First Sub-Chapter

Nice one! Since you’re reading this, you found the link.

Look back over to the left again (mobile users, re-open the menu again). Now the orange highlight is over ‘First Sub-Chapter’ to tell you where you are right now, and the whole ‘Introduction’ chapter is in a darker colour, so you can see where it fits into the whole heirarchy.

Notice also that the things you’ve viewed so far are now ticked off. This should help you keep track of where you get to, since you almost certainly won’t want to do everything here in one sitting! If you’ve been exploring on your own, you might have some things ticked off that you’ve not actually done yet - you can remove all the ticks by clicking ‘Clear History’ at the bottom of the menu there.

And don’t worry, you can go back and re-read any section as many times as you like. Or just ignore the ticks altogether.

Now, one more way to navigate around is at the top of this window. See the left and right arrows at the top right? If you click the left one it’ll take you back one section (in this case, to the introduction page again). Whereas if you click on the right one…

Let’s do it now - it’ll move us on to sub-chapter two.

Second Sub-Chapter

That’s the ticket!

Note that this is separate from your browser history. It won’t necessarily take you to the last page you viewed, it’ll take you to the next page in the sequence. Think of it like turning the page in a novel.

I advise working through this site in order, since most things build on things that came before, and I’ll often refer back to previous examples. But if you already have (say) a website set up, and just need to know about mailing lists, you can always hop ahead.

Finally you might have seen the icon of a printer up there at the top. If you want a paper copy of a page to work through, hit that and it should give you a nice layout you can then print as normal (Cmd-P if you’re on a Mac, Control-P on a PC). If you hit that at the top level of a chapter, it’ll also include all the sub-chapters too!

You’ll need to use your browser’s back button to go back from there into the main site.

Well, that pretty much covers the site navigation - so let’s just wrap up the intro and get you going!

About this guide

I believe in the philosophy of ‘crawl, walk, run’ - start small and slow, and build up as you gain confidence. This site follows that idea.

I’ll get you a basic website up and running in no time, hook it up to a mailing list and show you how to get your books listed on the main stores as easily as possible.

All along the way, I’ll be explaining why we’re doing things, as much as how. Some of my decisions might contradict advice you’ve seen elsewhere, or might even seem more complicated on the surface, but I’ll always explain the logic behind my decisions.

And most sections will have a video showing you the steps as I go through them! We love reading – it’s why we became authors – but for some things, learning by watching can be more effective. In all cases I’ll guide you through the instructions step by step, and you can either work along with me, or watch and absorb before trying it on your own.

But why listen to me?

I had a career in tech before I became a writer. I have been playing with computers since I was a child (too many years ago to admit). Back when you had to write your own code since there weren’t tools to do things for you. Later, I set up websites back when you had to hand-code everything. I used email before the software remembered your contacts for you, and every form of ‘social media’ since bulletin boards were a thing.

So I know what I’m talking about, from a tech perspective. You’re in good hands.