The Great Speculative Fiction FAQ
SF Websites List of Categories Section Editors: Brad
Sponsors:
- Why should I start my own science fiction, fantasy, horror or RPG web site?
- What should my speculative fiction site be about?
- I am a science fiction, fantasy or horror author should I have my own website?
- Should my SF site be a regular website or a weblog (blog)?
- Do I have to be artistic?
- I want to make my website look like a science fiction or fantasy site in theme but I have no artistic ability. How can I make my site look like a science fiction or fantasy site?
- I would like to use a free web site builder, what do you recommend?
- Do I need to know HTML to start my website?
- Should I get my own DOT COM domain or go with a free host like GeoCities or Angelfire?
- How can I track visitors to my science fiction or fantasy website?
- If I put an email address on my website for my visitors to contact me will I get spammed and how do I protect email address?
- Where can I find other, webmaster resources that are either free or inexpensive, that are useful in building a science fiction and/or fantasy web site?
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Why should I start my own science fiction, fantasy, horror or RPG web site?
The web is a publishing media just like print, TV or radio. The difference is that you have the potential to reach a lot of people with some work but spending very little money. By putting up your own speculative fiction site you increase the body entertainment available to everyone.
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What should my speculative fiction site be about?
Pick something you really enjoy and know something about. Or pick something that lets you express your creativity, e.g. if you like to write publish some of your short stories to the web.
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I am a science fiction, fantasy or horror author should I have my own website?
The answer is yes, absolutely. Moreover it should be a site that that you own and control, not your publisher. You may decide to change publishers in the future and you do not want to loose your site.
For an author site, I strongly recommend getting your own domain based upon your pen name. (ie. www.janesmith.com or www.johndoe.com)
As an author your most important site is about you be clear that the focus of the site is about you as writer and author. You want to have a biography, contact information, news about your appearances, new releases etc. Of course you also want to have information about your books, including blurbs, perhaps excerpts and of course easy links so people can buy the book from Amazon or other online retailers.
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Should my SF site be a regular website or a weblog (blog)?
Weblogs are good if you are going to update frequently, or do things like serialize a story. Static pages are probably better if you are not going to update very often.
Weblog Hosting:
Skaffe Free Blog Hosting
Blogger
Typepad
For the more advanced user that knows some HTML you can incorporate Blogger into your static website so that you can post news easily.
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Do I have to be artistic?
No. Original content, and good navigation are far more important than pretty graphics and pages unless, of course, you are an artist.
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I want to make my website look like a science fiction or fantasy site in theme but I have no artistic ability. How can I make my site look like a science fiction or fantasy site?
A real easy way to give your website a SF theme is to use a background or border set and graphics.
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I would like to use a free web site builder, what do you recommend?
Nvu is a good website builder that comes free from Nvu.com. If you can operate a word processor you can operate Nvu. There are versions for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux. Later if you want something more powerful you can always get something else. Nvu is a good starting point.
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Do I need to know HTML to start my website?
No. There are a number of web site builders, or web editors that are WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get). Most are no harder to learn than a word processor and they can make building your website much easier.
Web Site Builders for Windows:
Namo Web Editor
SiteSpinner
Abraxas CoverSite
NetObjects Fusion
Website Builder for Mac OS X:
Nvu
Rapidweaver
Softpress Freeway
Website Builder for Linux:
Nvu
All these are affordable and should be easy to learn and use for your science fiction website.
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Should I get my own DOT COM domain or go with a free host like GeoCities or Angelfire?
While there is nothing wrong with Geocities or Angelfire, I do recommend getting your own domain and a real hosting account. This is especially true if you are an author building an official site or are running a business. If you want to experiment and build a small site then Freewebs looks like a nice free host. However for business or professional purposes I strongly recommend using your own domain and professional hosting.
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How can I track visitors to my science fiction or fantasy website?
There are several good, free remotely hosted website stats (tracker) services:
SiteMeter
RetroStats
StatCounter
Extreme Tracking
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If I put an email address on my website for my visitors to contact me will I get spammed and how do I protect email address?
The short answer is probably yes. eMail spammers send robots around the web collecting email addresses.
Protecting yourself is a two step process:
First, always use a free web based email account for your website contact address. That way if you ever get overwhelmed by being on too many spam lists you can just walk away from it. You should never use your ISP account address. I like Yahoo email or Myway email because they have some automatic spam filters.
Second, it is very important that you encrypt the email address that you place on your website. Enkoder or MailShield will encrypt you email address so that email harvesting robots (spiders) cannot read it.
It is very important to follow both of the above steps. You still cannot stop a human from collecting your email address but this will keep such things to a minimum.
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Where can I find other, webmaster resources that are either free or inexpensive, that are useful in building a science fiction and/or fantasy web site?
You can find things like free FTP clients, free hosts, banner exchanges, free html editors, various graphics editors and more here.
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