Hey Folks,
This will almost be a topic on websites and what to do with them. Welcome to new subscribers.
In this golden era of indy publishing, there are no limits. You can have complete control of your writing career. IF you’ve managed to avoid the hordes of traditional and vanity publishers out there who only want to take your money.
But it does take a little work. It’s important to have an author website, a place where fans can visit to learn about you and what you’re doing.
It’s also important, especially as you write more stories and novels and compile more collections, to have a separate publisher website.
I recommend WordPress.org. I do NOT recommend Blogger or WordPress.com or WIX or any of the others like that, mostly because they own the content. If you own a self-hosted WordPress.org site, it’s yours.
I started this Journal a few years ago as a way of keeping track of my writing. Here, too, for a few very loyal fellow writers, I offer items of interest and a look at my life as a professional fiction writer. Those looks occasionally morph into topics that are designed to cut the learning curve for my fellow writers.
But I also have my main author website at HarveyStanbrough.com and a publisher website at StoneThreadPublishing.com.
I spent some of my nonwriting time yesterday going over the main website, mostly to clean up some invalid entries on my book pages.
That started when one astute reader pointed out that the book description was the same on two of my SF novels. So I quickly corrected that.
Then it kind of siphoned me in and I moved on to bigger things.
For example, a good while back I created a discount schedule on my publisher website. There, I offer titles at various discounts for readers who buy directly from StoneThread Publishing.
The discount is valid whether they buy one title or more than one title at a time. The discount increases with the number of titles they buy.
There are also bulk discounts available for booksellers. Both discount schedules include paper books (where available) and ebooks.
That’s all well and good, even necessary, for the publisher website. But I also referenced the discount schedule on the book pages on my author website.
I’m keeping the discounts in place on the StoneThread Publishing website, though I still need to update them with new titles.
But I removed all references to the discount schedule from my author website. No need to muddy the waters.
What I’ve finally figured out is that if you choose to create one or more websites (or if you already have), it’s important to determine two things: Who or what is the website about? And what is the website designed to do?
If you answer those questions first, everything else will go a lot more smoothly.
My author website is currently about me, my titles, and writing instruction. That’s because I’m also a valid writing instructor and a copyeditor. It’s designed to provide information about me, information about my titles, and instruction for other writers.
I’m currently transitioning it to also make it more fan friendly. Alternating blog posts will be about individual novels and the characters.
The other posts will still be writing instruction. But if I weren’t an instructor, all my blog posts would be about my novels, novellas and collections and the characters that populate them.
The publisher website is all about the titles and the sale of those titles. It’s designed for individual readers (first) and booksellers (second).
So give some thought to those two questions, and then build (or revise) your websites appropriately. I strongly recommend you do NOT pattern your author website after mine. There are many better examples than mine, including those of almost any big-name author out there.
For a publisher site, feel free to emulate StoneThread Publishing if you want. It’s an excellent publisher website, barring a few improvements I still have to make.
***
Finally out to the Hovel at around 9 this morning. I wrote for awhile and was in Chapter 11 when I realized I couldn’t remember a character name I needed. Then I realized I hadn’t started a reverse outline for this novel yet.
So I went back and took an hour to do that, then took a break up at the house.
Back for another session of writing, a good session, then back to the house with the writing ‘puter.
Did another session, then decided a little early to call it a day.
(Honestly, my copy of Reacher Said Nothing by Andy Martin came in, and I can’t wait to plunge into it. grin)
See you tomorrow.
Of Interest
See “The Big Secret Why Behind Everything so Far” at http://www.thepassivevoice.com/the-big-secret-why-behind-everything-so-far/. More on the massive agent scandal, this time from a writer directly harmed by it.
I also encourage you to swing by http://harveystanbrough.com/writer-resources/ and check the b’jillion writer resources I have listed there.
Fiction Words: 2197
Nonfiction Words: 840 (Journal)
So total words for the day: 3037
Writing of D.R.E.A.D. (novel)
Day 1…… 3391 words. Total words to date…… 3391
Day 2…… 3827 words. Total words to date…… 7218
Day 3…… 3194 words. Total words to date…… 10412
Day 4…… 2456 words. Total words to date…… 12868
Day 5…… 2197 words. Total words to date…… 15065
Total fiction words for the month……… 15065
Total fiction words for the year………… 222029
Total nonfiction words for the month… 4720
Total nonfiction words for the year…… 68230
Total words for the year (fiction and this blog)…… 289989
Calendar Year 2018 Novels to Date………………………… 5
Calenday Year 2018 Novellas to Date…………………… 1
Calendar Year 2018 Short Stories to Date……… 11
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)………………………………………… 31
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)……………………………………… 5
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)………………………… 193