To introduce our series of articles on setting up a website or blog we have some reflections on Word press from author and blogger Anne Stormont. This is what she has to say...

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"It's ten years now since I set up my blog. It has been through many changes since then and is now my author website and the place where I continue to blog about the books I write and read.

When I first went about it, I hadn't a clue what I was doing - but I'd been told that as a fledgling writer, I had to have a home on the web. After a couple of false starts, I found Wordpress. It was easy to use (even for someone as non-techie as me) and it cost nothing. And soon I had a blog and extra pages all set up along with a free Wordpress provided domain name.

For a long time it suited me fine. I could share my posts easily via Twitter etc. Readers could easily like and comment on posts and I slowly built up a lot of subscribers to my posts. Then a couple of years ago I looked into setting up a 'proper' hosted website with my own domain name.  But it wasn't nearly as easy to use, to make alterations to, or to keep my blog to the fore.

So I scrapped that idea and returned to my original blog site. I bought my own domain names which Wordpress allow me to use, paid for a premium subscription which gives me access to lots of cool features, and revamped the whole thing to look and act like a 'proper' website plus blog facility.

Yes, I love Wordpress and I love the complete control that it gives me over all aspects of how my site looks and works. I learned by doing and by experimenting, by trying and failing, and by persevering. Now I have a site I'm proud of.

My site address is  anne-stormont.com if you want to see for yourself."

Anne Stormont

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