Building a website

[slasher]

Does anyone on here have experience of this? I'm a total novice so any tips or even direction to an online guide (preferably free) would be grand! 

[daviebee]

2 hours ago, slasher said:

Does anyone on here have experience of this? I'm a total novice so any tips or even direction to an online guide (preferably free) would be grand! 

Can you be a bit more specific about what you want it for?  I gave some guidance to someone on here quite a while back and I'll dig it out if it's relevant.

[slasher]

40 minutes ago, daviebee said:

Can you be a bit more specific about what you want it for?  I gave some guidance to someone on here quite a while back and I'll dig it out if it's relevant.

Ive been advised to set one up to help publicise a book I'm self publishing. Any help greatly appreciated, I'll fire you right intae the credits 😉👍

[Tiny Tim]

Davie seems more experienced in this field but I’d suggest looking at Squarespace.

https://www.squarespace.com
 

Take a look at the templates and there’s a bit of a filtering thing you can do to make sure the templates are relevant to what you’re about. If you can manage your way round a forum, post images etc you can build a basic website using this. Even if you end up getting someone else to do it, this might help narrow down your brief.

Good luck.

[slasher]

56 minutes ago, Tiny Tim said:

Davie seems more experienced in this field but I’d suggest looking at Squarespace.

https://www.squarespace.com
 

Take a look at the templates and there’s a bit of a filtering thing you can do to make sure the templates are relevant to what you’re about. If you can manage your way round a forum, post images etc you can build a basic website using this. Even if you end up getting someone else to do it, this might help narrow down your brief.

Good luck.

Cheers m8 I'll have a look. 

[McTeeko]

What’s the book about Slasher?

[daviebee]

2 hours ago, slasher said:

Ive been advised to set one up to help publicise a book I'm self publishing. Any help greatly appreciated, I'll fire you right intae the credits 😉👍

Ok, found the previous post and changed it a wee bit for your requirements...

You'll need:

1. A domain name. Expect to pay around £15 per year for a .com.  When you register it, try not to put your phone number in.  I can't remember if it's mandatory.  I started using a fake number cos as soon as you're registered you'll get bombarded with phone calls from India offering to do the site for you.  It doesn't matter if you put up a temporary notice saying "Under construction - do not phone me under any circumstances!" They'll still do it.  7 in a day is my record.

2. Somewhere to host it.  Get this from the same company you register the domain with, e.g. GoDaddy, CloudNext, as otherwise you'll be messing about with nameservers (and you don't want that if you're non-techie).  Hosting should set you back no more than 3-4 quid a month.

3. A site-building system.  The most popular around is Wordpress.  All hosts will have this already available so you can set it up with one click.  However, Wordpress has just done a major update that's rendered their Editor interface utterly incomprehensible.  I'm a techie guy but it totally bamboozles me.  I'd therefore recommend...

4. A customised Wordpress theme.  You can find some in your area of interest here - https://themeforest.net/search/wordpress theme book author.  As you can see they usually cost around £40-£50.  The support with themes from this site is great though.  The developers will be back to you quickly with any answers and I think you usually get around 6 months free support.  Well worth it.  You can also get a General theme like Divi which is great and cheaper, and they also have a Book Author template - https://www.elegantthemes.com/blog/divi-resources/elegant-authors-a-free-divi-layout-for-book-authors.  There's no limit to how you can customise it and make it truly yours. 

It's worth noting as well that with Wordpress you get access to a gigantic number of "plugins" that you can use to set things up exactly how you want, e.g. you might want to stop spambots from grabbing your email address from the site - there's a plugin for that; you might want to set up Google Analytics to keep an eye on the traffic you're getting and from where - there's a plugin for that, etc, etc.

Be sure to put a link to your site in the first couple of pages of your book so that it shows up with Amazon's Look Inside feature.

This is a brilliant site that gives tons of free info on uploading your book to Amazon (I'm assuming you're going the KDP route with an ASIN rather than an ISBN) - https://kindlepreneur.com/.  They give advice on how to find the best category to maximise your chances of being the No. 1 bestseller, how to write the description on your sales page, etc.

Hope this helps.

[slasher]

10 minutes ago, daviebee said:

Ok, found the previous post and changed it a wee bit for your requirements...

You'll need:

1. A domain name. Expect to pay around £15 per year for a .com.  When you register it, try not to put your phone number in.  I can't remember if it's mandatory.  I started using a fake number cos as soon as you're registered you'll get bombarded with phone calls from India offering to do the site for you.  It doesn't matter if you put up a temporary notice saying "Under construction - do not phone me under any circumstances!" They'll still do it.  7 in a day is my record.

2. Somewhere to host it.  Get this from the same company you register the domain with, e.g. GoDaddy, CloudNext, as otherwise you'll be messing about with nameservers (and you don't want that if you're non-techie).  Hosting should set you back no more than 3-4 quid a month.

3. A site-building system.  The most popular around is Wordpress.  All hosts will have this already available so you can set it up with one click.  However, Wordpress has just done a major update that's rendered their Editor interface utterly incomprehensible.  I'm a techie guy but it totally bamboozles me.  I'd therefore recommend...

4. A customised Wordpress theme.  You can find some in your area of interest here - https://themeforest.net/search/wordpress theme book author.  As you can see they usually cost around £40-£50.  The support with themes from this site is great though.  The developers will be back to you quickly with any answers and I think you usually get around 6 months free support.  Well worth it.  You can also get a General theme like Divi which is great and cheaper, and they also have a Book Author template - https://www.elegantthemes.com/blog/divi-resources/elegant-authors-a-free-divi-layout-for-book-authors.  There's no limit to how you can customise it and make it truly yours. 

It's worth noting as well that with Wordpress you get access to a gigantic number of "plugins" that you can use to set things up exactly how you want, e.g. you might want to stop spambots from grabbing your email address from the site - there's a plugin for that; you might want to set up Google Analytics to keep an eye on the traffic you're getting and from where - there's a plugin for that, etc, etc.

Be sure to put a link to your site in the first couple of pages of your book so that it shows up with Amazon's Look Inside feature.

This is a brilliant site that gives tons of free info on uploading your book to Amazon (I'm assuming you're going the KDP route with an ASIN rather than an ISBN) - https://kindlepreneur.com/.  They give advice on how to find the best category to maximise your chances of being the No. 1 bestseller, how to write the description on your sales page, etc.

Hope this helps.

That's fantastic m8. I've plenty to go on there. I'll let you know how it goes 👍

[slasher]

31 minutes ago, McTeeko said:

What’s the book about Slasher?

I'll bore the tits off the whole TAMB when it's ready, but..... its basically a gritty look at the experiences of a group of steelworkers as they hurtle towards redundancy and what happens to them after 🤔

[dandydunn]

1 hour ago, slasher said:

I'll bore the tits off the whole TAMB when it's ready, but..... its basically a gritty look at the experiences of a group of steelworkers as they hurtle towards redundancy and what happens to them after 🤔

Do you have a cover for it yet? 
 

I could slap on my boiler suit and do some poses in the garage if it meant I’ll get credit in the book?

Just say the word and it’s done. I can either be naked or clothed underneath, as the author, that’s entirely up to you 👍🏽

[slasher]

2 minutes ago, dandydunn said:

Do you have a cover for it yet? 
 

I could slap on my boiler suit and do some poses in the garage if it meant I’ll get credit in the book?

Just say the word and it’s done. I can either be naked or clothed underneath, as the author, that’s entirely up to you 👍🏽

Fortunately I have a designed cover but I'll keep in mind your kind offer 🤣

[McTeeko]

1 hour ago, slasher said:

I'll bore the tits off the whole TAMB when it's ready, but..... its basically a gritty look at the experiences of a group of steelworkers as they hurtle towards redundancy and what happens to them after 🤔

Well good luck with it all! You’ve had a bad time recently so I wish you every success 👍🏼

[Orraloon]

12 hours ago, McTeeko said:

What’s the book about Slasher?

"Ten in a row"

"how we had to start all over again"

 

[slasher]

21 minutes ago, Orraloon said:

"Ten in a row"

"how we had to start all over again"

 

Hun patter 🙄