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Tutorial Details:
It's indisputable: All authors must have their own website. It’s critical for effective online marketing and readership growth. Even unpublished authors can benefit greatly from establishing a starter site. Why? You start knocking down the learning curve, you build online awareness, you make contacts in the writing and media world, and more opportunities open up to you.
This intensive tutorial focuses on the simplest, most robust, and FREE tools to get a site up and running in a day or less—often in one evening! You don’t have to know any code, understand any technical jargon, or have previous experience with websites or blogs. You also don’t need to own your own domain or have hosting, although advice will be given on those issues.
While several different site-building tools will be discussed, this session offers a step-by-step tutorial on setting up a site using Wordpress—a best-in-class system for websites today, which is free to use, open source, and continually improving.
This tutorial is taught by e-media guru Jane Friedman. Jane’s expertise on technology and publishing has been featured on NPR, PBS, and Publishers Weekly, and her social media presence is often cited as a model to follow in the writing community.
In this 1 hour, 56-minute tutorial video, you’ll learn:
- 5 simple services that help you create a codeless website, for free, in an hour or less (plus what services to avoid)
- Absolute must-have elements for every author site, even if you’re unpublished
- The difference between a blog and a website, and whether or not you need a blog
- How to get started with Wordpress, either at Wordpress.com or on your own domain
- What Wordpress themes are best to use, plus what premium themes you might consider investing in
- Basic and free Wordpress plug-ins that you need, plus how to extend the functionality of your site with more advanced plug-ins
- How to add multimedia to your site (audio, video, photos, etc.)
- How to integrate social media sharing tools onto your site
- What site upgrades or additional features you might want that necessitate further investment
- An easy-to-understand explanation of domains and hosting (but you don’t need to own a domain or have hosting to get started!)
- Common mistakes and pitfalls of websites and blogs
- When you should hire a professional designer or site developer, and how much you can expect to spend. All these points and more will be answered in this nuts-and-bolts tutorial about creating a model author website.
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