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Pros and Cons of having one's own website

 
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brady kj
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PostPosted: Sun Jun 26, 2011 6:45 pm    Post subject: Pros and Cons of having one's own website Reply with quote

I've been hosting my webcomic on DrunkDuck, and s many of you noticed, I've been having problems with DrunkDuck for quite some time.

So, I'm considering buying my own domain name. I know they're cheap these days, are easier to remember, and can really make an artist look professional.
However, it means I would have to do a lot of coding to make my website function properly and look nice. And I imagine there are a lot of advantages to working with a shared hosting site, because it would be easier to meet other cartoonists who would give me advice, tell their readers about my comic, and be just plain awesome people.

What do you think I should do? And what would you were making a comic strip?
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Tulsileaf
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PostPosted: Mon Jun 27, 2011 8:00 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Hmm, I estimate on NearlyFreeSpeech.net it would cost you less than $30 a year for hosting and private domain registration. I guess other hosts would be in the same ballpark. Your real cost would probably be in building a website. I would have suggested WordPress but they got hacked recently. You could take this as an opportunity to learn Drupal or whatever. Smile
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brady kj
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PostPosted: Mon Jun 27, 2011 8:44 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Actually, I was under the impression that it's $10 a year. So, what's the cost of building a website? And is Drupal a programming language? I've never heard of it. I tried to learn C++ once, but my friend teaching me didn't really know much about it either.

And if I put my strip on a shared site, which one would be good? I've had problems with both DrunkDuck and ComicGenesis.
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Tulsileaf
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PostPosted: Mon Jun 27, 2011 9:06 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

$10 a year is for domain registration only. I assumed you may want hosting as well. Wink

Drupal is a content management system, not a programming language. Razz

Most comics I follow have switched away from shared comic hosts and are either on Wordpress or something of their own concoction. Most of these artists are trying to earn some serious money from their works. So I guess it depends on what you want to get out of your webcomic. As I am no expert in this area, I shall defer to the superior judgement of the esteemed members of this community. Smile
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young
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PostPosted: Mon Jun 27, 2011 2:17 pm    Post subject: Re: Pros and Cons of having one's own website Reply with quote

brady kj wrote:
I've been hosting my webcomic on DrunkDuck, and s many of you noticed, I've been having problems with DrunkDuck for quite some time.



I said that off the bat when you said DrunkDuck that years ago it was nothing but a headache. This was probably close to 7 or 8 years ago. It's kind of sad that to this day they still offer a product that is unreliable.

To answer your questions here we go.

As for the price. To register a URL I believe it's roughly 10 bucks. Those are cheap. Then you have to pay for hosting. Which will run you about 10 bucks a month for basic hosting. As you get more and more fans your bandwidth will go up and you will have to pay more. That is something you don't have to worry about right now. Unless you somehow become an over night sensation. Unless your friends are Gabe and Tycho, or Scott Kurtz it's not going to happen that easy. With the over saturation of webcomics because it's easy to make one without it being good it can be hard to get noticed. It does help if you network with twitter, and facebook, or any other social media.

The pros are that your own hosting means you can do whatever you want on your website... As long as it's in terms of the host you have. They could have limitations on what you put on your website... Other than that you can put whatever you want, and any money you make off of it is all yours.

As for knowing coding, that does help... or atleast be friends with someone that knows some coding. A lot of artists use comic press which is a design of word press to allow most of what you need to be there. For a starting web page that is fine and will get you to where you need to be at first.

The only con(s), IMO, is that you pay for your own website and have to know coding. DrunkDuck and Keenspace offer free hosting and free coding, but it's very limited to what you can do. They also run ads on your page whether you want them to or not, and any money you make off your product they take a percentage of. You may get some free advertising on DrunkDuck, or Keenspace, or ComicGenesis whatever it is these days. But any that you get will not really help you to much.

Those sites are overly populated and it's really hard to get yourself noticed on them. They also favor certain authors which has always bugged me. Getting to keenspot can be a Keenspace authors big break, but it's nigh impossible for it to happen. Yet you will see one author that will have like 5 spots on Keenspot when four of those should of gone to other authors instead of the one author who is juggling 5 comics at one time.


You can also do what some authors do and that is use the free sites until you have been doing your strip long enough to really know for sure this is what you want to be doing, and focus in on your product. Paying for your own website without actually putting out a consistent product is not going to get your many fans, and will end up eating through your pocket in the long run. So a free site, while it may be a headache may allow you to focus on your product and work, and hone it to a level that you are comfortable before paying for the real thing. After all you have to pay for your URL, and if you keep changing it with your different comics because you didn't like the title, or concept of the other one can get pricey at 10 bucks a pop.
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brady kj
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PostPosted: Mon Jun 27, 2011 3:14 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Well, I recently picked out the perfect title for my reboot, Alien Life (far superior to "Zargaz and Barry", and surprisingly, there is no alienlife.com. I can afford $10 a month for hosting. But I don't know what a content management system is, or wordpress, and all my friends who know coding are very busy sorts of people. So I think I should stick with a free hosting site until I learn a thing or two about making websites.

What I want to know now is: What's a good website to put my comic on in the meantime? I want something that won't malfunction like DrunkDuck, will let me have my comics appear sometime after I upload them, and preferably will let me see how many people view my page. I've done Comc Genesis the first time I dabbled in webcomics, and found the upload process confusing.
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young
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PostPosted: Mon Jun 27, 2011 3:38 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

brady kj wrote:
Well, I recently picked out the perfect title for my reboot, Alien Life (far superior to "Zargaz and Barry", and surprisingly, there is no alienlife.com. I can afford $10 a month for hosting. But I don't know what a content management system is, or wordpress, and all my friends who know coding are very busy sorts of people. So I think I should stick with a free hosting site until I learn a thing or two about making websites.

What I want to know now is: What's a good website to put my comic on in the meantime? I want something that won't malfunction like DrunkDuck, will let me have my comics appear sometime after I upload them, and preferably will let me see how many people view my page. I've done Comc Genesis the first time I dabbled in webcomics, and found the upload process confusing.


Wordpress is a blogging system. People use that to create a blog, and you can put whatever you want on the blog... Well, if it's hosted by wordpress you have to abide by their rules.

As for free comic hosting sites. I only know of DrunkDuck, ComicGenesis/Keenspace and both of those were crap at times. Most artists on those sites were quick to get their own site as soon as they can.
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brady kj
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PostPosted: Tue Jun 28, 2011 6:43 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

True. But I'm planning on having my new comic up before this weekend, and if I were building my own site on my evenings after work, while reading on-line tutorials for building a website, it would be even worse crap than those two.
Unless it's easier than it sounds, and somebody can just break it down into steps for me.
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