[acc title=”Why do authors need a website?”] Your author website is the hub of all of your online marketing. It enables you to control your brand, image and showcases you as a professional. For an extended answer, plus so much more, why not grab our free e-guide: The Ultimate Author Website info pack (for the non-techie).  [/acc] [acc title=”Why do you love WordPress?”] Oh let us count the ways! In a nutshell, because it’s the easiest system for non-techies like me to learn, and quickly too. It allows individuals to run and manage their websites easily and effectively, producing empowerment like no other content management system has done before or since… The longer answer to that is in this article. [/acc] [acc title=”Can I use Authorlicious with WordPress.com?”] No. Authorlicious is only available for self-hosted WordPress sites. (WordPress.org. For a simple explanation of the differences between WordPress.com and WordPress.org, see this article.) [/acc] [acc title=”I have a site on Blogger. Can I transfer it to WP?”] You can transfer all of your posts, comments and subscribers; you can’t transfer your pages or images. It’s a fairly easy process – WP has an “import from blogger” option and tons of people do this seamlessly all the time. [/acc] [acc title=”What is a WordPress theme?”] When you download and install WordPress it comes with a very basic look and design (the default WordPress theme). You can then place a theme on top of this, which provides additional functionality and design elements to the core features – both of which differ with each theme.[/acc] [acc title=”Why would I pay for a theme?”] The short answer is that like most things in life, You Get What You Pay For! The longer answer is…

SUPPORT

Excellent support & a helpful community. Free themes don’t come with support, and this alone is worth the price of the theme – free customer support means you won’t have to call up your brother in law of pay for a developer every time something happens to your site that you can’t control. Premium theme developers provide full support for limited time period or for lifetime.

OPTIONS

There are usually more options on the back end to allow you to customize your site more than cookie-cutter free themes.

COMMUNITY & DOCUMENTATION

For non-urgent site modifications and questions, you can find the answers to your queries usually in the form of FAQs and forums.

SECURITY

This is a MAJOR reason why premium is worth the upfront $! While free themes might look nice on the surface, who knows what is going on under the hood. Malware & bugs are a big problem with free themes, and the creator has no obligation to fix them since the theme was, well, free. Paying a developer to fix your site can get very expensive, very fast.

UPDATES

Premium themes are updated to be compatible with each new version of WP (Free themes are not) This can save a lot of time and frustration down the line.

SEO

Premium themes are usually optimized for search engines. (They show up better in search results). In free themes, many developers encrypt back links into the theme which can seriously damage the site’s search engine results.

[/acc] [acc title=”But I don’t know how to use WordPress!”] That’s okay :) There’s no time like the present to learn. We provide mini-video tutorials on every aspect of WordPress as part of the theme package as well as help instructions in the dashboard. The theme is designed for beginners and non-techies, though there are advanced options for those more familiar with WordPress. We also provide a year of customer support to make sure that you have all of your burning questions about WordPress and the theme answered.
[/acc] [acc title=”What expenses are involved in setting up my author website?”] You will need to buy a domain name (no more than $15/ year), pay for hosting ($5-$30 month), buy the Authorlicious theme, and install WordPress.org (free). [/acc] [acc title=”What hosting companies do you recommend? Why?”] We’ve worked with several different hosting companies over the years, but there are only three that we can whole-heartedly recommend for site speed, excellent customer service and reliability. These are (in order of low-high cost) Blue Host, Media Temple, and WP Engine. (Affiliate links). [/acc] [acc title=”I don’t know how to get a domain name or set up hosting. Can you help with this?”] Yes, absolutely. If you sign up with any of our preferred hosting companies (see above) through our affiliate links (also see above), we get a small commission. This allows us to spend the time required to set up your hosting, domain and even install WordPress and the Authorlicious theme for you. If you have a different hosting provider but would still like help setting up your domain name and hosting, this option is available for a one-time payment of $45. [/acc] [acc title=”I already have a domain name/ URL. How do I get it to point towards my new Authorlicious site?”]

Install a new WordPress.org site to your hosting company’s server. You can then install the Authorlicious theme to WordPress. When your site is ready to go live,  go to the domain DNS settings page at your hosting company’s site, and point the domain to your new site. Finally, update the URL settings in your WordPress dashboard.

[/acc] [acc title=”What type of customer support do you provide?”] We know how important good customer service is. Not just good, but outstanding. We’ll be available to answer your questions, concerns and heck, where to find the best coffee in Seattle, for a full year after you purchase the theme. Available via email. [/acc] [acc title=”Who are you?”]  Nice of you to ask! We’re a husband and wife team, 30 Day Books. You can find out more about us here: /about-us/. [/acc] [acc title=”Are you affiliated with WordPress?”]

Not at all! We toot WordPress’s horn because we genuinely believe in its awesomeness. We do attend monthly WordPress meetups (a kind of fan club!) here in Seattle, but WordPress is an open-source, free software that we have no financial affiliation with. We do it for the love of it ;) [/acc] [acc title=”I have a question not listed here. Can I ask you?”] Yes, please do! And no question is too “stupid”. Websites are confusing and we’re here to help make it less confusing. Email me at laura [@] 30 daybooks.com.

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Preview the fab Authorlicious theme here!