PDA

View Full Version : Discussion 2 - The pros and cons of ‘Traditional’ -vs- E-Publishing -vs- Self-Publish



AmberKallyn
February 15th, 2011, 06:06 AM
Hope ya'll are up for some math :)

There is a stigma surrounding both vanity and Self-Publishing. I’ve heard people comment that these works are crap, never edited, and so on. Sure, sometimes that is true. But there are many more authors who take writing seriously as a business and a career.

Most authors wouldn’t dream of putting out a low quality product. They make sure their book is edited thoroughly, usually after critique partners and/or beta readers have caught most major issues.

Because, let’s face it. A first draft usually isn’t in the shape any author would want anyone else seeing. At least mine definitely are.

In fact, one of my favorite quotes is from Stephen King. He says “First drafts are steamy piles of alien puppy poo”. I figure I’m in good company :)

If you search the net, you’ll find all sorts of information, data and opinions on this topic. I’m not, can’t, hit on every single thing. But overall, here are the major differences that I’ve found. Keep in mind, all numbers I provide are AVERAGE and approximates. Your own experiences may vary, which is why it’s so important to do in-depth homework and research on any publisher or avenue you want to explore. I'll get more into research and good places to find information later in the workshop.

When reading the following numbers, some may sound gloomy and heartbreaking. Don’t let it get to you. Yes, publishing is a tough business. BUT, new authors are breaking in all the time. It takes the right mix of skill and luck. If you’re constantly improving your skill and you never give up, luck will come.

Advances

Traditional: The standard Advance for a first-time author ranges in the $5k-10k range. This is not given in one lump sum. Just a few years ago, it was divided ½ on contract signing, and ½ when the book after edits was delivered to the editor. Today, it’s common for the advance to be sent in 3’s. 1/3 on contract signing, 1/3 when the book is delivered and approved by the editor, and 1/3 when the book comes out. I’ve heard some are going to a ¼ model, though most are resisting it as of yet.

E-Publishing: Generally, none.

Self-Publishing: Again, none. In fact, the author is out some money from possibly hiring an editor, cover artist, Ect.

Royalties

Traditional: The average rate for a mass-market paperback (most soft cover books) is about 6-8% of cover price, and they generally sell for $7.99. Hard Cover comes (usually) only after an author has a good selling track record, but the average is 10-12% of $20. Traditional publishers are currently stuck on an e-rights model of 25% royalty rate, and the e-books sell for approximately the same price as mass-market. I’ve heard some publishers state this percentage is based on cover price, others base the royalty percentage on NET. This means, if your book sells for $8, at Amazon they mark it down to $5, Amazon takes a cut of 35%, the publisher receives a NET of $3.25. Then, you split this between author and publisher 75/25 or whatever numbers your contract specifies.

***NOTE: Some contracts are aggregated, EG the 1st 50k books sold the author receives 6% royalties, then with increasing sales numbers, the royalty rate goes up as well.

NY publishers pay royalties bi-annually. This means the publisher sends your first payment months after the book comes out. If you have an agent, the payment and statement goes directly to them. They look it over, make sure it all looks right, take their cut (usually 15%) and then send the rest to you.

Of course, sales go back to pay the advance first. You won’t get royalties until that 5-10k is paid back to the publisher. Also, the publishers hold back a certain % of money for returns by bookstores. All this is specified in your particular contract.

E-Publishing: average of 30-50% per book list price, some say the standard is 37.5%. Now, this is generally broken down - this royalty rate normally only applies to books sold directly through the publisher, since there are no 3rd party fees. The royalty rate for books sold through other vendors such as All Romance EBooks, Fictionwise and Amazon is usually around 50% NET. This means, if your book sells for $3 at Amazon, they take a cut of 35%, the publisher receives a NET of $1.95. Then, you split this between author and publisher 50/50 or whatever numbers your contract specifies.

Most E-Pubs pay royalties monthly. Sites such as Fictionwise and All Romance EBooks only send statements and royalties quarterly (every 3 months), so payment is forwarded from the publisher quarterly as well.

Self-Publishing: You get paid as you sell. Most sites like Amazon and Smashwords pay monthly. Amazon pays for the month ending 60 days prior - for example, February’s check would be for sales in November.

Payoff

Here is the math most people use (http://www.deanwesleysmith.com/?p=2681) to compare NY -vs- Self-Publishing. BTW, this link takes you to the blog of Dean Wesley Smith, also a NY pubbed author. In the comments, there is an interesting debate about people’s ideas of the payoff between NY & Self publishing, but it is long.

“You trad pub, and get a nice $10k advance. Your agent gets $1500, leaving you with $8500. Your book sells enough to make back 3/4 of your advance, leaving $2500 to be soaked up by ebook sales over the rest of the ten years your publisher has the rights (hopefully, they don’t retain erights forever!).

Your ebook sells a nominal 100 copies a month. That’s very low end for a polished, pro-looking ebook. Very, very, VERY low end. But suppose it stays that low. Your publisher sells it for $9.99, and you get 17.5% of that (25% of the 70% your publisher gets), or $1.75 a book. You earn out that advance after 1428 ebooks, or 14 months, and continue on to sell another 10572 ebooks over the ten years, for royalties of $18,501, of which the agent gets $2775 and you get $15,726.

Total income on the book: $24,226.

Now, if instead you Self-Publish, let’s say at $4.99 – you price lower to grab some attention that way. You bookshare editing with another author, and you pay $250 for a nice cover from an art student. The book is well edited, looks sharp, and still for some unknown reason only sells 100 copies a month, 12,000 total over those ten years. You make $3.49 per book, for a total of $41,916. You had a few expenses – but even supposing you dropped a grand on editing instead of having another author do it, you’re still making over $40k on the book, at least $16,000 more than the trad pub book.

And this is with ridiculously low sales.

And the numbers get more disparate, not less, as sales go up. Want to see what they look like if the book sells 1000 copies a month for ten years? ($175,822 for the trad pub vs $419,160 for Self-Pub).”

Now, let me go back to the numbers above and I’ll expand on them.

· In my opinion, and from the research I’ve done, these numbers are flawed. For one thing, the mathematician assumes print book sales only earn $7500, which of course goes to pay back your advance first.

Well, at 6% of $8, (which is 48 cents) the author has only sold 15,000 books. Then, the above math goes on to say the author would sell about 10,500 e-books over 10 years, and doesn’t take into account any more print books.

In NY, these are extremely small numbers.

More than likely, the author sold this many at least in the first few months, if not 2, 3, 4, 5 times as many. And, they will continue to sell. And that's just print. Numbers for e-books are slow to come in, but they're increasing all the time.

Remember though, the latest data shows e-books are still only accounting for 9% of all books sold (though this information is not always reported by all publishers, nor kept completely up to date.)

Here’s why one sells more: Going through a NY publisher gives an author a huge amount of exposure they won’t find elsewhere. We’re not talking self-promotion, or marketing (yet). We’re talking about brick and mortar stores, libraries, international deals for rights to publish in other countries, Ect.

An article from Lynn Viehl (http://www.genreality.net/the-reality-of-a-times-bestseller), a NY Times bestselling author shows the numbers for her 6th novel in 2008/2009. Her initial print run (Books published) was just under 90,000. True, this wasn’t her first book. She is a high mid-list author. But this is more on average with NY numbers.

In fact, Lynn’s payoff for the first 6 months of this book: My net earnings (http://i259.photobucket.com/albums/hh289/LynnViehl/TFRoyaltyStatement3.jpg) (see her royalty statement here) on this statement were $27,721.31. This is NET which goes to pay back her $50k advance.

She also states in this article that she doesn’t expect to actually begin receiving royalties on the book for 2-3 years, due to paying off the advance.

In a follow-up article, (http://www.genreality.net/more-on-the-reality-of-a-times-bestseller) she breaks down her second royalty statement for this same book.

· Let’s look at those numbers for the Self-Published e-book.

“The Experts” have recently decided, based on data tracking and stuff that I don’t even want to think about, that the best selling price point for a new, Self-Published author is between 99 cents and $2.99. Now, if you’re selling at Amazon, if it’s below $2.99, your royalty rate is significantly reduced.

A lot of new authors do this anyway - because the first book isn’t out there to make the author money. It’s out there, at a small price, to find readers and grow a following. It’s not until the second or third book the author actually goes to the $2.99 price point, and many don’t go any higher than that.

But, for the sake of argument, let’s say the new Self-Pubbed author puts their book up on Amazon for $2.99 which gets them a royalty rate of 70%. The author’s royalty on every copy sold is $2.09. Awesome, right? Right.

So, who’s buying it? Readers are known for their voracious habit, and one of the nice things about e-books is sometimes readers become click-happy when faced with new author choices for a very little price. Who wouldn’t try a new author for such a cheap price?

But how do they find out about the book? If the reader doesn’t know the book exists, they’re not going to buy it. How long does it take the author to get the word out, with promotion and marketing, and get a buzz going about the book?

Well, that mostly depends on the author. I’ll talk about marketing in Discussion 5.


· E-Publishers: This is pretty much a mix. Most established E-Pubs have a built in readership. When you pub with them, you get that instant boost-start of a readership. My release month sells have been really great, even my first book when I hadn’t had a chance to even think about promo and marketing, much less do any. The sales came from Changeling’s built-in readership.


Time

You finish your book, polish it to within an inch of its life, then what? Keep in mind - this is not everyone or every situation. It’s the most common (remember, averages?) Yes, there are overnight wonders and those who start querying and get a publishing contract a few weeks later. But, the following is based on MAX time frames and are not necessarily the norm.

Traditional: First, most NY publishers don’t accept submissions without an agent. (This is not necessarily true for romance, erotic romance, and Tor accepts fantasy/sci-fi genres). So, you begin the agent hunt. You send a query, and most respond immediately, but many agents are backlogged so hearing a response can take a couple months.

If an agent requests more, it will most likely be a partial. This is usually 3 chapters or 50 pages. The majority of agents ask for about 4 months to read it.

(Personally, my average from query to response on the full request is about 2 months, my max was 4 months)

Once you sign with an agent, everything’s smooth sailing, right? (If you want to see some interesting, true life “How I got Published” blog posts, Click this link to Deadline Dames (http://www.deadlinedames.com/?p=4483), 9 urban fantasy writers. Feel free to check around their site, they’re a wonderful resource.

So, the agent asks you to revise. Maybe this takes a month, maybe a year. We’ll use 6 months for our purposes. So, 6 months later (we’re at 1-1 ½ years since you began querying). Your agent starts submitting to editors at publishing houses. Add another 2-6 months here to get an offer. Now add a few more months for contract negotiations. I’ve heard some authors complain it can take 4-6 months to get the contract in the mail to sign.

From the signing of the contract, it usually takes around 12-18 months before it hits the shelves.

This is potentially 3-5 years after you began querying. And at this point, you’ve earned about $5-10k, minus agent commission, and you won’t receive a royalty check until selling enough books to pay the publisher back the advance.

Keep in mind, the average is a lot less time, but it’s always possible to take this long.


E-Publishing: E-Publishers don’t have the backlog NY does, nor do they require an agent. You send your book to them, and usually hear back around 2-4 months. If they say yes, you will receive a contract fairly quickly. Some E-Pubs do it online, others email you and you must snail mail it back.

I’ll give you my time line: I finished my novella, Dragos: Burned. I happened to hear about a chat room pitch opportunity on SavvyAuthors.com and signed up to pitch to E-Publisher Changeling Press. Margaret Riley, the owner, and I hit it off and she liked my story idea. (PS - Changeling only publishes up to Novella length, around 26k words). I submitted it per her request. Less than a month later, she offered, I signed the contract, and was given a publishing date 2 months away.

Talk about speed :)

More common is closer to 6-12 months to published from time of contract with E-Publishers. I happened to get in at a really good moment when Changeling wasn’t booked on release dates.


Self-Publishing: Your book is polished to within an inch of its life, right? You’ve hired either a professional editor, or gotten *experienced* people to read and critique it. You have cover art, either designed by you or someone else. Most places which host selling Self-Published/indie novels have detailed instructions on how to format your document to convert it for their e-software. They then turn it into all e-reader compatible file types.

You upload your file, and it’s for sale.

Misc:

With E books, the sales are like a snowball rolling down the hill. Sales start slow, but through advertising, marketing and word-of-mouth, they pick up over time.
NY most sales happen in the first 3-6 months after release, then slow.

NY- 1 book a year is usually considered good, although publishers are asking more authors for a standard 2 books a year
E- multiple books a year are preferred.

NY - concentrates on current release
E - back listed works are the bread & butter, new releases icing on the cake.

All readers are loyal to their favorite authors. But with low eBook pricing, readers are more willing to take a chance on an unknown author. If they pick up one of your books and like it, chances are good they’ll search out your other books and buy them as well.


Anything you’d like to know that I haven’t touched on here?

Please post comments or questions in this thread. Thanks :)

Rayne Hall
February 15th, 2011, 08:38 AM
>Most authors wouldn’t dream of putting out a low quality product. They make sure their book is edited thoroughly, usually after critique partners and/or beta readers have caught most major issues.<

Alas: many, many authors put out a low quality product. As a keen e-book buyer (hundreds of books per year), I'm disgusted by the average quality of self-published e-books.

Many of the authors who publish their e-books aren't aware that the quality is low. It's their first book, they don't understand the need for critiquing and multiple layers of revision. Many publish the stuff they've dashed off in a month during NaNoWriMo, with minimal revisions. Probably their mum read it and said it was lovely.

With many, many self-published e-books, I just cringe because it's such crap.
On average, e-books published by commercial publishers are a lot better. The publishers act as a filter. (although admittedly some are still crap for my taste).

When authors self-publish in print, they incur great costs, which is a deterrent to spontaneous publication, and kept a lot of the dashed-off-in-a-month crap unpublished. Thus, the printing cost acts as a filter.

With e-publishing, there is no filter. It's so cheap and easy. Anyone can do it. And they do. The general attitude seems to be 'Publishing is easier than revising, so why should I revise?'

From a reader perspective, the sheer amount of dross I have to wade through in search of a quality book by a new author is frustrating.

On the other hand, most e-books allow the downloading of a sample chapter. This shows whether the book is well-crafted, or whether it's an under-revised draft by an over-confident wannabe. On average, I scan sample chapters from twenty e-books before I buy one.

Anika Daniels
February 15th, 2011, 10:43 AM
I tend to stick to the bigger, more established ebook houses or the big print pubs when looking for a new author. I can be assured of a more uniform quality standard.

The problem I've found with self publishing is there are so many bad self publishers out there (no editing, bad formatting, poor covers etc) that they cause all self publishing to have a bad name and that's unfair.

Bobbye Terry
February 15th, 2011, 12:58 PM
Amber,
Good iinformation! You've done your homework. One thing I disagree on. While some e-pubs may pay roaylties monthly, my experience is most pay quarterly. I have five publishers, and all pay that way.
Bobbye

Linda
February 15th, 2011, 01:31 PM
I own a Kindle and almost exclusively buy e-books--the one exception being reseach books.

Yes, many authors put out low quality books. But, in this day-and-age, I've gotten more than my fair share of wallbangers from trad. publishers. I've been left to wonder at the editing taking place at some of these houses. Misspellings, punctuation errors, missing words, ect.

I haven't had this experience to the same degree with small press e-books or Indie authors. I think it's an old stigma attached to the Indie market and not fair. It used to be that almost all self-published books were crap. Yes, you could find the ocassional gem, but not often. Now, that isn't true. Some of my greatest finds have been Indies. These are good writers who, after looking at the business side of writing, have decided they're off as an Indie author. Some, like Amanda Hocking, are selling 100,000+ copies/month at a price of $2.99 which nets $2.07 after Amazon takes their 2 cent fee.

It doesn't take doesn't take a mental genuis to figure out that Amanda's a good storyteller and has no interest in NY. She has also gotten a great agent, Steven Axelrod, to sell her foreign rights and film rights. Which he's doing with great glee. In fact, I attended a workshop where he was on a panel and he said that this was the future for agents. NY would start using the Indie market as a proving ground and try to pick up authors with a following. The problem is, by the time the notice an popular Indie, they have nothing to offer. Because your average Indie is coming out in e-format and POD.

The key is writing a good book, editing, cover art, and formatting. Of course, it helps if you write using the basic format--which my publisher, Black Opal Books, is going to require in their new author style sheet.

I think it's time we put aside our old prejudices about authors going Indie. These same comments were made about small press in the late 90s and early 2000s. The marketplace and readers are changing faster than author attitudes. Unfortunately, it won't wait for authors to catch-up.

Also, most Indie authors have at least 3 to 5 books up for purchase within the first few months. Why, b/c they want their readers not to have to wait for the next fix. Some bring out 2-3 books within a day or two of one another. Also, what sells best are books under 40K in length and for $2.99. So, if you sell a 100 books/title/month and you keep bringing out new material, pretty soon you're talking real money.

AmberKallyn
February 15th, 2011, 02:44 PM
Hey Rayne,

You bring up some good points. First, I love sample chapters :)

While I agree there is a lot of low quality e-books out there, I believe this trend is starting to go away. Sure, there will always be people who dash off a novel and then due to the ease of self-publishing, throw it online for sale. But most of the people getting into indie/self-publishing are serious about the craft and a career.

As more of us take this step, I believe quality will go up.

20 to find 1? Wow. Maybe I'm just lucky in that most e-books I have (granted, I buy from established pubs, NY or E, or through word-of-mouth) are good quality.

AmberKallyn
February 15th, 2011, 02:46 PM
Hey Bobbye,

Thank you for the information :) I'll update mine.

AmberKallyn
February 15th, 2011, 02:51 PM
Hi Linda,

You bring up a really good point. The authors doing really great with indie publishing have found they don't really need a NY publisher for anything. Other than to take a share of their profits ;)

I've been following the debate about 'the agent's future role' and I'm interested to see just where it goes.

AmberKallyn
February 15th, 2011, 02:52 PM
Hi Linda,

You bring up a really good point. The authors doing really great with indie publishing have found they don't really need a NY publisher for anything. Other than to take a share of their profits ;)

I've been following the debate about 'the agent's future role' and I'm interested to see just where it goes.

Linda
February 15th, 2011, 03:51 PM
Also, re royalties paid by Amazon and Nook. Amazon pays 70% on any e-book priced at $2.99 to $9.99. Nook pays 60% for the same range.

If Amazon choses to use your book for marketing, i.e. a free book for 1-4 weeks, they will pay you the royalties on every book downloaded. They only do this for authors who have mulitple books out. Form what I've seen, it's been five or more. Reason, if the book generates a lot of downloads, it in turn generates sales of the author's other books. More profit.

Eva McKellen
February 15th, 2011, 09:38 PM
I feel like my eyes have been opened, thanks for this information!

While I always planned on self-publishing my non-fiction book on personal development, I never really seriously considered self-publishing or looking at e-publishing only for my fiction works. I will look at these options much more seriously in the future. I also like how much faster the whole process seems to be.

AmberKallyn
February 15th, 2011, 11:46 PM
Glad I could help Eva :)

Rayne Hall
February 16th, 2011, 02:19 PM
When I look at e-books from established authors or established publishers, I probably buy one in four... it's the books from new authors (and wannebe authors) where I find only one (or fewer) in twenty worth reading.

Perhaps it's a waste of time to search for great reading among new authors. So much of what new authors produce is dross, and there's no gatekeeper (agent or editor) to filter out the dross.

Eventually, I may not even bother to glance at the sample chapters of new authors, but go straight to the established authors and publishers.

Occasionally - very occasionally - I get a pleasant surprise when a new author writes really well, but it happens far to rarely.

Bobbye Terry
February 16th, 2011, 02:33 PM
When I look at e-books from established authors or established publishers, I probably buy one in four... it's the books from new authors (and wannebe authors) where I find only one (or fewer) in twenty worth reading.

Perhaps it's a waste of time to search for great reading among new authors. So much of what new authors produce is dross, and there's no gatekeeper (agent or editor) to filter out the dross.

Eventually, I may not even bother to glance at the sample chapters of new authors, but go straight to the established authors and publishers.

Occasionally - very occasionally - I get a pleasant surprise when a new author writes really well, but it happens far to rarely.

Being devil's advocate here, Rayne, how do you know all these "new authors" are really new? they may be to you and they may be using a new pseudoym to breal out in a different genre/market, but could have a very rich and long history in publishing. You know, Harlequin used to own the rights to some pen names, and many authors had to assume new names to go elsewhere. Or, if you're like Linda and me, we wanted to pursue solo careers and so we now have new names. Still, we've been polishing our craft for more than fifteen years.

Bobbye

Bobbye Terry
February 16th, 2011, 02:34 PM
I feel like my eyes have been opened, thanks for this information!

While I always planned on self-publishing my non-fiction book on personal development, I never really seriously considered self-publishing or looking at e-publishing only for my fiction works. I will look at these options much more seriously in the future. I also like how much faster the whole process seems to be.

Eva,
Both Turquoise Morning Press and L&L Dreamspell take nonfiction works. You could try there...
Bobbye

Rayne Hall
February 16th, 2011, 02:47 PM
Hi Bobbye,

You're right, I don't know that they're new authors. I just know that I find the sample chapters to be poorly written.
Since those poorly written sample chapters resemble the kind of early draft experienced authors submit to critique workshops, I think it likely that these are early drafts from people who haven't bothered with critiques and revisions.

Of course I may be mistaken: perhaps some skilled authors have become lazy or lost their writing skills

So perhaps I should rephrase it: When checking out e-book sample chapters, I'm more likely to find something I like among the works of authors and publishers whose names I know.

Gloria Logan
February 16th, 2011, 02:56 PM
Amber, this is an outright greenhorn question regarding getting E published. The fantastic book is almost revised (LOL) and I've almost got a web page ready. In terms of being ready for publication, I'd need a URL name which I'm assuming is the same as a domain name? And that is what I'd be writing under? (Can't believe how many people share my actual name). I don't need to buy anything like ISBN numbers, do I, because I don't intend to indie publish.

Bobbye Terry
February 16th, 2011, 03:25 PM
Hi Bobbye,

You're right, I don't know that they're new authors. I just know that I find the sample chapters to be poorly written.
Since those poorly written sample chapters resemble the kind of early draft experienced authors submit to critique workshops, I think it likely that these are early drafts from people who haven't bothered with critiques and revisions.

Of course I may be mistaken: perhaps some skilled authors have become lazy or lost their writing skills

So perhaps I should rephrase it: When checking out e-book sample chapters, I'm more likely to find something I like among the works of authors and publishers whose names I know.

It's sad you've had this experience as I haven't, not that much anyway. As for established writers now epubbing old books they never sold, some do, I know. I think most are publishing backlist. The thing about backlist is even if those books were published by print publishers, writing trends and dos and don't change. Linda and I found this out true enough when we pubbed out backlist in Kindle. Now, our styles are more mature and we don't have many POV changes in one scene (even if they were done right for the time). In fact, I find more among the print books that make me scratch my head. But by limiting yourself to names you already know, you may one day run out of reading material. ;) For me, I plan to keep exploring.
Bobbye

AmberKallyn
February 16th, 2011, 07:46 PM
Hey Gloria :)

Yes, you should have a website - this can also be a blog.

You'll want a URL (yes, domain name) with your author name. I personally recommend GoDaddy.com (http://www.GoDaddy.com) but there are many options. I know others will chime in -- Right guys :) -- with their preferences.

The thing about Go daddy is when you go to your cart, they'll offer you a ton of stuff you don't really need. Now, I added the security features because I don't want my pen name associated with my real name. I've almost completed my teaching degree and I would hate someone to google me in that professional capacity and find out their kid's teacher writes erotica, LOL. Don't need those type of complications.

Now, if you want, you could also just do a blog. I use wordpress (http://wordpress.com/). My blog is http://amberkallyn.wordpress.com/ because I use my URL www.AmberKallyn.com (http://www.AmberKallyn.com) to go straight to my website. But, you could have the URL going to a blog, and use the blog as your 'website'.

Your publisher will get the ISBN for you. They generally buy them in bulk, and will assign your book a number. This number will always belong to this e-version of your book.

Any other questions? I'm happy to answer. And I know others here are happy to share as well (so everyone feel free to :)

Bobbye Terry
February 16th, 2011, 08:34 PM
Agreed on this, Gloria. I waited for Amber to answer--she'd the teacher. ;) I do recommend a pseudonym and do your research to see if other writers have the name as well as Google search to make sure no recent cons or other notorious folks share it. I actually have two pseudonyms in addition to my own name, one for my co-written work with Linda Campbell as well as another for my fantasy sci-fi. I write mystery and women's fiction under my real name. Keep in mind Bobbye is an odd spelling, so I've only met three people with my name ever. I maintain two separate blogs, one for mystery and one for fantasy. I also have two websites, basically for posting book covers, upcoming books, book trailers, etc. Linda and I share a third site for Terry Campbell. The blog is where I spend most of my time in both instances. I use Blogger. People who have Blogger believe it's easier to use than Wordpress. People who have Wordpress believe theirs has better advantages. So the jury is out on that one. As for as where to buy domain names and where to go to select a host for your website, godaddy is certainly a reputable one. I use Bravenet out of Canada. There are many others. Find one that will give you plenty of add-on features and make sure you have the capability to run more than a couple websites off the same monthly fee should you decide to set up a separate website for a series. Of course you can do everything on one site and have individual pages. It's your choice.

Bobbye

Eva McKellen
February 16th, 2011, 09:45 PM
Thanks for the helpful tip Bobbye! :)

Eva

Eva McKellen
February 16th, 2011, 09:55 PM
Hi Gloria

Just thought I'd throw in my thoughts on this as I've had so many websites over the years...

godaddy yes - private registration - yes (about $20 a year for both for a .com domain)

if you write under your real name and it's already registered you can always do GloriaLoganAuthor.com or AuthorGloriaLogan.com (or replace author with writer but nice if it's simple and straightforward) if you have a pseudonym that is available, even better.

Wordpress on your own hosting is so easy to use that even my least techy friends can do it or at least update it after it's set up. Hosting is only $5 a month at gatorhost.com and their support is the best I've seen available 24/7. For me the advantage to hosting it youself vs. just having it on the wordpress.com or blogger.com site is that it carries more weight with search engines so it's easier for people ot find you. it's easy to back up your site if you want to change domains or hosts later or just for security, there are a ton of free themes and inexpensive paid ones that can make your site look great, easier to customise etc etc. Of course it's personal preference. To just get something up and get going,the wordpress.com and blogger.com sites are slightly faster and easier.

hope this helps!

Gloria Logan
February 17th, 2011, 04:02 AM
Thanks for the tips, Eva.

Gloria Logan
February 17th, 2011, 04:23 AM
Thanks Amber and Bobbye. Really appreciate the input. My hubby tried to set up to blog on wordpress for me. He's been in computers all his life and even he couldn't sort it out too well, so we dropped it for the time being and just set up a web page. I'd still like to do a 'how the writing is going' type of blog and I wonder if blogger is easier?

Like Amber, I'd eventually do 2 separate blogs as I'm considering, in addition to my historical adventure writing, also doing some erotic romance, and really want to keep them separate (including different pen name). The more I look into it, the more amazed I am at just how many retiree authors are writing the hot erotica stuff. Guess it's all 'been there, done that' LOL Good memories help, no doubt.