So what do you do? Do you pull out a crumpled piece of paper and scribble down the title, your website, and where people can learn more about your work?

Please don’t. Just…don’t. 

For starters, it looks unprofessional, like you don’t take your work seriously. Second, it’s time consuming and possibly annoying for the other person. They’re interested in learning more about you, and it’s your job to make that as easy as possible for them: after all, they’re doing you a favor.

Last month, I was at a self publishing conference. There were lots of new authors there, learning about how to get started with self publishing. Great speakers, and time in between sessions to meet new people. Plus, there was a fantastic sit-down lunch where it was easy to meet even more people. All in all, a great event.

One thing I noticed was that none of the authors seemed to have business cards. I had cards, which I gave out to people when they wanted to learn more about what I do. But the only way for me to get their details was for them to scribble something down on a piece of paper. And I saw numerous authors doing this throughout the day as they met people they wanted to stay in touch with.

An easier solution? Get cards.

If you’re just getting started, and don’t have much along the lines of branding, then go with Moo.com or Moo.co.uk. Actually, even if you have a professionally designed card, go with Moo. They’re fantastic. But for getting started, they have loads of pre-designed cards that you personalize for your needs. It’s super easy, and you can get anywhere from just 50 to thousands of cards.

What to put on your cards?

• Name
• “Title”: basically, what you do. Romance author? Self help author? Tell people what you do.
• Website
• Email address
• Other forms of contact: Twitter, Facebook page, Skype name, mobile phone…just don’t go overboard. Choose a couple of preferred contact methods and use those.

If you decide to go with your own design, you can use your latest book cover on the backside of the card. You can also use the colors and branding from your website. Or you can simply use a pre-designed template from Moo. They have gorgeous options, and they’ll still fulfill their purpose.

I was at the London Book Fair this week, and met up with an author who actually had business cards. She was a nonfiction writer, though, and her book was related to her business as a life coach. So it made sense that she had cards. Whether you write fiction or nonfiction, do think about getting cards. It’s just one more way to ensure that you stay in touch with the people you meet.

How about you? Do you have business cards? If not…why not? Share in the comments.

The post Do Authors Need Business Cards? appeared first on Tribal Publishing.

Many new things require us to stretch outside our comfort zone, and building an online presence is a very important part of doing business these days. It’s one of the easiest ways for potential clients to get to know, like, and trust you as a businessperson. I’d like to share ten tips to keep in mind if you’re feeling a bit unsure how to behave on social media.

Read more at my guest post over at Crystal Clarity Copywriting,

The post How to Build a Social Media Following With Integrity appeared first on Tribal Publishing.

People are always complaining online about how terrible it is that self publishing allows everyone and anyone to publish their own books these days. The horrors! There are no more gatekeepers to hold back the people who write horrible books that should never have been published! What can we do to filter through the massive amounts of self published books so we can get to the great ones?

We can start by judging a book by its cover.

I know, this is going to annoy some people. I don’t care. Because serious authors take their work seriously, whether they’re traditionally published writers or self published ones. And since traditionally published authors don’t have much of a say on what their cover will look like, I’m going to speak to self published authors here in this post.

People will judge your book by its cover, so make sure your cover looks great. It should be professionally designed, and it should be eye-catching. It should attract online browsers to your book, and it should entice them to click on it to learn more. Ultimately, it should lead to book sales.

That means: no DIY jobs.

Yes, you can put together your own cover design using Microsoft Paint or GIMP or even Photoshop. And it’s free! But how does it look compared to traditionally published books in your genre? Does it look better or worse? Odds are, it looks like a DIY design. Read: that’s not good. New readers are not going to take your work seriously if it comes in a package that looks like you slapped it together on Paint.

Your books are your business. As a self published author, you’re not just a writer. You’re a publisher and you’re a businessperson. You need to take your business seriously, and that means making a financial investment in your business so that you can produce the best product you possibly can.

Get a graphic designer. 

Unless you’re a professional graphic designer who specializes in book cover design, you’re going to need to hire an expert to do your book covers. Oh, so your cousin Kim is a graphic designer who specializes in branding and logos for businesses? Great! Maybe she knows someone who focuses on book cover design.

If she doesn’t, then you’ll need to look for one yourself. But don’t think that just because she’s a Photoshop wizard who puts together striking business logos that she can do your book cover. It’s a very, very different kind of design. Yes, she has the technical skills, but she doesn’t speak the same language as someone who designs book covers does.

Start asking for recommendations online: use social media to ask for book cover designers. Search on the web for graphic designers who specialize in book cover design. Look at their prices. Most importantly, look at their portfolio. They should have many examples of covers they’ve designed on their website.

And don’t be fooled by thinking that just because someone calls themselves a professional book cover designer, that they’re good enough for you. I’ve seen some websites with truly atrocious book cover designs that look totally unprofessional. They look like DIY jobs, and they’re charging for them.

Use your own judgment, and only choose a designer when you’re 100% happy with their portfolio and that you love the work they do. Their work should be indistinguishable from a traditionally published book cover. It should be at least as good as your favorite book covers in your genre. Look at testimonials on their website. In addition to being great designers, you also want a professional who is easy to work with.

Know what you want. 

Next, you need to figure out what you want for your cover. You don’t need to go as far as doing a mock-up yourself (unless you find that’s the easiest way to express what you want), but you do need to be clear about what you want. Your graphic designer is not a mind reader, no matter how much experience they have in book cover design.

Start out by looking at other book covers in your genre. Look at the covers of your favorite books and your favorite authors in your genre. Which covers do you like? Which covers don’t you like? Put together a folder on your computer with examples of what you like and what you don’t like, or compile a list of links in a Word doc.

Get clear on what it is that you like and don’t like about these covers. Put it into words. You’re going to need to brief your designer as clearly as you can. Use clear examples (the covers and links) and a clear description.

Browse through stock photos. This can be overwhelming because there is so much out there, but if you find any images that you like, you’ll need to share them with your book cover designer. Come up with 3-5 stock images at most to send over. You want to be as specific as possible. If you send your designer 19 different stock photos, it’s overwhelming.

When you’re ready, you need to prepare a document with a full description of what you want (below) and you need to sent it along with the covers you like, the covers you don’t like (again, narrow it down to just a few), and the stock images you like most.

How to brief your book cover designer:

• About you. You can include your author bio here, and maybe add some more information about yourself: who you are, what you’re like.
• Your book. What is your book about? You’ll need to write a blurb for your book anyway, so do it now and include it in your design brief.
• Target reader. Your designer needs to know who will be reading your book. What are they like? Include relevant demographics and psychographics.
• Your competition. What other authors are like you? What other authors do your readers read? What other books do they like?
• Your genre. Is this a self help book? Is it a crime novel? A romance book? It’s vital that your book cover designer know the exact genre.
• Themes. What themes do you explore in your book? Sharing this with your graphic designer can also be helpful.
• Series. Is your book part of a series? If so, your cover designer needs to know so they can design a cover with the series in mind. Are you releasing a whole series of books from your backlist? Again, the designer needs to know.
• Format. Lastly, are you releasing your book only as an ebook, or will you also be doing a POD version? Your designer needs to know, as a POD book is more than just the front cover, and requires a design for the spine and back cover.

I cannot stress enough how important it is to have your book cover:

1. Professionally designed
2. By a graphic designer who specializes in book cover design
3. And that you brief your designer clearly as to what you want
4. After first doing your own research on covers in your genre

Yes, it takes time. Yes, it takes money. And the sooner you think of yourself as a businessperson, the better. You’ll take your books more seriously, you’ll create a better product, and you’ll make more money by selling more books.

What other tips do you have on creating a great book cover design? Please share below in the comments.

The post How to Design a Great Book Cover appeared first on Tribal Publishing.

The end result? They end up lost in the crowd on social media. They’re just like every other coach, or practitioner, or whatever it is they do. They’re struggling to compete.

And you know what the funny thing is? I truly believe that if you get clear on who you are and if you learn to express this online, you’ll have no competition. Because there’s only one you.

Read more over at Good in my Soul, the website for soul-centered branding for multipassionates. What’s a multipassionate? Read Candace’s About page.

The post How to Stand out From the Competition appeared first on Tribal Publishing.

I often talk about how important it is to focus on inbound marketing rather than outbound marketing. A quick explanation: focus on attracting people to your product/service/book rather than blasting out your message. Send your email newsletter out to the people who have opted into the list; don’t buy email lists from others.

Make sense? Attract, don’t blast.

And do your research well before contacting people. Take the time to research every book blogger before contacting them to offer a review copy. Don’t cold call or email people who aren’t likely to be truly interested in what you have to offer. Research, research, research. And target, target, target.

Not everyone is interested in what you have to offer.

Here’s a classic example of an outbound marketing fail that caused quite a stir yesterday: some sales genius newbie from Acquia, a commercial open source software company that provides products, services, and tech support for Drupal, which is a content management system (CMS), sent a sales email to Matt Mullenweg, the founder of Automattic and the creator of WordPress. If you didn’t understand that sentence, here it is in a nutshell: a sales rep for Company A emailed the founder of Company B (a competitor), suggesting that Company B change to Company A’s product.

The most hilarious part of this email is that it starts out by saying “I was researching Automattic , Inc.” when it’s obvious that Matt should never have been on that mailing list.

Major sales fail.

After Matt posted the email on his personal blog, the chief marketing officer of Acquia responded publicly on his company’s blog. The explanation? They had put together a list of contacts and had sent out a mass mailing to them. Unfortunately, they neglected to review the list to remove competitors and people who obviously wouldn’t be interested in their sales message.

I understand the explanation, and I totally get how that happened. And I know that people make mistakes. But if you can avoid making yourself look silly like this, then by all means do so. Your reputation is important, and you can damage your reputation by doing things like this.

Acquia is a large company (large compared to you as an individual author), and this will blow over for them. But for individuals, it’s different. And it’s also important how you handle an online blunder.

John Locke was all over the web for paid reviews last August, and it damaged his reputation. In case you haven’t heard of him, in June 2011 Locke became the first self-published author to sell one million ebooks. But after the news came out that he had purchased 300 reviews of his books, people who were a fan of his How I Sold 1 Million eBooks in 5 Months started to take him a bit less seriously.

I loved this book, and I think it has a lot of great advice. I especially liked how it was clear that his previous experience in business and marketing shaped how he viewed his books as a business. But I know that people were not pleased with the news of his purchased reviews, and there was a lot of talk online about it.

I haven’t read his fiction, but I do think that his book contains a lot of valid and useful advice. Yes, the paid reviews probably contributed to his book sales and to his rise to fame as a self publisher. But the tips in his book are actually useful for authors.

Unfortunately, after the news went public, Locke went into hiding. I can’t find anything online that says that he replied publicly in any way to the news of his paid reviews. I’m assuming he never did, because if he had, the best place for it would be on his own blog.

Previously an active tweeter, he virtually disappeared from Twitter between August 2012 (when the news came out) and February of this year. He hasn’t blogged since August. His Facebook page hasn’t been updated since then, either.

Bad move. When you make a major public blunder these days, it will probably end up online. And when it does, your best bet is to respond publicly: apologize, or say whatever you need to say to acknowledge what happened, what you learned from it, and why it won’t happen again. Kind of like Acquia did yesterday.

So treat your online reputation seriously and be careful with how you behave online and on email. Pay attention to details. And when you mess up, accept it, no matter how painful it might be. Tell your side of the story, be honest, and get on with it. You’ll recover much faster.

Have you ever made any marketing or sales blunders online? How did you deal with it?

The post Treat Your Online Reputation Seriously appeared first on Tribal Publishing.

First of all, start out by looking at bios for other authors in your genre. See how they’ve written them, and what kinds of information they share. This is your first step: look at what others are doing. Learn by example. Read the bios of your favorite authors, and think about what things you want to know about them. Next, get started crafting your own author bio.

As you’re writing your bio, keep in mind the purpose of what you’re doing: you’re writing a brief text so that existing and potential readers can get to know you a bit. This is likely to be their first point of contact with you, whether it’s on your website or social media profiles, or on the back cover of your book.

Top tips on writing your author bio:

• Be authentic. Just be you: you’re fabulous just as you are, I promise. Your readers and potential readers want to connect with you and get to know you, so just be your authentic self. There’s no need to pretend you’re anything different than you are. 
• Be professional. Remember that this is a professional bio for an author (you). Provide whatever details that are relevant to your career as an author. You don’t need to tell your whole life story.
• Be familiar. Write using your own voice. You’re a writer, writing about yourself. It’s not a cold encyclopedia entry written by someone who’s never met you.

Things to include in your author bio:

• Where you live. Readers are usually interested to know where an author lives. No need to get into great detail, just share the city, state, or country. Whatever you feel comfortable with. Is where you live relevant to the books you write? Then add a bit more detail.
• Personal info. You might want to include a brief sentence about your family or the people you live with. Again, no need to get into great detail here, but if it’s something you want to share with readers, then do mention it briefly. Again: briefly. No need to state your children’s birth dates, marital status, where they live, etc. This is about you, not your extended family.
• Your background. Here’s where you expand into the body of your bio. What’s made you the writer you are? What gives you authority to write on your topic? What details of your life experience are relative to your book? Read that again: what details of your life are relevant to your book? If your latest book is a crime novel, and your background is in law enforcement, that’s relevant. If your nonfiction book is on lichens, and your bio talks about your world travels, that’s not relevant…unless you’ve been traveling around the world studying lichens. Got it? And if you’re a business owner whose nonfiction books are related to your work, be sure to clarify who you help with your business, and how you help them.
• Your influences. Great writers are also avid readers. Reading is part of how you develop as a writer. Which authors influenced you as a writer? Mention 2-3 of them in your bio and how they influenced you.
• Themes. If your books frequently explore the same themes, you might mention in your bio why these issues are so important to you.
• Upcoming projects. If you have other literary projects planned, mention them in your bio, so people know what they can look forward to. Will there be a sequel to your latest novel? Will you continue to explore the topic of your latest nonfiction book from another perspective? Let your readers know what you’ll be releasing next.

And now for the big question: First person or third person? Author bios are generally in the third person, so you should start out by crafting it in this way. You can use this third-person bio for the back cover of your books, and you can use a brief version of it on guest blog posts and your social media profiles.

For your website, you can go either way: first or third person. Personally, I prefer a first person bio for my websites, as though I were speaking directly to the reader. But that’s up to you. Your shorter bio for your social media profiles should most definitely be in the first person. Social media is all about conversation, and you wouldn’t walk up to someone at a party or at a business networking meeting and introduce yourself in the third person, would you? (I hope not.)

What other tips have you found useful when writing your own author bio? Please share them in the comments.

The post How to Write an Author Bio appeared first on Tribal Publishing.

However, I especially love working with a developer on a new site: determining the overall look and feel and choosing the color palette. I know this can be tricky for people who are just getting started with their new website. There are a couple of tools that I love playing around with and that have helped me figure out the color palette for my branding and websites. Here are my two favorites:

1. Design Seeds. Browse through this site for inspiration based on photographs. The creator of the page pulls six different colors from each photograph, and if you hover over each one, you’ll see the hex code. You can pass that onto your graphic designer when you’re ready to create your new website. You can also search for color palettes based on the RGB color or on the theme, including: Autumn, Edible, and Flora. My inspiration for the Tribal Publishing colors came from Design Seeds.
2. Kuler. This is an Adobe tool where you can try out, create, and save various color schemes. You can either upload an image (think Design Seeds) and then pull colors from there. Or you can start with a color and go from there. Select from six different “rules” such as: Analagous (match colors from adjacent hues), Triad (where your colors are spaced around the wheel for a contrasting result), and Complementary (where you choose two opposing colors which form the base of your palette).

There are a lot of other options out there, like Palettebuilder.com and ColorSchemeDesigner.com, but they’re all pretty similar to Kuler.

How have you chosen your branding or website colors in the past?

The post How to Choose a Color Palette for Your Website appeared first on Tribal Publishing.

It only takes a couple of minutes to set this up, and it involves signing up for a third party app called Woobox that will install a new tab on your Facebook page. Here’s how to do it:

1. Click on the link to the Woobox Pinterest Tab app.
2. Click on the green link that says “Install Pinterest Tab”. A new tab on your browser will open.
3. Choose the Facebook page that you want to add the tab to, and click “Add Page Tab”.
4. That installs the tab. Once that’s done, you may want to rearrange the tabs on your Facebook page.

Do you know how to rearrange the tabs on your Facebook page? If not, here’s a couple of screenshots. It just takes two clicks to rearrange a tab.

1. Click on the little arrow to the right of the first row of your tabs (note the black arrow in the image below). This will open up the second row of tabs. 

2. Next, hover over the tab whose position you want to change and click on the little pencil. Facebook will ask you which app you want to swap positions with. That’s it!

The post How to Link Pinterest to your Facebook Page appeared first on Tribal Publishing.

Why is this so important?

Your profile photo is like your business logo. It’s part of your branding. It’s how people get to know you online, so you want to look professional. It’s also important to use the same photo on all of your social media profiles. You wouldn’t change your business logo for different websites, would you? Then use the same personal photo on every single site. Profile photos are small, and when you use the same one it looks consistent with your branding and it increases the chance of people recognizing you.

The problem is, I don’t always practice what I preach. I used to have a professional-looking photo on my social media profiles, taken by a friend back in 2008 with a great camera and lots of photography experience. Then I cut my hair short, and the photo no longer looked like me. Plus, you know, time goes on.

So for the past year, I’ve been using this photo that a friend took of me with her iPhone. It’s an outdoors shot, so you can clearly see my face, and I’ve cropped it so you can just see my face (I’m on a canal boat). As I said, profile photos are small, so you want to get the focus on your face so people can see you clearly. I use this photo on all of my social media profiles.

However, I’ve always been a little uncomfortable with it because I know it’s not a professional shot. You can see what I look like, but it’s just not professional looking. So it only does half the job.

My only excuse is that I’ve been growing my hair back out, and it’s looked awful for the past…let’s just say that my last good decent hair day in 2011/2012 was around the time that photo was taken (October 2011). Yes, I know. It’s been bad. Growing out hair is a major pain.

Until now. As soon as I realized my hair was back to looking decent again, I booked a photography session with a local photographer I worked with last year for some book shots for a client. Since I’ve just gone through the entire process (I had the photo shoot this afternoon), I thought I’d share some tips for you.

But before I move onto my list of top tips, I want to clarify something with you: you’re an author. You’re an artist, and you’re also a  professional businessperson. So don’t think you can get by with a sloppy profile photo. You need to take yourself seriously as a businessperson and you need to treat your books as a business.

Just because so many other authors out there have sloppy profile photos doesn’t mean that you need to be part of the unprofessional club. Don’t think you’re exempt from having your photos done. This is all part of your business, and as such, it’s tax deductible. So be sure you get an invoice for your tax returns.

I hope I’ve made my case clear for the need for professional headshots for authors. Whether you need a photo for your book covers or jackets or just for your social media profiles, here are my guidelines for getting great professional photos.

Things to ask your photographer BEFORE you book the photo session:

1. How much will the session cost?
2. How many photos will you take of me?
3. What color background will be used? (white, black, cream, etc.)
4. How much time will I have at the photo studio? (30 minutes, an hour, etc.)
5. Are wardrobe changes okay? (this is important, so you get some variety)
6. How soon after the shoot will I receive the final photos?
7. How will the photos be delivered? (on a CD or DVD, uploaded to a secure website, etc.)
8. How many of the images will be retouched?
9. What will I get? (all of the decent photos, just one retouched photo, etc.)

Things to tell your photographer before the photo session:

1. What you’ll be using the photos for: your website, social media profiles, book covers or jackets, etc.
2. What you’re looking for: Relaxed? Natural? Friendly?
3. If you have examples of older photos of yourself that you love, send one or two of them via email. If you find professional photos of other people online that you like, send a couple to the photographer so it’s clear what style of photo you want.

Preparation:

1. If you color your hair, have it done at least the day before, in case anything goes wrong.
2. Don’t try a new haircut the day before the photo shoot, in case you’re not happy with it.
3. If you regularly have facials, have one a week or so before your photo shoot, in case your skin has a reaction to anything. If you’re not into facials, at least consider exfoliating at home…a few days before the appointment.
4. Wax anything on your face that needs to be waxed (lip, eyebrows) at least a couple of days before your photo shoot.
5. Men, get your facial hair in order for the day of your appointment. That means shaving, beard trimming, whatever it is that you do. If you’ll have a beard in your photos, make sure it’s the length that you want it for the day of your photo shoot. Plan your facial hair in advance. It doesn’t grow much overnight.
6. If it’s time for a trip to the dentist, have your teeth cleaned in preparation for your session…again, at least a few days before your photo session, in case your gums weren’t happy with the cleaning and look puffy.
7. Plan the tops you want to wear for your session.Wear something that looks professional, yet natural. Don’t overdress. It’s not a glamour shot. Think: what would you wear for a book launch, a literary conference, or author interview? Solid colors look best for photos. Choose clothing that you feel comfortable in and colors that you know you look great in. If you’re not happy with anything you have, you’ll need to find something that you love, so plan in advance in case shopping is needed.

What to bring to the photo shoot:

1. Hairbrush, comb, and hairstyling products if you use them.
2. Makeup, even if you’ve already put it on. You may need to retouch.
3. Several changes of tops, so you can get shots taken with different colors and styles. Make sure everything is ironed and that it doesn’t get squashed on the trip to the photo studio.
4. Scarves, if you like them.
5. Jewelry, if you wear it.
6. Bach Rescue Remedy, if you think you’ll get nervous. If you’re not into homeopathic flower essences, bring whatever you need to keep relaxed during your photo session. (Except drugs or alcohol. You don’t want to be intoxicated for your photos. These are professional photos, not party photos.)

Remember, this is about YOUR FACE looking good: well-lit, friendly, and easily recognizable. The focus should be on your face, and not on your clothing or accessories.

At the photo shoot:

1. If you’re a woman, do your makeup as you would naturally. If you’re not big on makeup, make an effort to put a little bit on, as it will make a huge difference in the photos. And don’t overdo it, either. Go with a middle ground. Again, this is not a glamour shot.
2. Request just your head and shoulders in the photographs, as you can crop the photos even more once you receive them so that it’s just your face that shows. If you want full-body or other shots for other purposes, request those as well.
3. As you’re being photographed, pay attention to your posture, especially if you know that it’s an issue for you. No slouching.
4. Look at the camera. You want to be looking directly “at” the people who will be viewing your photo online. Make “eye contact”, as you would if you were meeting them offline.
5. No weird hands-on-face poses. I know people do this, but trust me: just don’t. Please, please don’t. You know what I’m talking about: palm cupping cheek, or chin resting on knuckles. Do you ever do those poses in real life, when you’re not in front of a camera? Probably not. So don’t do it for your photo shoot, either.
6. Serious or smiling? Again, what do you do when you meet someone in real life? Do you stare at them, all seriously? Or do you smile? You probably smile. Go with that for your photo.

Remember: your profile photos are the first impression that your online peeps have of you. It’s how they “meet” you online. It’s just one more part of taking yourself seriously as a businessperson, authorpreneur, or whatever term you prefer.

Stay tuned for my new profile photo! I should be able to access the full collection by tomorrow morning.

Did I forget anything? What tips do you have for getting professional photos done? Please share in the comments.

The post Top Tips for Great Professional Photos for Your Social Media Profiles appeared first on Tribal Publishing.

I registered my first domain name back in 1999 and set up my first website the same year, with some help from a graphic designer friend. Ever since then, I’ve always worked closely with a web developer to set up my websites. I’ve always registered my own domains by myself using GoDaddy, and I’ve always had access to my own sites to update things, whether it’s in WordPress, or Dreamweaver, or in FrontPage (anyone remember that?). I taught myself how to do this. Once I had the site set up by a professional, it was important to me to be able to make minor changes whenever I wanted to.

I recognize that not everyone has had such hands-on experience with websites, and that many people are just now embarking on the process of having their first website set up. (Exciting!) I just heard from one of the people on my social media course regarding some issues with a web developer, and I am still fuming over this company’s totally unethical practices. I thought I’d outline them here to help others avoid getting caught in a similar situation, because it really makes me angry to see businesses taking advantage of clients.

Here are six things to pay attention to when setting up your first website:

• Ease of use: Your website should be created using a content management system (CMS) that you can easily learn to manage yourself. I always recommend WordPress. It’s so fantastic for many reasons that I won’t get into right now, but in summary: it’s free, it’s great for search engine optimization (SEO), it’s got loads of different plugins to add any kind of function you can imagine, and it’s easy to learn to use. I love WordPress. Period. 
• Easy access: Your website developer should always give you access to your own website. It’s your website: you’ve paid for it, haven’t you? You need access to it. If the site is done in WordPress, there’s not much you can “mess up”. And if you do “mess something up”, you can get assistance from the web developer and chalk it up as a learning experience.
• One place: Your blog should be in the same place as your website. None of this “your website on your domain, and your blog somewhere else” setup. If your site is done in WordPress, it’s easy to have your website and your blog all on the same place: WordPress is the most popular blogging tool out there.
• Register it yourself: You should register your own domains, in your name. I have used GoDaddy for years and I’m very happy with them. You can always give your web developer access to update the domain name servers (DNS) or anything else to do with the domains, so that’s no excuse for the developer to register the domains. The domains should always be registered in your name. Again, they’re yours.
• Keep it simple: Don’t get involved in complicated contracts that lock you into months of website maintenance. Agree on a price for the site, with all of the functions that you need to start out with. Try to plan ahead for the next six months or so and make sure that you’ve informed your developer of everything that you need your site to do. If your site is done in WordPress, you’ll be able to make adjustments with the copy, and you’ll be able to blog on your own. You can always agree on a fixed rate for any changes down the road.
• Arrange hosting: Avoid hosting contracts that lock you into service with your web developer. If something goes wrong with the relationship, that person will have full control over your site, and I’ve heard of that happening more than once. Arrange your own hosting through a company such as BlueHost (highly recommended for working with WordPress sites), which has hosting options starting at $4.95 a month. Give your developer the access needed to set up the site on your hosting, but arrange for hosting yourself.

Do you see what I’m getting at? It can be a bit daunting to start out doing something new, and if you’ve never had a website before, then it can seem a bit complex. But it’s easy to set up on your own and to give your developer access to what they need. Remember to get everything in your name (domain registration, hosting), and don’t rely on the developer to do it.

The more you learn, the more power you have. And this is your business, isn’t it? Part of owning your own business (and yes, your books are a business) is learning new things so that you can responsibly manage things yourself. Outsourcing is great, and it’s an important part of doing business, but you need to outsource responsibly. You can’t just hand it all over to someone else and then stick your head in the sand.

Have you ever been “swindled” by a web developer? (That word just made me smile, so maybe I’m cooling off now.) Have you ever had difficulties taking over control of a website that someone else set up for you? Share in the comments.

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