Website up and Running!

I've taken another positive step toward respectability in the modern world.

And it's about damn time.

Today, I finished setting up the website devoted to my writing career. Andrewkensley.com is up and running and ready to be browsed, linked, perused, publicized, searched, and shared. It took me a few days to figure out how to set one up from scratch. And much like my book self-publishing experience on Createspace, I went through quite a bit of a trial and error process getting things done. But I understand it's part of the deal, and I'm fine with it.

Those who know me well might say I'm a bit on the cheap side. Not untrue, I admit, but I actually entered into this little endeavor with the realization that I would have to pay to do this right. This year has been educational as far as the publishing world goes, and one important thing I've learned is that running a business—make no mistake, Andrew Kensley, Author/Freelance Writer is a business, albeit a crude and immature one thus far—requires a financial investment.

Since I started doing my own taxes a few years ago and with the gradual increase in writing income over the past couple of years, I've already begun saying fun things like "I'll get the check, it's a write-off" and "we talked about my book over those beers, burgers and onion rings and during commercials of the game, I can write off this guys night." But this is different: the prime reason for spending money on publicity, advertising, promotion and marketing is not for tax purposes. My goal is to sell some books. If I have to spend a reasonable sum to do that, I'm fine with it.

Consequently, my first internet searches on "how to build a website" involved clicking ONLY on the ones that required a monthly or yearly fee. I spent almost 10 hours setting up trials and familiarizing myself with the cool terminology—favicon, SEO, keyword density and meta tags are some of my favorites—and after much eye-burning screen time, I realized that none of the really cool looking website builders really had what I wanted. So I went another route.

I stumbled upon Wix.com, advertised as a free website builder, and found exactly the template I wanted. I tweaked it considerably over a few days, changing fonts and moving text, inserting photos and aligning icons, etc etc etc, and after a couple of minor paid upgrades (still cheaper than the other sites, but perfect for my purposes), I built Andrewkensley.com to my exact specifications.

Check it out and let me know what you think. And of course, thanks in advance for spreading the word.