Should you buy a domain before you are ready to publish? If yes, how long should you wait? If you do, what to you put on your website in the meantime?

I purchased my domain timothycward.com last year even though I had nothing to sell and knew that my first book was a ways from sellable. I bought it then to have a landing page to begin building my platform. I heard that having yourname.[insert blog program].com was unprofessional and hard to remember for your audience. In June, I'll have paid $68 for that year of owning the domain. Is that worth it not having sold anything or really generated much traffic in the way of comments?

Yes.

Blogs and websites take time to build followers. Your job is to put out content that will bring them back, with a goal of getting them to comment on your posts. Mike Duran (http://mikeduran.com) has one of the more successful websites for Christian authors, and the reason why is because it looks professional and the themes of his posts ask controversial questions. For example, "Should I Tiptoe around the 'Christian Fiction' Label", is a post that has a wide range of opinions. Post your opinion on topics like this with a wide range of opinions and you will get comments, which lead to new friendships, which builds your brand and will help you have a wide audience when you do have a book to sell.

People don't get thousands of hits a month overnight. I still average 30 a week, but I haven't utilized my website to the extent Mike has. That's something I need to work on. One reason is I don't get responses when I do ask questions in my post, and part of that is just trying to utilize social media tools to let as many people know as possible (insert new thread on utilizing social media to advertise your brand).

My point is, if you have the money, buy the shortest, easiest form of your name with a dot com ending and get started building your website. It will take time to learn how to make it look nice and build followers, and it's best you do that before you need to sell your book so that you don't look like an amateur.

I have a question about this. I radically redesigned my website not long ago and I'm still not sure I'm happy about this.

As an author, should I have a website/blog solely dedicated to writing without confusing someone with my other interests? My domain, katielynndaniels.com was intended to cover all my interests: music, writing, and drama. Is that not advisable for professionally marketing writing?

I posted a new thread, "What to put on your website," because I see this spreading off to another valuable discussion. Thanks for your question!

I have two questions:

Should you get a website even if you're planning on going with traditional publishing?

I have a last name that's difficult to spell (and pronounce). If I was to get a website, should I shorten it to the initial or do something else?

Leandra,
Your first question is easy. Yes. Traditional Publishing will want to know that you have a brand already established, especially since they will count on you to present yourself as someone who can sell and will be called upon to sell your work. Write some short stories and get them published in ezines, then you'll have something on there to show your work, and make some money while waiting the terribly long time you will wait to hear back and get paid.

As for your domain name. Robert Treskillard's last name really isn't Treskillard. He'd be a great person to answer that question, though I would say having a website people can spell by hearing is very advantageous their finding it later. Enough marketing of whatever name you choose will be helpful, but it shouldn't be a word that sounds the same in multiple spellings or anything like that.

My name is Arthur Andrew Joyce but I will be publishing (hopefully) under J. Arthur Andrews and that's what my brand will be

eru

I really like that pen name! And it will be at the front of the book shelf, which is a bonus. So are you going to make that name a dot com?

I don't know yet. I'm still looking into the various domain name possibilities.

eru

I just plan on publishing under my real name...

Which might make it harder to get that domain, but I should be able to...

This is not specific to writing but I just wanted to post a word of encouragement for starting authors. I started the website Into the Book in January 2009, a little over 2 years ago. It took about a year for us to reach 1000 hits a month, and by the end of 2010 we had reaching around 3000 hits a month.

In January '11, we were listed as a Blog of Note on Blogger and our views skyrocketed to 30,000 overnight. But once we were off the Blogs of note page, our page-views quickly fell to 10,000, then to 2,500.

That's actually lower than what they were before the Blog of Note, though. But we have begun crafting an audience. We have hundreds of people which get our content out on email and Blogger's dashboard. We have a few dedicated followers which consistently post comments. And I am very optimistic.

So my message is two-fold - one, don't expect followers overnight, but they will come. And two, don't rely on page-views alone, as they don't always tell the real story. Start looking for reader comments and interaction, and try to emphasize that so that interaction can increase in the future.

(Sorry that was long )

eru

A question - I can purchase a domain name and have it redirect to a blog that's hosted on blogspot.com, right? So I can purchase a domain name before I'm ready to invest in my own hosting or building my own website from scratch.

I don't see why not. I think that makes perfect sense, especially with how fast domain names are being purchased. I heard advice to buy your kids' domain names, but I think that may be a bit much. I don't know for sure about blogspot though. I redirected audiotim.com to a posterous account, so all I have to pay for is the domain.

@Philli - if you bought the domain, the blogspot address would redirect to the other domain.

eru

Ah, that's good, for people that still have the old URL. Thanks!

Yup. Try going to teencbr.blogspot.com (Into the Book's old address) and you'll be redirected to the new one.

eru

Hey, it works! *dorky smile*

Thanks much, Huey.