[Andrew_Q_Gordon] Website Creation and Cover Art

[Andrew Q Gordon]

I am going to cross post this on the writer's corner forum cause I think I'll get more eyeballs there.

 

I have two needs that I would like a bit of help on.

 

The first is a web site - I need to start one. As many know, Anyta and I co-wrote a book that is being published around the end of summer. I wanted to get a website up and running to help promote the book. I know that Facebook allows author pages and I intend to create that, but I would like my own website too.

 

I've looked into the domain/hosting aspect, and really they all look alike to me. They all promise about the same things etc etc. So does anyone have a website and if so which web hosting company do you use? I do not want to use Go-daddy for 2 reasons, 1) I've heard they're not the best, but 2) they support right wing politicians and causes and while that is their right and I respect them for taking a stand, I won't support them as they support people and issues I oppose - so they're out.

 

The next part is how easy - or hard - is it to create a site? Are there some sites that are better than others at ease of website creation?

 

Okay on to part two. I'm working on a story I plan to ePublish. I need cover art for the ePublish. If anyone is or knows a good graphic artist, I'd like to talk to them to see what's entailed, how much etc.

 

Thanks to anyone who can help. If you'd rather not post your answers in public, PM me or email me at Belsport09@gmail.com

 

Andy

[Cia]

I create some digital art for my own work, but I'm not a graphic designer. You'd be best to look for one of those and I think we have a few on the site. As for website hosting... I went lazy and went for a blogspot blog. I know those aren't recommended for serious authors since the author technically doesn't control the blog page. I know that both Lugh and Renee Stevens have their own websites, you might pm them if they don't respond to this.

[Gene Splicer PHD]

I use two hosts. One is siteground.com, they're cheap and their tech support is strictly overseas. You get what you pay for.

The other is mediatemple.net. That's the site that I recommend most, simply because their tech support is great and their hosting services are great too.

 

Many years ago, if you bought a White Castle franchise, they'd send you the restaurant on a truck. You'd drop it on a piece of land, put up the walls, install the grill, and BOOM you've got a restaurant. No need to know how to build it, the franchisee just moved in and started running it. The web equivalent of this is wordpress, which puts the bones behind a website in a way that, once you've put in the walls and the grill, let you get launched fast.

 

Wordpress started life as a blogging platform but has turned into a great little content management system, aka "cut and paste web publishing". There are two things to consider here. One, you can, right this minute, go register quonus10.wordpress.com and instantly have a wordpress site. There are some limits to the wordpress hosted thing, but its free and an excellent sandbox to play in to learn how the system works (which is probably as easy to use as the GA Stories system if not somewhat easier).

 

Wordpress works by separating your content from your theme, which is the look and feel of the site. You can make the site look like anything you want, based on the theme you pick. There are hundreds of thousands of themes out there, a great many are free, my experience has been that paying for a theme - and they aren't expensive - is usually worth it because it gives you access to support from the theme developer (most developers are just one person, and they're happy to help).

Wordpress supports plugins, which enhance or add capability to the site. Two that are critical are Google Analytics, which allows you to set up user tracking, and All-in-One SEO, which allows you to properly prepare the site to be indexed by search engines.

 

When you use wordpress as a blogging platform, you publish posts, which are displayed in chronological order and usually organized by date and category. You can publish static pages instead, and keep the blogging stuff to the background. This is how you use a blogging tool as a content management system - pages are static, and are linked in menus, etc - blog entries are posts, and are linked by date or by category.

 

When you create posts or pages, you use the same interface, and it's very like the one I see in the reply here- I can format, link, insert, etc to make the post/page contain what I like.

 

Mediatemple and siteground offer wordpress hosting. The way it works is that you

 

- Choose one of the providers

- Register the domain name - either through the provider or bring it with you to the hosting plan. If you register outside the provider, you can use someone like hover.net - who got my business by wooing me away from godaddy.

- Sign up for the hosting plan you want, which will initiate service on a temporary URL (if you registered quonus10.com, your temp URL would be something like quonus10.com.temp.net). When you turn up the service, you'll have the option to do a very quick and easy install of wordpress on the site. Once that's done, its ready to muck with.

- Design and build the site (Load it with content, set up categories and widgets and plugins, and some of the structure, and pick a theme)

- Once the site is ready to go, you'll flip a switch and the temporary URL goes away, and you're live in the URL or domain that you registered.

 

Obviously there can be more to this, but I set these up on a regular basis and I'm happy to advise you, just send a PM.

 

in the meantime, here are some wordpress-oriented sites:

 

Our very own John Doe has one: http://authorjohndoe.wordpress.com/ - this is a nice, basic, very easy to use "story" site. John's spent time on structure and it shows.

Daron's Guitar Chronicles: http://daron.ceciliatan.com/ - serialized story site - Cecilia is using the blog post as a chapter entry, which makes the site backward to read, but she's absolutely nailed SEO and social networking and the use of the sidebar.

 

I'm not going to comment on designers. I can't design my way out of a paper bag. But do look into sigil as a way to create and test epubs to make sure things are going the way you want.

 

 

PM me if you want more info - again, happy to advise where I can.

Edited April 22, 2012 by Gene Splicer PHD

[Andrew Q Gordon]

Cia - thanks. I was hoping some of those graphics folks would see the post and respond. Maria gave me something to look into so we'll see if that pans outs.

 

Gene - uff Great answer - you put so much effort into it, too bad I can only give you one like. I'm going to read this over tonight and then tomorrow and see what I understand and don't, then if I have questions, I'll PM you. Thanks again for the help, that was exactly what I was looking for.

 

Andy

[Dark]

For cover art, I can recommend a lady by the name of Anne Cain. She's done some amazing art for books I've purchased and I've had the good fortune to correspond with her briefly by email. Her email is published on her website, so I don't feel bad posting that here: annecain.art@gmail.com

 

And the website (though only a few book covers are shown): http://annecain-art.com

Edited April 23, 2012 by Dark

[Andrew Q Gordon]

For cover art, I can recommend a lady by the name of Anne Cain. She's done some amazing art for books I've purchased and I've had the good fortune to correspond with her briefly by email. Her email is published on her website, so I don't feel bad posting that here: annecain.art@gmail.com

 

And the website (though only a few book covers are shown): http://annecain-art.com

 

Thanks Dark, I'll check her out.