Have you completed the steps I’ve outlined in the last four blog posts? 1) Picked your official author name and purchased the domain? 2) Decided on your internet service provider and webhosting, and ready to install WordPress? 3) Put together a list of your design preferences? 4) Prepared the text and images for the pages on your new site? If so, then it’s time to install WordPress.org. Login to your webhosting service provider and follow their instructions for the installation of the WordPress software platform. For most webshosting companies it is a one-click installation. WordPress recommends BlueHost as a webhosting company for their easy one-click version. Be aware when using one-click installations: you may experience attempts to attach a lot of bloatware, or unnecessary third-party programs, to your installation. You do not need to install Jetpack or Mojo Marketplace. Depending on your webhosting company, the instructions for installation of this free open-source code software varies. You should not have to pay any additional charge to your webhosting company for this program. Read what you are doing, pay attention, and look for any check boxes that are automatically clicked before you hit install. The only program you want to install is WordPress. WordPress’ tutorials offer a quick and efficient way to set up a basic design and utilize important features by familiarizing you, the new user, with dashboard commands and operations. We recommend that you follow the tutorials before installing the software. Once you’ve familiarized yourself with WordPress for Beginners and…
Although not all WordPress templates support profile images in the comments, when a profile image is allowed, wouldn’t you rather have another chance to show off your online identity’s ‘look’? Putting a face to your brand helps an author reach readers. To see if you have an associated image, log in to your WP dashboard and look at the upper right hand corner in the… [Read More]
Filed Under: gravatar, profile image, WordPress, WordPress.com
No Comments
As a book development editor, I help writers’ books take flight. In order to do that, I ask potential author clients to answer a list of questions that an agent or publisher wants to know about a book project before they read one word of a manuscript. The questions are about your book, about your audience, and about you. Your answers to these questions provide… [Read More]
Writing is primarily a solitary activity. But, as Stephen King wrote in On Writing, “Write with the door closed, rewrite with the door open”. At some point you will share your work with someone for editing – and that’s where the art of writing gets technologically tricky. Microsoft Word has a well-documented compatibility issue between versions of the software; Google Docs doesn’t have an easy… [Read More]
Horst Woit, a young boy, snatched his uncle’s jack knife from the kitchen table as he and his mother walked out the door of their home. They trudged through the snow and freezing weather toward the Baltic harbor where they boarded a ship named the Wilhelm Gustloff to flee from Nazi Germany while Stalin’s soldiers advanced on the Eastern Front in January 1945. When Alexander… [Read More]
“Though I do not believe that a plant will spring up where no seed has been, I have great faith in a seed… Convince me that you have a seed there, and I am prepared to expect wonder,” Henry David Thoreau. Heirloom pink poppy seeds sprouted this week indoors. I am prepared to expect blossoms this July. Much depends on what happens between now and… [Read More]