Great post from Angela Booth on setting up the website for your writing. Your profile, your clips, and, especially, your blog. I’m just starting a wee experiment with GoDaddy’s Linux hosting, and plan on doing some WordPress installs. Whatever the host, WordPress is a free, easy-to-use solution that would be good for anyone wanting not only to set up a blog, but a regular ol’ website too.
Link: Angela Booth’s Writing Blog: Start your writer’s Web site.
Here are some other ideas expanding on that post…
Categories for your writer’s site
Part of what I like about Angela’s post is that the things she lists,
are essentially your list of categories. However, you can also take
materials — such as a list of your current projects, for example — and
put in on your website, but not pubicly. You can password-protect
segments so that you could have materials like this online, and
accessible wherever you are, but they’d be hidden from anyone but you.
Here’s an example public category list:
- Blog (or, if you want to use a more generic term, "News", "Updates", etc.)
- Credits (lists of publications, website and book credits and such-like)
- Samples & Clips
- About YOURNAME
- Angela lists "Clients" separately, but depending on the amount of
credit you have, you could combine "Credits & Clients", then split
them out as you want/need - Reviews
Other categories, especially in the blog, could be about personal
interests, hobbies, and/or other parts of your life that also tie in to
your writing. For example, if you write a lot of fly-fishing articles,
you probably do a fair bit of fly-fishing. You could include posts on
favorite streams in your area, your latest catch, pieces on the gear
you use (your rod, drift boat, etc.)
Stuff that only you view could include…
- Current assignments (e.g., spreadsheet of to-be-completeds, as well as spread of pieces out for consideration and their status)
- Templates of documents (query letters, followup letters, thank-you notes for acceptances, etc.)
- You could include financials and accounting stuff in this, but
that depends on what you use, the security you use, and your comfort
level. Remember, I’m not a lawyer, web expert, or security god. Just a
content monkey with a blog and a keyboard.