Welcome to the ultimate guide to start an author blog. An author blog is the easiest way to establish your love for writing and reading.  It is also the best place to be if you want to write a book in future or already have a book to promote.

In this tutorial, we are going to learn how to start an author blog in a detailed step by step guide.

Blogging as an author is a little different from business blogging. If you write fictions and not particularly optimized for search engines, it can be hard to get traffic and build your readership.

Blogging is all about building relationships. It’s not always about your writing but sharing your opinions about other books, reviews, book trivia and interviews with other people in the publishing industry.

Here is how you can start an author blog quickly as a beginner

Starting a blog is easy. To start a blog, you need the following:

• A domain or web address
• A web hosting account
• Fund to buy domain and web hosting
• A blogging plan
• Basic knowledge of SEO

Writing a blog is easy, but it also involves some technical aspects. If you are just like me (little sceptic about dealing the technology thing), I suggest that you choose a service provider who takes care of the technical side of your blog. Once your technical aspects are taken care of, you can fully concentrate on creating content and promotion of your blog.

But why do I need a self-hosting and domain to start an author blog?

I started my blogging journey with a free WordPress blog. Though it seemed perfectly fine at the beginning, I gradually found that I do not have the freedom to design my site suiting my brand.

After sometimes, I switched to self-hosting, and since then, my blog is the perfect ambassador of my online identity and brand.

To start an author blog, you will need the following:

• A hosting account
• Domain

How To Start An Author Blog

Ø Purchase hosting from a Hosting Company like NameCheap/Hostgator/Big Rock

Ø Purchase a domain (Siteground offers a free domain when you purchase hosting from them)

Ø Install WordPress (Takes hardly 5 minutes)

Ø Select a theme (WordPress offers both free and premium themes)

Ø Install required plugins

Ø Customize the look

Ø Create your first post and publish!

But before you go and purchase your domain and hosting account, there are some other things to consider. It starts from choosing the topic of your blog, its name and domain name.

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How to choose the web hosting to start an author blog?

Choosing the right web host is the last technical step you need to take as a newbie blogger. Of course, technical things will never leave you in blogging, but the tough part ends with choosing the right web host.

So, what is a web host? Let us understand it with a simple example. Let us assume that your blog’s name is the nameplate for your house and the domain is the number of your flat. Now the web host will be an apartment where the flat is situated.

A web host is a place where your blog will live and just like our apartments, and you need the living area of your blog to be clean, accessible and secure.

It is a crucial step to know what you require while choosing the right service provider from countless web hosting companies in the world. Here is a total breakdown of what you need to know about web hosting.

What are the types of web hosting servers?

There are mainly three types of server web hosting companies offer- shared server, cloud servers, and dedicated servers.

There are also several plans for web hosting companies offer. Choose the best plan according to your convenience.

Now what to look for while choosing the host?

• It is essential to know the cost of web hosting services before choosing the final plan. And most importantly, you need to renew it every year along with your domain. So, choose wisely.
• Check if your service provider gives the best customer support. As generally, not all the bloggers are techno-savvy, it is essential to have excellent and prompt customer service from the service providers.
• Check for customer reviews. Think twice before you take the step of buying web hosting.
• Check how much storage and backup they are providing.

If you are from India, it is most likely that you may want a company whose server is located in India and the payment system is more accessible. Hostgator India allows you to pay for the domain+hosting through Debit cards and even PayTM. Here are the details of how you can choose Hostgator as your service provider.

Why choose Hostgator?

Excellent uptime

Like SiteGround, Hostgator India also has 99.99% of uptime. I was with Hostgator before I moved with SiteGround and I can assure that my sites were never down for a single minute.

Excellent customer service

I signed up with Hostgator when I even did not know what a hosting account means. They were patient with me, answered even the silliest questions and helped me to purchase and install WordPress and ultimately did the migration of My Writing, My World from a free WordPress blog to a self-hosting one.

I am grateful that I did not lose a single post or image and was in peace after the migration was done.

Money-back guarantee

What? Money-back guarantee?

 Yes, folks. If you are not satisfied with the service, you can opt for money back within 45 days of your purchase. They also migrate your blog from WordPress.com to WordPress.org for free within 30 days from purchase. Isn’t it just perfect?

Hosting plans from Hostgator

Hostgator offers three different plans as per the requirement. Begin with their Hatchling plan. Here are the details of various hosting plan by Hostgator.

Let’s assume that you are going to buy the Hatchling plan. To buy it, please click the BUY NOW button.

It will prompt you to the domain page. You have to pay an extra 1100 INR to purchase it, and it’s renewable every year.

If you do not have a domain, click the no button to add it to your cart. If you already bought one, proceed with the yes button.

This page will also ask you to include additional things like CodeGuard and Back up. I suggest that you buy the SSL certificate for security.

Once you click the continue button, it will take you to the following page

Check the prices and apply if you have any coupon code. Now it will lead you to the account creation page.

Once you put all the details and create an account, you would be sent to the payment page where you can buy through your debit card, credit card, DD/cheque or PayTm. Isn’t it just great?

Click HERE to buy your domain+hosting from Hostgator.

Once you buy the domain and hosting, it is time to choose a platform for your blog and give shape to your blog.

I, like millions out there, use WordPress for blogging. It is a secure and easy platform to write, design and share on social media.

WordPress is a powerful yet easy to use platform. It offers thousands of free themes, fonts and customization. It also makes it easier to share audio and video content, making your blog beautiful and diverse.

After purchasing your domain and hosting, it is now time to install WordPress and build your book blog.

Install WordPress

If you do not want to take any chance in doing it, just contact the customer support of the company you have chosen and ask them to install WordPress for it.

If you want to configure WordPress yourself, you can do it – it’s easy too!

Here is the step by step process.

Now, it is the time to add the domain and other minute details like site name (blog name) and short description for your blog.

 After you enter all the details above, it is now time to create your username and password for your blog.

Now click the button INSTALL and your blog is loaded with WordPress where you are going to creat an amazing content and help someone. When you type www.yourblogname.com/wp-admin on your address bar, it will show you the following windo. Now put your username/email and password. It will take you to the dashboard aka backend of your blog.

Here is something I want to tell here. After installing WordPress, there is no need to check your hosting account regularly.

All your work would be done on your WordPress dashboard, which can be accessed by the above image. You just need to revisit it when you have to renew the hosting.

Now is the time you start creating content for your blog. We will discuss how to create content easily in my next blog post. Meanwhile, check what types of blog posts you can write for your book blog.