Like anyone setting up a website for the first time, the process can be more than a little daunting. What should I have on it? How to link the pages? How to capture email addresses? And then once all that is done, what do I write about?

Without doubt, there are hundreds of guides out there to help make it easier. A search on Google or Youtube will return a bucket load of hits. All the insight you’ll need to achieve your goals.

Before you spend a small fortune on a website, start small and free. The sites that offer this are good for that even if the choices within the site are limited. You can pay for something later, once you’ve developed a feel for what you need and where you’re going with it.

Alas, most of the hits returned “free” in their title yet missed the point of the search request. I wasn’t looking to buy a domain name. Others had great, easy to follow instructions. That is until you started following and discovered the interface for the site in question had been updated. Menus and instructions no longer tallied to the video guide.

By recommendation, I went with WordPress. They have a free option and though the choices are limited, it provides the opportunity to build a site where the only cost is your time. It is not the most intuitive site to navigate your way round and there are more than a few things that I have yet to figure out, but I will get there even if the room turns blue with the language.

It has been a slow process for me and had some luckless salesperson decided to call at my door on Friday afternoon, my chosen genre for fiction would have changed from dark fantasy to true crime. Thankfully for all, that didn’t happen.

I am lucky enough to be in a writers group on Facebook where the interaction is involved and the writers—some published, others like me, still working toward it—are willing to put aside some time and help you achieve your goals. Not just in the writing but with anything else that’s related to being an author including the dreaded website.

That group is 13 Steps To Evil and is run by my good friend Sacha Black, villainous author of the book of the same name. I have her and those within the group to thank for all their encouragement and assistance in getting this site up and running.