Why are we talking about blogs when the name of this site is about Ebooks?
Good question, but there is some logic behind it all. When I first got started, I probably went about it all backwards. I tried to thoughtfully visualize where I would end up. I knew what I could do and what I couldn’t and selling ebooks was something I really did not know much about. I knew about writing ebooks, and after being a publisher for many years, I figured I could manage the ebook business side of things. But how exactly do you sell an ebook after you have written it?
Starting with the end in mind, I researched it all to death and came up with blogging as a marketing platform and use it to gain experience to be able to market my ebooks or digital products. I recommend you do it this way also. A good start would be to download a Roadmap to your blogging success. It is the best “big picture” ebook marketing guide I have ever seen.
And after even more research, I came across WordPress.org. There is a difference. Here’s why I chose WordPress.org as a platform over all the others.
Pro: WordPress is open source. It is free and it is a work in progress. WordPress is highly customizable. With WordPress you have to obtain your own domain name, domain hosting service, and a few other items, but essentially, it all belongs to you. There are other platforms that are free also. The domains and hosting are provided for you. The bottom line on those is they belong to someone else. Not you. Blogger belongs to Google. WordPress.com belongs to WordPress.com and so on. I am just independent enough to want to own my own site lock, stock and proverbial barrel. That’s it. That’s the difference.
Con: There is a bigger learning curve using WordPress for many users rather than getting a site from one of the other guys. With the others, you have most of it set up for you. I was sorely tempted to go this route because of my ignorance in setting up the blog, buying a domain, contacting the best hosting provider, finding the right themes and many other factors. It is definitely easier to go with another pre-designed service that is somewhat customizable. But it was not for me. Besides, thinking about the end in mind, what If I wanted to sell my site later to provide for me in my dotage?
Now THAT was another biggie in my book. So there you have it. If you can stand the mental challenge of setting up a blog, go with WordPress.org.
Of course, I learned all about how to do that (and I keep on learning) from Yaro and Gideon at Become A Blogger This is not a sales pitch for them. They are that good and I would tell you about them anyway because they are who I learned from when first getting started.
Next post let’s start talking specifically about E books.
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