Just for the record, the amount of time it takes from the time someone decides to to use a new pseudonym to:
- Google the potential problems with the name, then register the variant that’s the most promising.
- Wait for DNS to propagate.
- Find a theme for a landing page site template.
- Upload the bare bones to the writer’s server of choice.
- Find the right stock art and fonts for the right look. Requires searching five different sites, but you think you nailed it for not just the one book, but the planned series.
- Start setting up the email accounts. This needs another round of DNS propagation for reasons you never have figured out, and it’s two in the morning already.
- Restart Apache. Whoops.
- Web server down! No………..
- Obligatory teeth gnashing step.
- Oh, that’s why. Doh.
- Web server running again. Phew.
- Design the book cover from scratch. Fuss with it a few times.
- Hack and saw the web site template into something resembling what you need right now.
- Verify that the email accounts now work. Woohoo!
- Hack and saw the background image that isn’t as perfect as you thought it was. What’s that jaggy edge? Ewww.
- Write all the copy for the web page.
- Have the author sign up for Twitter.
- Have the author sign up for Smashwords.
- Figure out how you broke the author’s web site’s layout. Twice.
- Fix it, declare victory!
…eight hours have passed. And $35 or so ($15 for domain, $12 for landing page template, $8 for art).
Just in case you’re ever inspired to, you know, do the same.
I can has nap nao?