Tech Updates and New Website

In celebration of the fact that I have a new website, I’m going to write a little bit about my journey toward it and thoughts on websites in general.

I was never satisfied with my old website. I knew that I could do more with it, but it required a technical expertise I did not have and had no space or time to learn. It was the free version. Let’s be real, authors starting out cannot afford the fancy paid versions of things. I still can’t. The free version is basic, because why else would it be free? It lets you look at the other options though, tempting you with all the fancy gadgets and options that you can’t afford. Free versions are mean. Of course, they’re meant to be stepping stones, so I won’t say too much more about that. It did what I needed it to do. It provided a place where I could post what I was writing and allow people to contact me if needed. So, I thank it.

But I needed to make some changes, even if I kept the old website. Getting married and changing your last name causes an immediate rebranding need, which can be difficult when you’d only just begun establishing yourself as somebody else. I wasn’t sure how to go about it, but I knew it was better sooner than later, and definitely before any other projects.

I was granted the opportunity for a full website with all the bells and whistles for free. But the problem therein was too many bells and whistles and I had no idea how to use any of them. It was like being given all the building blocks for a skyrise, but no schematics and barely any tools. I was frustrated for a long time and could barely figure it out because I kept rage quitting every time I ran into a problem. And I ran into problems a lot.

The issue with doing a website yourself, even when you have this cool playground for free, is that if you don’t have the technical expertise, you have to figure everything out for yourself. And it’s not all intuitive and sometimes the videos you google for help and typing your symptoms into the Internet avails not. You get stuck and are frustrated because you don’t know what to do next or how to get the help you need. Tech support is not always there and available. Besides, sometimes with technology, there are just glitches. That’s still happening to me and there’s nothing I can do about it because it’s a problem with the system itself.

See re: above, if I didn’t have the money for a paid version of a website, I certainly didn’t have the money to hire someone to build the website for me. Though if you do, I highly recommend you go that route because it will save you all this trouble and give you the end result much more quickly. The one drawback would be having to depend on someone else and perhaps dealing with their version of your creative vision. But they would be the experts so…

Once I had some free time, I painstakingly worked at it. As soon as I could understand some of the basic structure, I just kept changing what I knew to change a bit at a time. It was a turtle, not a hare, venture. That worked for me and I’m satisfied with the results. Is it perfect? Most definitely not. But it looks better than what I had before and accomplishes that same need of having a place for people to come to get information, to read what I’ve written, to be able to buy what I have, and contact me if needed. It has the added bonus of looking more professional for when I need professionals to come and judge my work. This is important as I start sending out query letters to agents. (Perhaps more about that soon.)

There are some problems, particularly on the blog side, and I haven’t finished importing everything there. But I’m steadily working at it in between other projects, and I’m proud to say people are now able to come to my new website and find me there for all future needs. Welcome, and I hope this has been a bit of encouragement for you if you’re also in the need of a technical rehaul and have to do it yourself. It’s a marathon, not a sprint. Do what you can, when you can, ask for help, and be willing to live with imperfection while you wait for it and work through it.

Now I just have to apply that to myself again as I tackle the technical podcast issues I still need to work through if S7 is ever going to see the light of day. Pray for me. And enjoy the website.