Websites 101

First seen on the Space Trash Blog.

Unless you live under a rock somewhere, you've accessed a website. They're almost impossible to avoid. If you're an indie anything, in my case author, having one of your own is almost a requirement if you expect to channel readers to your work without relying on the altruism (sorry, bug in my throat) of Facebook or Amazon.

• The good: You can build a website without having a clue about what happens behind the pretty pictures and clicky things that take you to more shiny, interesting places.

• The bad: Ignorance, say of something like the lovely new European data privacy laws (GDPR), is not a defence.

• The ugly: If you don't know what's going on with your own site, you can't fix it when it goes wrong.

Website building is one of the instances where more knowledge can mean saving money. For example, my two domains hosted with Jollyleaf, plus basic SSL and all the webmail addresses I can eat, costs me $3.99 US / month (2018). The equivalent plan from Wix would set me back $10 to $14 per month, and that doesn't discuss email.

So here's the basics that I found out that I wish I'd known when I started setting up my website.

 

The magic words - key things to know

...'please' and 'thank you'. Seriously, I thought I was kidding about growing up under the rock.

• Domain name: You need one of these. An IP address is a string of confusing numbers and decimal points, and, like Vulcan planet names, no-one can remember that shit easily. A domain name is like a custom licence plate for your car - at the most basic level, it's a custom name that humans can remember, linked in a database to the actual IP address where your website can be found.Pro tip - make it easy to remember, and make it logical. I'm an author writing as J C Steel, and my domain is jcsteelauthor.com. Simple, right?

• Domain registration: This is how your domain name gets linked to your IP address. Generally, your hosting provider (keep reading, grasshopper) will handle this part for you, acting as a domain name registrar. ICANN is the Men In Black-style organisation behind domain name registration that you may want to read up on if you want to know more.

• Web hosting provider: You need one of these, too. They're the people who rent you a certain amount of space on a physical server to actually store the images and information that make up your website. I use Jollyleaf, but I recommend that you do some pricing and feature comparisons online (PCMag often has handy 'top ten' lists), and figure out what you need and how much you're willing to pay for it.

• Website creation tool, aka website builder: Unless you're a whizz with HTML (in which case, why the hell are you here??), you're going to need one of these, too. Joomla, Drupal, WordPress, Wix, Weebly - again, I recommend going and doing some hunting and figuring out your ideal features-to-competency comfort level.

• Internet connectivity: ...yeah, if you're reading this, I'm going to go out on a limb and assume you know about this one. You need it to build your masterpiece and access other peoples'.

If you have all of the above, you're ready to get started with your new website. If you're only in need of one site, and you aren't building a newsletter, doing any direct selling, and really just want an online presence you can put on your business card, you can go from there.
If you want to delve into the arcane and macabre, keep reading.

The arcane and macabre for websites 101 and beyond

• CMS: it stands for content management system, and it governs, usually via a template (see 'theme'), how your website looks and behaves. WordPress will try and jam their favourite themes down your craw - don't feel obliged, there's a multitude to choose from out there. I use Divi, which lets me do (almost) anything I want, and leaves me swearing helplessly the rest of the time.

• HTML: Yeah, unless you know exactly what you're doing and have hours to spend debugging lines, this is the 'oh-ha-ha-no' difficulty level. HTML is one of the basic programming languages underlying much of what you see online. Unless you happen to be an HTML expert, trying to code your own site from scratch will leave you with one of those lovely yellow text on deep blue background sites that screams 'someone tried to party like it was 1999'. More detail on HTML versus CMS can be found here.

• Child Theme: Don't try to create one of these without backing up your site first. Really. A child theme will batten off your principal theme, and update with it, but maintain your custom elements (a custom copyright footer notice is a common use-case) through each update.

• Custom email address: Not a must-have, but a nice way to brand your business communication. A lot of people will rely on Outlook 365 for this - personally I don't recommend it, it's expensive as hell and you can't download emails from there to storage or elsewhere in bulk. A lot of hosting providers will offer webmail on the side, and often for free. It's worth checking out, because it will save you money that you can then throw at something else, and you can still have your branded email address.

• SEO: SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization, and at the simplest level, it's key words - the terms people are likely to type into a search bar to find you, your website, or your work. You want to make sure that when a search engine crawls your page, the key things you want to appear high in search results for are basically sending up flares and generally making themselves obvious. As I'm shite making progress on my learning curve with SEO, I'm going to suggest you type 'SEO' into a search engine and learn from people who actually know what they're talking about.

• phpMyAdmin: Up top, I mentioned web hosting in terms of someone renting you space on a server for the files that actually make up your site. phpMyAdmin is one of the common database frontends (see also SQL) that stores and organises those files so that you can access the files when you need to. The function of the database itself is the internal referencing of your files so that when you click 'contact', you get the contact form of your site, and not a page advertising mail-order brides.

• SSL: Means Secure Socket Layer, and short-form it's security that lets people clicking on your site have reasonable certainty that it's you. It's part of what governs the 's' in 'https', and the behaviour of that padlock symbol at the beginning of the website address. An SSL certificate is nice-to-have on a basic site like a blog, and becomes a must-have if you're planning something like direct sales, where you're handling financial information.

• Add on domain: Now we're getting kinky. Basically, a domain works very much like a folder structure (you've set these up on your computer, or in your email client, yes?). For example, your root domain (dear Aussies and Kiwis, please don't get too excited here) would be your 'Documents' folder, and then when you open up 'Documents' you'll have 'Letters', 'Legal', 'Renos', which would be sub- or add-on domains depending on set-up. An add on domain can be accessed completely separately from the root domain from the perspective of the end-user. I have a root domain, accessed with jcsteelauthor.com, and an add on domain, byriteofword.com, both of which have a separate file structure and are accessed separately by users. Courtesy of Bluehost: An add on domain is a domain name which points to its own folder within public_html and appears as a separate website.

• Site back-ups: I really recommend doing these. Your hosting provider may do them automatically, but 'doing' and 'giving easy access to' are two entirely different animals. I use Updraft Plus for my WordPress sites - it gives me complete control over how often I back-up, where the back-ups are stored, and best of all, hassle-free file re-install as soon as I install the plugin. Oh, and the basic version is free.

• Images: I use Pixabay, Pexels, and UnSplash for free images (donations optional). It's not a good idea to simply nick shit from Google Images - it may be tempting, but first, you're very likely trampling someone else's copyright, and also the images are likely to be crappy resolution, which will make you look like an amateur. If you don't mind shelling out some cash, Shutterstock and 123rf have a wide range.of images.

That's all, folks

Well, no, of course it isn't. But if you've read this, and looked at a few of the linked articles, you should have at least a basic understanding of what you need and why in your website, and where you can go to learn more. Depending on your hosting provider, you may be able to drag and drop elements - Wix is good for this - or you may need to know everything from how to set up an add on domain to setting a POP3 email account.

In general, I support knowing what you're doing. It reduces the chances of you getting screwed on price, and it helps you understand what you can do, what you can't do, and what you really shouldn't do without making a full back-up first.

Happy webbing.

Etymology Excavation: "at full tilt"

First seen on the Space Trash Blog.

 What is etymology, and why are you excavating it?

Etymology is like the archeology of a language (definition: the study of the origin of words and the way in which their meanings have changed throughout history).

In this series of posts, we're going to look at some of the English phrases, like 'at full tilt', 'toe the line', 'when push comes to shove' that are commonly used, and have an interesting history - and that people often get wrong.

"At full tilt" means flat out, at top speed, as fast as possible. Its origins don't have anything to do with being unsteady, at an angle, or, indeed poker.

The term derives from the sport of jousting, or tilting (ever heard of 'tilting at windmills'?), and 'at full tilt' is believed to have first come into use as an expression in the mid-1600s.

Common theories (check out http://www.etymonline.com for even more good stuff) are that it comes from either the practice of leaning in to meet the attack when jousting, or, conversely, from tilt or tent, referring to the flimsy barrier that separates the two riders when they joust.

Examples of 'at full tilt':

• I ran down the hill at full tilt.
• We're going to need to work at full tilt to get this done in time.

Is it still in common use? Depends who you ask. I'm a Millennial, and I use it; my parents' generation certainly did. On the whole, it's probably more likely to be used in British English than American English.

It's one of those phrases you can use to hint at a character's background in contemporary work such as a thriller - maybe your anti-hero is British and gives himself away with it, for example.

If you're writing fantasy or sci-fi, you can also adapt it this type of expression. If (random example, honest) your invented culture includes people swinging on big metal balls hung from cranes, you'd use 'at full swing'. (Oddly enough, 'in full swing' is another weird English idiom that I probably will be covering on another day.)

Self-publishing 101 - Part 1, print-on demand

Hello authors.

Well, it's finally That Time - after months or years, you've written, revised, gathered your alpha and beta readers' input together, revised a bit more, run a spellcheck, discovered just how awful MS Word spell check is, got a human editor to read it, found a cover designer ... and you're sitting in front of your computer with your heart pounding and your palms going sweaty, about to actually upload your work of genius for the worldwide audience.

How many copies will I sell? 

Will there be trolls? 

Will anyone pirate my stuff? 

When will I be able to live off the money my books make for me? 

Will the world know my name?

Before you can become an international bestseller of E L James-style fame (oh, God), you need to find a self-publishing platform. I'm going to provide a non-exclusive, non-endorsing list below of a few of the better-known options to give you an idea.

Self-publishing platforms come in two basic flavours: ebook only, or print-on-demand. In this post, I'm going to focus on the print-on-demand platforms - or this post will attain novella-length in short order. Catch up with me later for the ebook 101 post.

**ALWAYS read the terms and conditions / conditions of service / terms of use or whatever else they call it and make certain that there's a clause in there guaranteeing that you retain copyright to your work. Whatever other paragraphs your eye chooses to blur over, make sure you've read and understand what your rights are if you choose to publish with a given platform.**

Print on demand: 

CreateSpace (Amazon), and Lulu are two of the best-known self-pub options if you want to provide physical copies of your book as well as (or instead of) an ebook. They both allow you to set up print-on-demand for nothing and take a cut of the book price every time you sell a book as their payment.

I'm also going to touch on Bookbaby, which doesn't offer a completely free option, but does offer a lot more support options if you happen to have the funds to pay someone else to tear their hair out to get your book printed.

Other places you can look include IngramSpark and Blurb.

I also recommend that you check out Writehacked 'Where should you self-publish your book' from 2014 for a second opinion - I don't necessarily agree with that opinion, but there are photos provided of the results from several of the major POD companies.

CreateSpace 

Pros: They're flexible, efficient, have great customer service and, provided you use one of their formatted templates (really. This part is important unless you're a masochist) very easy to use. They provide a great quality of product. They're also an Amazon company, so your print offering shows up, hassle-free, on the majority of Amazon country sites almost as soon as you approve your proof. You can opt for expanded distribution, which makes your work available to bookstores, libraries, and academia as well as Amazon. You can also opt for a number of helpful extras if you have the need and money, such as professional formatting, cover design, editing, etc. For the record, I print with CreateSpace.

Cons: Getting paid. CreateSpace only offers Direct Deposit (as of today) to authors with bank accounts in the USA, UK, Germany, France, Spain, Portugal, Belguim, or the Netherlands. If you happen to not have access to a bank account in one of those countries, CreateSpace will accumulate the royalties from the sales of your book in each region, and send you a cheque when the total for that region hits about $100 USD. To be clear, this doesn't mean you can sell $33.33 worth of product in Asia, Europe, and South America (or wherever else) and get a cheque: it means you have to sell $100 worth of product in Asia, or Europe, or South America to get a cheque, which you then have to convert into your local currency. So be prepared for the fact that for a lot of indie authors, this means you're going to be effectively providing your print books for free for the foreseeable future when it comes to money in hand. Another con: should you choose not to copy your text into one of their pre-formatted templates, be prepared for a lot of hell when you come to upload into their online proofing portal. Their main outlet is Amazon.

Lulu

Pros: They offer payment via PayPal, which basically means you can be paid anywhere you can have a PayPal account that you can receive payment from. This may, of course, incur PayPal fees, but you aren't left hunting a bank that will cash a USD cheque for you. They offer optional professional publishing services, but you can also go full-DIY if you choose. They will allow you to distribute your print on Lulu, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Ingram, and they offer a wide variety of sizes and binding options, including stitched if you happen to be a fan of the traditional.

Cons: You have to have the software to put the ISBN and bar code, wherever you choose to get that from, on your own print cover for a certain set of print formats. The up-front expertise needed to prep your files for printing from you, the author, is a bit higher than for CreateSpace.

Bookbaby

Pros: They give you a webpage space with the publishing package. They distribute to Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Powell's, Baker & Taylor, and Ingram, among others, as well as several niche options. You can choose to be paid via PayPal (there is a $1.50 processing fee per PayPal payment). They offer promo services with their packages, and a 100% satisfaction guarantee.

Cons: You have to go with one of their publishing packages. There is no full-DIY option with Bookbaby. You can only opt for Direct deposit if you have a US bank account; if not you're stuck with cheque in the mail (or PayPal).

Conclusion:

So, you've now followed a bunch of links, checked out arcane FAQs that talk about metadata, ISBNs, ASINs, the non-transferability of your platform-assigned ISBNs, and tax-witholding, and your head's spinning.

Is it really worth all this effort and research, just to get a print copy of my book? I mean, I'm indie. Is anyone really going to buy the d*mn thing anyway?

For me, I wasn't going to bother. Not right away. Not after having figured out that I couldn't get paid for it in any reasonable amount of time, and given indie sales generally.

Then, I actually had people - family, friends, colleagues - start asking me if they could get a print copy, and I sat down and thought a bit more. After a bit of that, I actually did set up POD - and I'm really glad I did. Not because it's making me a fortune - hell no, far from it. But it's not costing me anything extra, as I'd opted to get a print and an e-cover from my cover designer anyway.

But the real pay-off, from my point of view, was the moment my actual book proof showed up on my doorstep, and I got my book, after all the blood and sweat and tears, in my hands looking like a real book.

Writing, on Twitter (note the comma)

'Cause, yeah, commas do useful sh*t. So do asterisks, or as one of the people I've worked with calls them: 'Those weird star things over the 8 key?'

I could've said 'writing on Twitter'. I do that too. But I wanted to write about writing, on Twitter, as in people who write and Tweet about it.

After following and being followed for a few years now, I've begun to realise what interests me in a Twitter feed, and in a Twitter biography, and look for folks to follow who share interests, or at least interesting stuff. Do I only follow authors, or only get followed by authors? Of course not. There are a lot of book folks, but there are psychologists, politicians, network security experts, security and law-enforcement types, porn actors, pilots ... Twitter's a great place to meet people.

Is everyone going to have the ability to provide useful advice for writers in 140 characters? (Insert JRR Martin joke about killing all 140 characters here .. sigh). Nope. Is everyone going to be a great blogger? Probably also ... yeah, nope.

Since publishing my sci-fi novel, Through the Hostage, (see what I did there, in terms of shameless plugging?) in February, I've become one of those writers who Tweets. Oddly enough, publishing a book has expanded my Twitter following massively. The flux of book-related tweets has probably pissed off my non-writing friends massively, too. Happily anyone still willing to admit they know me socially after five minutes is also virtually immune to my more annoying habits.

I confess I rather expected that I'd sell a few more books, and gain a few less Twitter followers. Probably everyone does.

Not that I'm complaining. I've found Twitter to be an awesome resource as an indie author. You can find cover artists, cover designers (no, not always one and the same), editors (for them as can afford them), reviewers, and any number of writers, tweeting about what they do.

Some of them (let's start with @NatRusso, or @FionaQuinnBooks) tweet incredibly useful blog posts and #writetips on a diverse array of topics.

Some people just do be on Twitter to tell you that they've written a book. Valid. If it turns out to be a good one, I may even retweet it. We're all going to do some shameless plugging of our creative genius at some point ... Others tell you some useful stuff, retweet publicity tweets (cultivate these folks too), and and some people focus on current news (yep, useful as well. If you're a sci-fi writer and you're not following @BadAstronomer, you may just be dead to me).

Also, there are the hashtags, the speakeasies of Twitter, where you can see what people you've never heard of are saying on topics that interest you. #writetip, #horriblewritetip, #amediting and #amwriting are all fantastic spots to belly up to the bar and listen in to the conversations. Not to mention #scifi, #fantasy and #IARTG. (You'll adapt the genre hashtags depending on what you write, yes? Good.)

You can learn a lot from Tweeps (or, as I occasionally can't resist calling us, Twits).

And here's the key bit. You may not think that most of what you're reading is at all to do with writing, editing, or, crucially, how to tell if you slipped a disc in your PoV. I put it to you that actually, the bits of Twitter you think are completely irrelevant to creating the next De Re Publica may be the most useful things of all. I didn't learn how to describe what drowning feels like by going to a writers' convention. Unfortunately, I learnt that one by damn nearly doing it. Likewise, the guy you follow because he sometimes comes up with awesome one-liners? One day your protagonist is going to run into someone really like that guy. Life and people are what you can find on Twitter, and what you can contribute back to Twitter. And, hey, guess what - if you're in any kind of fiction genre ... sooner or later it's about people. Even if those people happen to live at ten atmospheres in the utter darkness of a sea of liquid methane.

Weirdest thing I like about writing

It's the research.
OK, anyone who's laughing ... stop it. Seriously. Research is awesome. I'm writing a sci-fi series set in a mercenary cult. This research is great.

For example - camouflage. I found, and promptly lost again, an article arguing that the best all-around low-light camo colour would be a grayish shade of pink (Mountbatten pink is another classic) ... but everyone refused to use it. You can find hundreds of resources online, talking pattern disruption, the physiology of the human eye, smart fabric, whatever rocks your boat.

Blood spatter patterns. Made for a very fun lunch break, and scared the pants off a nosy colleague who found herself in my browser history. Vital for several books.

Knife throwing techniques and blade designs. Yep, that colleague never snooped my browser again :) Surprising fact: Crocodile Dundee is a lot closer to reality than DareDevil. A lot of the mercenaries in my series carry throwing knives, not least the lead character. Almost all of them carry some kind of edged weapon. (Why do mercenaries in a technologically advanced society have any use for knives??? Well, for starters, they don't run out of power. They can't be stopped by, for example, a personal deflector shield designed to stop a beam weapon. They make people dead just as effectively, and people don't expect them. I could keep going.)


Hand to hand combat. I did a lot of that in person, and most of the hand to hand you see in the Cortii series is based (albeit sometimes very loosely) on one form or another from a martial art I've studied. Pressure points are a particularly fun thing to toss in when people don't expect it.

The urban fantasy book I wrote last year was almost as much fun. Voodoo. Legends about shifters in different areas. How the feline sense of smell differs from the canine. Structure of a feline eye.

Basically, some background research is essential if you want to have those weird and wonderful touches of verisimilitude in the story. My feeling is that most fiction writers need to be information magpies. Not only can it be a lot of fun, but the universe is not only stranger than we imagine, it's stranger than we can imagine.