When I decided to start getting serious about writing I realised that I would need a website and an e-mail address. I don’t like self-publicity, it seems so needy and particularly unBritish but for heaven’s sake, I have decided to go down the self-publishing route, a little bit of self-flag waving is going to have to be involved. Therefore a website needed to be built and a domain name secured. The general recommendation is to go with your name but of course, for me, that presented a slight problem. Unsurprisingly lizhurley.com had gone, as had lizhurley.co.uk. Hmm. OK, get creative… lizhurleyauthor.com was available so I grabbed it and went on to build the website and establish all my accounts using my new e-mail address.
A year down the line and I still didn’t like my domain name. It was the “author” bit that bothered me, and for the life of me I couldn’t understand why. After all, I was writing books, they were being published, even better people were buying them, and best of all people were liking them. So whilst saying I’m an author makes me feel like a wally it’s a valid statement. Finally, I realised the problem was down to how the title boxed me in. I’m not just an author, I’m loads of stuff. If I’m going to be defined it will be because of what I do not what I am. One is dynamic and changing. One is static and conforming.
So, it’s taken some fiddling but now I have a new domain, and whilst the change is tiny and it took me far too long to make that change, I am much much happier.
lizhurleywrites
