The Cheap Author Do It Yourself Web Site Experiment
One of the things that distinguishes the Easy Author Web Site from other sites targeting authors is this: I’m an author myself.
I created Easy Author Web Sites to help other authors harness the power of the internet to promote their work. While it’s essential to build your foundation upon a web site of your own, it’s also important to “reach out” and touch potential book buyers by using other web based tools.
One tool I’ve recently discovered and am learning to use is Goodreads. While at Goodreads, I spied a Google Ad with the title “cheap author web sites”.
Hmm…. being a budget minded author myself, (my mother was raised in abject poverty and despite my father’s entrepreneurial success, she never “recovered” from her impoverished beginnings and successfully burned thriftiness into my psyche), I felt a moral obligation to check the site out.
The “cheap do it yourself” web sites are offered under a domain name that inspires “authority”. When I click on the link, I’m taken to a very professional looking site.
It’s pure marketing GENIUS to allow me to build the site before I am asked to pay for it. I dive right in.
The site is brilliantly set up from a marketing stand point. You get to invest your time and energy in building your “easy” do it yourself author web site before you spend a dime.
As I begin, I’m told that the top level package will only be $9 per month and will billed quarterly. WOW! What a bargain!!!! It’s one that is too good to pass up. I clicked on the link to choose the premium option and began the journey. All I have to give is my email address… which will be used as a contact for the site, so it had better be a “real” email address.
Extracting a working email address from you up front is another brilliant move on their part… for reasons which will become apparent later.
I begin the journey. With no CC information required, I blaze past the disclaimers which I later learn are full of “small print.” These disclaimers basically say, “the $9 fee is the cost of the site AFTER your activation fee… which is pretty steep.” In other words, “this is going to cost more than you were lead to believe.”
I start by building my content using raw HTML code. I stop myself. No, this experiment will be performed as if I’m an HTML novice. Just like most authors, I’ll try to create a web site without any “tricks” and by just using this “easy to use” do it yourself inexpensive site builder.
I went back to read this AFTER I spent three hours struggling to build my “easy” author web site. That’s approximately 1 hour per page. I’d like to say it was something I would be proud to display, but it wasn’t. I’d make a “mistake” and it was positively painful to make changes. I accidentally put my author photo on the “my works” page instead of the bio page. I also put my book cover on the bio page instead of on the “my works” page. There was no way to “pick it up” and move that block to another page, so it was an erase and start over again process. At least I didn’t have to re-upload the images.
After a lot of time and effort on my part (remember, I’ve been coding web sites by hand since 1994… I usually don’t have ANY problem mastering technology), when I went to activate my account. It’s there where I suffered SEVERE case of sticker shock.
I’m torn. I spent the better part of a day putting this atrocity together…. and it is atrocious. If it was a $27 charge on my card, I probably would have moved forward. However, there were a list of “fees” including a hefty “activation” fee which drove that cost well above the anticipated $27 charge.
I return to the start page. I remembered seeing a “search for other authors” button automatically appeared on my page…. maybe I should search for other authors who are using this service. I could email them and ask them how it’s working for them before I jump this big on an experiment.
OOPS!!! There is no “search for authors” button on the main web site. I go back to the preview of my page… I click the button and I get a page on another web site. There are no other author web sites, but rather a list of articles that appear on this author related site.
Back to the beginning…. this time I’m reading the ample small print. One of the disclaimers says they are going to “upgrade” to a newer version of the easy web site builder some time in the fall. It’s the end of winter…. do they mean LAST fall as in 4 months ago or do they mean NEXT fall as in 6 months from now.
At this point, I do some research. As a “professional” web developer, I’ve researched the software they’re using on this site. As a matter of fact, I recently helped a consultant dump her site that was built with similar software. Unfortunately, she had paid a “so called web developer” who had used this or a similar online piece of garbage to create her site. The reason she arrived on my door step: after 3 years her old site still wasn’t indexed in the search engines.
Thus the reason I didn’t continue any further with the experiment. I’ve seen enough to know that $9 a month is $9.00 too much for this style of web site. I’ve already invested 3 hours of my life that I won’t get back, it’s time to stop the experiment.
If you’ve used a “web site tonight” style online do it yourself web builder and it’s working for you, please… let me know! (However, don’t try to BS me… I have ways of spying… read Pre-publication Publicity and Promotion for a few of my “sneaky” spy tools.)
The following Monday, I had a new client sign up for an Easy Author Web Sites style web site. He had to pay for the work up front, but in less than 48 hours he had a web site up and ready for content. He had access to easy to use video and print tutorials, and even though he needed help setting up his email, he found adding content to the site as easy as composing a word processing document.
In addition to having a web site that has a strong foundation from an SEO standpoint, his new web site has a newsletter sign up box so he can begin building his newsletter list to build his business… his book selling business!
After investing three hours in his new web site, he has three posts written and two pages composed on a web site that looks very, very good. Not bad for a few hours work and at least those pages will be searched and indexed by the Google bot. That’s a heck of a lot better return on his 3 hours than I had on my ‘try before you buy low cost’ trial and error experience.
Leave a Reply