To .Com Or Not

photo courtesy of Digital Art

  There comes a point in our careers as self publishers that we ponder taking the leap into true internet validity. To go .com status. It's sounds more professional to have blank blank.com than blank blank .blogspot or .wordpress. It looks more professional when your filling out forms and queries when you can type in your own domain name.
   For the technologically advanced twenty something, this is easy peasy pumpkin pie. For those of us that didn't grow up attached to a computer screen, this is a migraine waiting to attack. Especially if you are like me and choose to do everything the cheap way, which is usually the hard way. Now for a breakdown of where I went wrong, to keep you from making the same mistakes.
   First I didn't go through blogger's buy a custom domain option. Yes, ten dollars a year is cheap. But I wanted cheaper. So I went through a third party site and purchased my domain name for the bargain price of two dollars. Yeah I was feeling very proud of my stingy ways, until I tried to make my blog my .com.
   Let's face it, who wants to pay for per month web hosting when blogger will do it for free? Or go through the added headache of building a whole new website? If you're like me you have hundreds of hours already invested into your blog. Starting over from scratch just doesn't appeal.
   DNS servers and CName issues abound, it just wasn't worth the nine dollars I saved to go with another .com Register. Instead of my .com upgrade being a happy moment it is now the head ache I so desperately wanted to avoid. With all the other things a self published author has to worry about, a website is the last thing we want to deal with.If I can impart one single piece of advice for those of you wanting to take this step, go with bloggers offered service. Four hours tops and you are officially the prestigious owner of a .com site. Hmm, if only I knew then what I know now.
    The world of self publishing it is the very most basic DIY experience. Marketing writing, finding an editor, cover art and website building. It's enough to almost make a woman want to stick with querying for an agent and finding a publisher. Almost.