Its ironic.  I manage software developers by day, brilliant people who design software for the US military.  We swim in C++, Java, .Net, and real-time weapon systems hardware/software - but I know squat about building a simple website.  I did not even know where to start.

I knew I wanted it simple.  I just needed a place to begin some basic communication with anyone who might get interested in my work.  I wanted this built before I published anything.  Once I get stuff out there I wanted a place where people could go to become a fan, learn more, etc.  You know, to begin building my legion.

I just needed a few basic features:

• A blog
• A place to post free written work
• A public email
• A way for people to 'follow' me
• Cheap or free

So after a bunch of research, I went with GoDaddy.  I won't bore you with everything I looked at - self hosting, free design software, Blogger, Wordpress, templates, blah blah blah.  At the end of the day Godaddy worked for me.  It was cheap to buy the Gregorylyons.net domain ($20 or so) and, more importantly, they had a very easy to use web template tool called Smart Space.  Within 30 minutes I had gregorylyons.net live, a basic website that had colors I liked, a blog, a place for posting Word docs, and an email.  All for $4.99 per month.

So now I can link to the blog through Facebook, Twitter, and anything else I use to promote my writing.  People can subscribe to the blog and I can use that to communicate.  If I post a new piece of writing or what have you I just blog about it and anyone subscribed gets updated.  I can manage a whole lot of communication for five bucks a month.

There are other options but this one worked for me.  Check it out here:

GoDaddy SmartSpace

Next up: how to use the web to get published.