1. Domain and DNS
Buying a domain through Fasthost, pointing it correctly, and avoiding the usual minor acts of administrative sabotage.
Guide
Using Fasthost, Git and Azure Static Web Apps. Cheap, controllable, and far less mysterious than some services would like.
This page will become a full step-by-step walkthrough for authors who want their own website without paying a small fortune for something they can largely do themselves.
The downloadable PDF walkthrough is coming soon. In the meantime, this page outlines the approach and the core tools involved.
What this guide covers
Buying a domain through Fasthost, pointing it correctly, and avoiding the usual minor acts of administrative sabotage.
Creating a lightweight author site with plain HTML and CSS that you actually understand and can update yourself.
Keeping your site in Git so changes are trackable, recoverable, and not dependent on a vague memory of what worked last Tuesday.
Hosting the site cheaply and reliably, with deployments tied to your repository so updates are clean and repeatable.
Connecting a sign-up form, privacy page and simple analytics without turning the whole exercise into a compliance opera.
Who this is for
This guide is aimed at writers, small publishers and generally stubborn people who would rather own their site than rent a bloated service forever.
You do not need to be a professional developer. You do, however, need a basic tolerance for instructions, settings screens and the occasional oddly named menu item.
Coming shortly
A printable PDF version of the full walkthrough will be linked from this page once it is ready.
Price: free. Emotional cost: dependent on DNS.
Until then
If you reached this page from the author site, the principle remains the same: don’t pay for an expensive service when most of what you need is free or cheap.
← Back to the author page