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Basic Site Design Packages

Many web denizens will tell you authors need their own domain(s): Some think your actual name (real or pen) should be what you rent; others feel the domain address(es) should be for each book. Your domain can be hosted through your ISP or elsewhere online. This can be done a number of different ways, including contracting with a web designer to do the site, as well as getting your domain set up with a bit of research online. Blogs and social network pages are also fairly easy, user friendly ways to put yourself and your book online without going "whole hog".

If you wish to do your own website, but don't wish to use internet service "cookie cutter" offerings, you may decide to use a program specifically for web design. We utilize Microsoft Expressions (after FrontPage was no longer supported) for all work through 2016. The feedback we are getting from Adobe Dream Weaver is wonderful, with a bit of a steep learning curve. There are many others as well.

Whether you use web services or your own program, you may wish to find additional resources online. One such free service contains scripts (snippets of code that accomplish specific things) that can be used with most programs and other services: http://www.scriptarchive.com/.

This bears saying again: Addresses can be important if people are looking for you or your book and don't remember a lot about it. Even the best efforts to get into search engines are not foolproof. If the decision to purchase the domain, and keep up it's "rent" is made, you'll need to decide on one author domain (generally your name) or separate domains (websites) for each book. Most authors who choose to support a domain will not find they are finished with just one published work. Many authors have felt they could do a domain for their one and only book, only to realize as time passed that they were needing more domain sites, or posting information on more than one book under their first book site (i.e. bookone.com). Additionally, author sites (i.e. imaauthor.com or mywork.com) can easily include published and previously unpublished items on top of information on books (articles, maps, photos, documents, etc.).

Click here for National Genealogical Society's Guidelines for Publishing Web Pages on the Internet.

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For more suggestions on this subject and more, order our book:
G550-$20.00 WRITING Family History Or Genealogy For Pleasure and Profit Complete Edition, by Gregath Company, Inc., *updated* 2015. ISBN: 0-944619-00-2, 8½x11", softbound book, 126 pages, suggestions & examples of all facets of your project for the typist and/or computer user. Also available on disk.

Also we suggest:
Guerrilla Marketing for Writers - 100 Weapons for Selling Your Work

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Page Last Updated: January 09, 2019