Just Leave My Website Alone

It's bad enough that spammers/scammers think they have the right to gum up my inbox, and thankfully most of their messages land in my spam folder, but denigrating my website? Automatic delete. 

Does anyone ever stop to think that maybe I'm just fine with my ugly site? As an author who sells no copies of her books, why in the world would I choose to spend money on website hosting? Just to say I did it? 

Let's be frank. Indie authors are constantly told the things they must do, and all of those things cost money. We must hire an editor, we must pay for a professional cover design, and we must have a website, along with so much more. Why? And please tell me how I'm going to recoup all those expenses. 

On the one hand, experts tell us to treat book selling like a business. But no business would even be a business for very long if all they managed to rack up were operating losses and no revenue. Oh, you say, but what about risk? Doesn't a business have to consider the risk versus reward ratio? Well, I do and I have.

I'm working with practically zero capital, and what little I have I'm basically "stealing" from my family's living expenses. What kind of "manager" would risk her family's existence by draining the coffers?  

Writing was supposed to be a fun pastime, one that would maybe provide a little extra boost to my bank account, although that hypothetical boost is not why I write (or wrote). It would have been an extra-added bonus, though. Well, the fun panned out, but the income didn't. I'll freely admit it. Sure, I did some things wrong, but it's too late to go back and do "right" things. I'm already at the clearance sale stage. Next step will be turning out the lights.

So, no, no editor for me. The risk isn't worth the reward that will never arrive. I'm finally getting a professional book cover as a last-ditch attempt to stop the bleeding. And obviously, I don't have a pretty website. My only visitors are from Nigeria, China, and Pakistan; and I don't think they're looking for their next women's fiction read. I actually don't care whether they like the looks of my website or not. Hell, I don't even care that I don't like the looks of it. It costs me $0.00 per month. That's right in line with my book revenue.

See, what those armchair experts fail to take into account is, not every author is flush with cash. Stop telling me what I must spend money on! You don't know me and you don't know my financial situation. F you. At least I can be proud of my work, unlike those who grind out slop articles like that for $$. How about trying to be a real writer, expert?

After I published my first two novels, I really did want to be a businesswoman. I secured hosting from Wix and I bought my domain name. I set up my Wix site as professionally as its interface allowed. Never got one single visitor. Heck, Wix even provided me with a dedicated email address, through which I received zero messages, with the exception of the same scammers I hear from today.

After a while, I began questioning why I was paying for the opportunity to be invisible. I could be invisible for free! Sure, there were a few free hosting services that included ad spam, but I do have my pride. Anytime I pull up a site that bombards me with ads, I'm out of there. First of all, the flash slows my old PC down to a crawl and sometimes kicks me out of my browser completely. And if I want to view the site's contents, I'm constantly blocked by pop-ups that I have to X out of, then wait for the site to catch up. Nope, not doing it; not with my site. My site is for my use, not to act as a shill for some Chinese trinket company. 

So as a long-time Blogger user, I created my free website with Blogger. Just like with Wix, Google, too, gives me a dedicated email address. Clearly, Blogger has severe limitations, but it's a tradeoff that I accept. And it's not entirely awful. I'm aware that its backgrounds are what can be described as "dull". They don't pop. My current color scheme is something I'd call dishwater grey. I could change that, but Blogger's color options range from dingy to NEON! with nothing in between. Plus, one would need to be a programmer to get Blogger to execute a simple task like lining up two images side by side. (Never works; trust me. I've tried a million times.) I've customized my Blogger site as much as its capabilities allow, and it took a lot of effort to even attain the look it has now.

If I attracted even one human visitor who was remotely interested in my books, well, one wouldn't be enough. Let's go with twenty. Then maybe I'd take a fresh look at my site. 

I could pay a freelancer about $1,000.00 to design a website for me, but why? What would I get out of that? What I would get is one more debt, atop all my other debts.

So, spammers, stop emailing me about how ugly my website is. Automatically, I've crossed you off my list, because you've just insulted me. 

Indie authors, yes, treat your publishing as a business, but don't go bankrupt over an ephemeral "hope". Hope never once sold widgets.