if you have a website, you can imbed Payhip on your site, or you can link items on your site to Payhip (that’s what I did).

But here’s the thing: If you DON’T have a website yet, you can build one right there at Payhip. And it looks super easy.

They even have themes you can use, colors, etc. You could really make it look nice, and there’s no coding. It looks like it’s all drag and drop. So if you don’t have a website, I suggest you visit Payhip and look around for their Store Builder.

Note: If you don’t have a custom URL yet (a domain name you own) settle on one you want before you go looking.

Then go to Namecheap.com (or some other domain name provider), search for the one you want (I recommend YourAuthorName.com or YourPublisherName.com) and purchase it. It will cost you around $12 to $15 for a year.

If you build a site at Payhip, nitially, your URL will be attached to them. (For example, my Payhip URL is https://payhip.com/StoneThreadPublishing.)

BUT you can assign your own custom URL to your Payhip site if you want to, free of charge. In other words, my Payhip site could as easily be https://StoneThreadPublishing.com.

Since I already have my own site built and I’m using Payhip primarily as a direct sales venue, I won’t do that. But if I didn’t have a website I would at least certainly consider it.

And they don’t nickel and dime you to death like a lot of places I could name. It’s all free.

I Was Going to Finish-Up on Payhip

Later I might go back and upgrade my new Payhip site (probably not), but yesterday I decided to take a little time to list my remaining books. Because when uploading is finished, it’s finished. All I have to do in the future is add each book as I finish it.

Umm, didn’t work out that way. Because of a lack of organization of some old files and folders on my part.

I did upload 8 of my 10 remaining nonfiction books on writing. But I decided to revise two of the book to add information I already have:

  • Creating Realistic Characters (I’ll include a huge list of character traits and quirks), and
  • Writing Realistic Dialect (I’ll include a couple of dialect tables)

Revising those books and adding those items before I republish them on D2D and Amazon and list them on Payhip will negate the need for me to remember to send the extra information to those who buy the books.

I also did not upload any of my 29 five- and ten-story collections because they are currently arranged in folders according to the persona who wrote them. And I didn’t upload any of my poetry collections yet.

Before I upload the collections to Payhip, I need to go back and move all the 10-story collection files into a 10-story folder, and all the 5-story collection files into a 5-story folder. Then the process will go smoothly. Trying to do that as I go would be too much on my widdle bwain.

Eventually I let go of all that and finally paid attention to a character who’s been tugging on my sleeve for the past few days.

I didn’t have a lot of time left, but enough to write a good opening. And enough for the guy to show me a good part of his personality. Here we go! (grin)

Anyway,

  • If you are reading this, and
  • if you’ve written and published at least one short story, novella, or novel, and
  • if you HAVEN’T yet set up a Payhip account

Why not?

Please leave a comment or send me an email with your questions or concerns and I’ll respond, usually within minutes.

Obviously, if you haven’t signed-on with Payhip because you use a similar but different direct-sale platform, that’s fine. But in that case, share your experience with the platform with the others.

Pass along what you know to be true. Be a brother or sister or uncle or aunt to your fellow writers. A rising tide lifts all boats.

I’ll talk with you again soon.

Of Interest

The problem with science This is a must-read, and not only for story ideas.

The Illusion of Consensus More story ideas

The Truth About Website Growth

The Numbers

The Journal……………………………… 790

Writing of Blackwell Ops 23: Buck Jackson

Day 1…… 1217 words. To date…… 1217

Fiction for April…………………….….… 1217
Fiction for 2024…………………………. 227009
Fiction since October 1………………… 530065
Nonfiction for April……………………… 2670
Nonfiction for 2024……………………… 131390
2024 consumable words……………… 358399

2024 Novels to Date……………………… 6
2024 Novellas to Date…………………… 0
2024 Short Stories to Date……………… 1
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)…………… 88
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)…………… 9
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)…… 239
Short story collections………………… 31

Disclaimer: I am a prolific professional fiction writer. On this blog I teach Writing Into the Dark and adherence to Heinlein’s Rules. Unreasoning fear and the myths of writing will slow your progress as a writer or stop you cold. I will never teach the myths on this blog.

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