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Having a website to promote yourself and your writing is a great way to build a relationship with a community of fellow writers and readers, and the most effective and easy to maintain form of author website is a blog: a website that you can easily keep up to date, is dynamic, and fun to use. You can use a blog to post information about you, your writing, your writing services, and any other interests you have. If you'd like to set up an author blog, we can help you with a range of services designed to help you get online quickly and with a minimum of fuss.
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Need Inspiration? Try cruising some of our favourite Australian author's blogs...
We offer a range of author blog set-up services, depending on how much you want to customise your site, the level of design work you require and whether you want to go with a free blog/site or a site hosted on your own server*.
Getting started is easy: you can pay for your chosen service by clicking on the Paypal button below the service you require. Once your payment has been received, we'll ask you to fill in a simple questionnaire, providing us with all the information we need to build your blog. As soon as we receive that information, and any images you want used on your site we can get started.
How Long Will It Take?
It may take up to two business days from when we receive your information and images to launching your author blog: most of the time it won't take that long. It may take a little longer if you want us to write the content for your pages, you're not quite sure what you want in terms of pages or images to start with, or you require extensive customisation of your site. Good preparation on your part will mean a faster, smoother launch!
The Basic Blog
A basic blog set-up includes:
- setting up your free blog ready for you to use, with your pre-selected blog title
- customising the look of your blog with images you provide
- populating up to three pages on your blog with text and images you provide (eg: Bio, My Writing, Contact)
The Intermediate Blog
An intermediate blog set-up includes:
- setting up your free blog ready for you to use, with your pre-selected blog title
- customising the look of your selected free Wordpress template with images you provide, adapted for use on your blog
- populating up to five pages on your blog with text and images based on information you provide (eg: Bio, My Writing, Contact, Awards)
- linking your blog to your pre-existing facebook profile
The Transformation Service
A transformation service is for writers who already have a static website and would like to transform it into a dynamic, easy to edit and maintain blog-based site. Transformation Service includes:
The Full Treatment
- installation of Wordpress blogging software on your existing server
- customising the look of your 'new' site with images from your old one, or with images you provide
- transferring content from your pre-existing website to your new format, or populating your pages with text and images based on information you provide
A full treatment blog set-up includes:
- purchasing your chosen domain name for you and installing your blog on your server (ongoing webhosting costs from $12.00 per month: we recommend Newsprout)
- setting up your author email addresses (eg: jane@austen.com and accounts@austen.com)
- customising the look of your blog with images designed for you and/or purchased for your use, as well as with images you provide
- populating up to five pages with text and images based on information you provide (eg: Bio, Writing, Contact, Workshops, Awards...)
- setting up and personalising Paypal for selling your books or other products/services through your website
- linking your blog to your facebook profile: including setting up an author facebook profile if you don't already have one
- a one-hour one-on-one tutorial showing you how to manage your site, including editing pages, adding pages, dealing with comments, managing your Paypal account, etc. Your tutorial includes a PDF booklet with instructions for managing your site.
Add Ons
We can customise a set-up service for you, adding, for example, a tutorial to a basic package. You can also add on some basic graphic design, including having business cards, letterhead or email signatures designed that match the look and feel of your site. Extras are charged at an hourly rate of just $55.00.
*Free versus Paid Sites
Not sure whether you want a free blog site, or need to pay to host a site? Free Wordpress blogsites provide for minimum customisation, and limit the ways you can earn money through your site, but they're free, and easy to use. Paying for webhosting means you can 'monetise' your site by hosting advertising, have more freedom to customise the look of your site, can choose any domain (web address) you like - provided it's not already taken - and get other benefits, such as email addresses with the same domain name. If you're not sure, and you've never maintained an author site before, it's probably a good idea to go with a free Wordpress-hosted blog for now. You can always change your mind and migrate to your own domain later if you want to.