Need a new author website. . .

[skeletor]

I've been with Bluehost for several years. My website isn't pretty, and I should add here that I'm rather tech-illiterate. Bluehost's WordPress integrations worked well enough for awhile, but this past year something's gone awfully wrong, so that I can't even make changes to my site. To make it all worse, my domain and service are now up for renewal, and the prices have conveniently tripled.

I'm not paying all that!

I don't need a fancy website. I need a landing page with basic bio/newsletter sign up and a spot for my various books. I don't intend to sell directly from my website, either. I DO want an "author" email so that I don't have to use a gmail.

Are there any affordable and easy to use services out there that you guys use for websites or author email accounts? I haven't actively looked into this since about 2017 (when I first signed up with Bluehost), so I have no clue what's "new and hip".

[TimothyEllis]

I'm with Crocweb, and have been since I need to move the forum to something faster than I was on.

I've no idea if they are competitive these days, but the support has always been good.

I use email addresses off multiple domains.

As long as you have a domain parked on your hosting plan, you get unlimited email addresses on it. And if the email doesn't exist, it gets sent to whatever email you specify as the primary.

Check them out to see how they stack up on the lower plans.

[R. C.]

I left Bluehost for SiteGround and could not be happier. The reason for change are the same as Skeltor's concerns.

The SG Wordpress integration works well. The speed is well above expectations. The security is excellent.

R.C.

www.rcducantlin.com

[Bill Hiatt]

I also left Bluehost. I think its hosting has steadily deteriorated over time. I was having weird performance issues (like something as simple as approving comments often caused the site to slow to a crawl).

I use A2 Hosting and couldn't be happier. My experience is with one of the VPS hosting plans, so a cheaper one would probably mean slower performance, but if your needs are simple, it's likely you don't really need that much horsepower.

I have needed tech support a couple of times and found it most helpful and relatively quick. If the on-call chat person can't resolve the issue, support uses a ticket system, and tickets are responded to relatively quickly. (BH only issued a ticket in catastrophic circumstances. Normally, the chat person tried a quick fix, which often didn't work.)

You may not want to do this if your existing site is in a mess, but free migration comes with some A2 plans. That's a real timesaver, but if your site is as badly compromised as it sounds like, you're probably better off starting from scratch.

It doesn't sound like your needs will grow, but if they do, I understand A2 hosting does upgrades very quickly.

Coincidentally, A2 Hosting is currently having a sale. https://www.a2hosting.com/

 

[skeletor]

Awesome, thank you, guys! Sounds like I'm not the only one fed up with Bluehost 

[Lynn]

DreamHost is a good one. I've had sites there for 20 years and have been overall satisfied.

[Vijaya]

I used to have GoDaddy and was happy with it--still use them for my domain names. But I switched to Blogger because they added features, such as pages, so it doubles as a website. And it's a lot more intuitive for a non-tech savvy person like me.

[Gregg Bell]

Hostinger. It was confusing setting it up. But it's worked really well since and it's very economical.

[Jeff Tanyard]

I don't need a fancy website.

My homepage is my blog on Blogger.  Doesn't get much more "not fancy" than that.  I also have a Substack that I use for my newsletter.

I'm a bit schizophrenic about this stuff.   

I need a landing page with basic bio/newsletter sign up and a spot for my various books. I don't intend to sell directly from my website, either. I DO want an "author" email so that I don't have to use a gmail.

You can get a domain name inexpensively from NameSilo.  Once you have your domain name, you can set up Zoho's free email to work with it.  This won't give you web hosting, but it will give you an author email.

I got this idea from Gator, post #10 in this thread:

https://www.kboards.com/threads/help-searching-for-cheap-webhosting.230895/

(Writer Sanctum, forgive me for linking to the site which must not be named.      )

I have no clue what's "new and hip".

Lol... I'm about the furthest thing from new and hip you'll find, so you should probably ignore my suggestions altogether.

Whatever you decide, I hope you find a satisfactory arrangement.   

[Bill Hiatt]

Well, the goal isn't really to be new and hip, anyway. it's to be functional.

Most author websites aren't going to have huge amounts of traffic. It's nice to have a piece of internet real estate that is truly one's own (not dependent on a social media platform).

If I were a brand new author with a typical brand-new-author budget, I'd consider using Substack for both my website and my mailing list. (That said, there are a lot of people who are willing to sign up for a monthly author newsletter who might go insane over a Substack newsletter that comes out twice weekly. My Substack list is much smaller than my regular author newsletter.)

If Blogger is still free, that would also be a great budget-conscious option.

Personally, I like to tinker. I can do all kinds of fancy things on my site. But realistically, it probably doesn't make that much difference in terms of conversion from viewers to fans. Customization can be important for really specific needs (such as the classroom website I used to have when I was teaching, which I customized in all kinds of ways to meet school district requirements). But for an author website, an attractive way to display bio and books is probably all one needs, especially at first. My only blog posts that get much action are ones that a address niche topics and hence land near the top of search results.