I like my comfort zone. It has cozy furniture and a nice view out the window. If I had my way, my comfort zone would never change. But occasionally, life kicks out a wall and forces me to add a room. This month it’s been in the form of a website.
I had known that authors have websites. But I designated myself as a writer, not an author, since I wasn’t published yet. So I figured that I was exempt. That loophole worked, until Life and Other Complications was selected for publication. Then mixed in with the excitement of that good news, there was also a seed of dread. Because it meant I had to build a freaking website.
I put it off as long as I could. But eventually, the task had to be faced. My friend Jacob gave me a crash course in website basics and offered to help build mine. But I knew that if I let him build it, he would end up having to do every single update. Because I wouldn’t have any idea how. And that wasn’t fair to him. It was my book. It needed to be my website. Which meant that I had to learn how.
The process went like this:
Step 1- Feel completely overwhelmed.
Step 2- Read articles on building an author’s website.
Step 3- Look up all the abbreviations that mean nothing to you. (Step 3 took a while. Apparently, tech savvy people like abbreviations almost as much as medical and military types).
Step 4- Decide which piece of the website you want to work on.
Step 5- Watch a video on how to do it.
Step 6- Do what you think the video showed.
Step 7- Google how to fix your mistake.
Step 8- Fix it.
Step 9- Complete steps 4-8 until you have a basic website.
Along the way, things slowly got a little easier. A few times, I was absolutely giddy. My oldest daughter laughed at how excited I was when I figured out how to add a drop down menu under books. But come on, it drops down. And the links will take you to the book’s individual page. That’s pretty cool.
So the author website room has been added to my comfort zone. It’s basic, bare walls and a floor. But maybe with a little time, it will become as cozy as petting dogs or reading books. Stranger things have happened.