Domain Ownership, Web Hosts, and Web Designers

So many evils involved in self-marketing...not the least of which are spending lots of money and whoring yourself for attention...which attention, contrary to popular belief, I don't want. 

If I had a publicist, life would be cake...sort of.  I'd still have to do appearances, offer quotes, blog, have professional photos done, comment on other blogs and sites, do SEO...so, pretty much everything I'm doing now, but I'd at least have someone to plan it for me.

Cest la vie.

Then there's buying a website.  I now own www.jessicabradshaw.com - currently under construction - and www.theunboundseries.com (also under construction).  On GoDaddy.com you can find available domains and purchase them for whatever lengthy of time you'd like, but all you own is an address on the web.  You still need to design a site to put up.  And you also need to find someone to host it for you, which ranges from as little as $4/month on upward and away into the sky.  And if you yourself are not a capable web site designer - and I'm not - you get to pay someone to do that, too.

So, I found my host.  I found my web designer - same group, God bless them - and now my cute little writer site is gone and what remains is pretty much a place holder until the real site is finished.  There's a place holder there for the series site, too.  And patience was never my strong suit.

But that's my problem.  All writing is patience:  the writing itself, the revision, the editing, the proofreading, the self-marketing, the agent-seeking, the publisher-seeking, the re-editing, the book designing, the publishing, ALL of it is patience.

And it's expensive.

But that's okay.  (Deep breath, Jessica.)  It's okay that it takes time.  Because I, like most writers, are not in it for the money.  I will never be a Stephen King (though wouldn't that be cool?!  LOVE his stuff!) or a J. K. Rowling (who is close to having more money than God) or a Stephanie Meyer (Sam doesn't sparkle, and he's not a vampire, either).    I just have this story.  This story I love, and I think other people would love too.  These characters as much a part of me as they are of everyone; real, sincere, sometimes confused or irritable or depressed, determined, eager, and above all, hopeful.

And we all need a little more hope in this crazy world of ours.

So I will be patient.  I just re-upped my writer site for the next 5 years, and own the series site now for the same length of time.  I'm in it for the long haul because I love Sam, Jude, their friends and family, and above all their story.  After all, they're writing it, I'm just copying it down.

Anyway, if you need a good web host (who will also design or help you design your site), let me know and I'll pass along the info.  Otherwise, check back every so often and I'll let you know when the new sites are about to be launched!

Mahalo!