Wednesday, May 2, 2012

Building an Author Website

The time has come to have an author website! It still sounds really weird, having a website about me and my book. Weird, but totally cool at the same time. Ya know?  But I'm really excited about this task. At first I didn't think I would be able to create it myself, but with some research, a creative hubby, and looking at other author websites, I've decided to give it a go.

Here's what I did, to begin to make this website happen.

Web Hosting and Website Builders
I've decided to go with Weebly. It's free, but with a small fee, you can have your own domain name. It's as easy to use as blogger, and creates a professional look. It provides good hosting with email support should problems arise. It seems great for what I want to do.

Choose Layout and then a Theme
I chose a lavender background that will have pictures on the side.  I wanted the website to showcase things around New Hampshire as a theme.

Original Artwork
This is what scared me the most. It turned out to be fun. Creating digital art was easy peasy, and you can do it too. Seriously, you can! I went on my Android phone, using an app called PicSay Pro. It was a couple of bucks, and my kids can even use it. They put devil horns on my picture, and then put in word bubbles that say "clean your room." Did I tell you, I live with comedians?

Anyways, deviled horn pictures aside...

 Here's a couple of things my hubby and I came up with. The first picture is the original, and the second one is the transformed masterpiece.
                                                                                                                                                               
I took this picture at the Cathedral of the Pines in New Hampshire.











    A tree in my backyard.















 A funny little statue I had in my garden.










I even created one of the pictures while in Boston at a Red Sox game. Luckily, I didn't miss Big Papi's two home runs. Go Sox!

Now that I have a website layout, a theme, and pictures, all I have to do is add the content. I hope to put it live in a couple of weeks, and I'll keep you updated on any tips or tricks I learn along the way.

I'd love to read comments about your websites Bloggerville.

7 comments:

Unknown said...

I have a website domain and I create images via photoshop. I have been neglecting my website lately, but I use a combination of images my sister has designed for her arts class and a nice little program that has 3d people for me to create.

Jess said...

I'm usually intimidated by stuff like this, but you make it sound/look easy! Hopefully I'll be in need of an author website one of these days... :) Thanks for the informative post!

Christine Rains said...

I went with Dot Easy for my website. I have friends that use it and find it easy to use. My husband is a web programmer, so I have someone to program my stuff for me. I only have to come up with the design. :)

Neil Allen said...

I love Weebly. I use them for several of my web sites, especially when I get the idea for a new site at like 1 a.m. and don't want to deal with creating one from scratch.

I can't wait to see it!

Mike Keyton said...

Thanks for the tips, Kerri. I shall not allow my children to doctor my image, however. I'm already naturally disadvantaged : )

ckdroid said...

These are the pics Kerri took over the years and I turned them into the graphics you see. Not bad for 2 amateurs.

Claire Hennessy said...

Great pics. Well done about creating a proper website for your book. How exciting.