This is the first in our Making an Author Site with WordPress series. If you already have a domain name, you can skip to the next section linked at the end of this article.
You’ll need a domain for your author site. Many choose their real name and add the (dot)com to it. Some prefer to create a domain based on their stories, genre, or something else.
How do you choose what to use for your domain name? We wrote a tutorial for domains that might be of help when choosing what to use. Keep in mind that your domain name should be easy to find.
Using your own name for your domain can be good as it can help in your book promotions. However, if it’s hard to spell or confusing to use in a domain, you may want to use your initials or a variation of initials + “author” without the quotes.
You can also choose to use a name that goes with your genre, such as my fictionalrealms.com . I chose that because I plan to put various articles in it and I write my books under my married name and my maiden name.
Once you choose a name, you’ll purchase it from a domain registrar such as Godaddy, Namecheap or others. This is normally a yearly purchase or you can purchase a few years at a time. Remember to include this in your budget as a yearly expense. Once it is time to renew, you’ll want to do that before it expires or someone else could buy it. I set mine to auto-renew.