Thread: True Tales of the Soryan Order

Hi everyone,

for the past month or so I've been posting my online novel True Tales of the Soryan Order:



It's a fantasy story I've had kicking around in my head for years. I finally got the guts to give it a real go. I hoping to build a following on this and hopefully culminate in a printed book for sale either through Lulu or CreateSpace.

I'm also looking at selling prints/merchandise. Right now I need to buckle down and compare the costs & benefits of a few different players, namely SmugMug, CafePress and DeviantArt. I'd prefer to only use one so it's less confusing but I'll have to see how it all shakes out. I may have to go with prints from one and merch from another.

Right now I'm having lots of fun setting things up. I'm still tweaking it here and there and planning on some more content to add to it. I'd love to get some feedback on it, so please feel free to check it out and let me know what you think.

-John

Nice to see you here, John.

I hear a lot of good things about zazzler in the merchandise department. Lots of people think CafePress has kind of slipped.
I would think doing deviant for prints and zazzler or CafePress for shirts and mugs and stuff would work, but I see your point. And maybe deviant has gotten more stuff available?



You've got great art, and the ability to show it and sell it is a definite benefit of webnovels.

This isn't blog software, is it? What are you using to put this up?

Hey lin, it's good to be here!

I'm going to look up that zazzler and see what they have to offer. If people are moving from CafePress to them they must have something on the ball.

I'm using Joomla (http://www.joomla.org/) to run this site. Joomla's kind of my go-to CMS software. It definitely has it's drawbacks, but I know how to get around most of them by now.

I've used Joomla, and prefer WordPress for this sort of thing, but it's certainly a powerful way to handle things.


Lot's of those people at weblit.us use Drupal, I know. Seems to work pretty well.


How'd you do your TOC. That's something that gives a lot of new web novelists fits... either having people come in on their last chapter or trying to hand-post in a widget. What you got going there?

Wow! I love the art already. I'm a new web graphic novelist, I hope you could teach ME.

Yeah Joomla can be a chore, but it is really powerful. Wordpress is definitely easier if you're starting from zero. I run my main site off WP and I found that coming from Joomla, it's actually more difficult for me to learn it since I know the "joomla way" of doing things.

The general consensus from the webmaster forums I frequent is that WP is the easiest with the cleanest code and built in SEO and accessibility, Drupal is extremely powerful but with a very steep learning curve, while Joomla falls in between. Joomla's biggest drawback's are Access Control (setting who can post, edit and approve posts), and the extension community. While there are literally thousands of extensions, anyone can write one and their not all up to professional standards plus there's very little support.

Speaking of extensions though, to make my TOC I used an extension called ARTCATS (Article Categories):

http://extensions.joomla.org/extensi...s-listing/5204

This one lists articles from a specific category. So I just assign all my story posts to that category, designate that one in the module settings and whenever I make a new post it automatically shows up there. I can set the ordering in the ArtCats module as well, so I could have it with the most recent at the top, too.

I'm not sure if it might get too unwieldy as more and more post build up but I'll have to keep an eye on it.

Originally Posted by darknite_johanne

Wow! I love the art already. I'm a new web graphic novelist, I hope you could teach ME.

Thank you very much -if you ever have any questions you can just let me know, if I can help I definitely will!

Interesting John. I was thinking that was some sort of extension. It's a problem with WordPress, too. Chris from Muses Success did a TOC widget for WordPress that does the same thing, but it can get hinky with certain themes.

I'd think the access control isn't a problem when doing a webnovel, rather than blog, because you're not necessarily inviting members and comments. (Or are you?)

I don't really want "members" per se, but I did want the ability to have comments.

This is another thing that Wordpress does better right out of the box, you don't have to tinker too much with it unless you want to plugin your anti-spam Akismet key.

For Joomla you have to sift through all the comment extensions and decide on one. I went the Disqus plugin for Joomla:
http://extensions.joomla.org/extensi...-comments/5259

Disqus itself is a 3rd party website that hosts the comments (http://disqus.com/).

I went this way just in case I become an overnight Jk Rowling success and a million comments spring up my web host won't be hitting me up for bandwidth/database overages. Although, if you hit that level you probably don't care about some piddly web hosting fees.

Also Disqus has all the Facebook/yahoo connect stuff in there so it works for me. It's one more website/login for you to deal with though so it's not for everyone.

Nice. Inspirational. I'm in the process of setting up a new wing of my site for my blognovel...I don't think I'm going to go with joomla and I'm not entirely sure about wp either. Drupal has too steep of a learning curve. I'm torn between wp and the straight-up html/css/javascript option. The problem with the latter is the amount of handcoding versus the amount of actual prose-writing.
I must say that I love the look of your pages though, and have spent considerable time this morning going through joomla's documentation. Glad you're here, John.

I don't allow comments, but they have some advantages. Like feedback that helps your story, of course. But it's also nice to show a following if you start trying to market it to the industry down the road.

Moderan. you should start a thread on your project and get comments on which way to go.

There's a lot of things you guys say that I don't understand; hard coding, joomla, wordpress, etc. As an amateur who can only draw and write stories, I've started with blogspot (that's the only thing I know) Is it advisable that I transfer while it's still early? What are the disadvantages/ advantages of each?

Joomla and drupal work very well for people who know how to do them. Same with writing code to create html pages.

But most people use blog software to avoid having to spend time on things other than creating their work. For that, a free blog is perfect.

Moving up to a Wordpress blog on your own domain--which I suggest to most people--entails a couple of expenditures.
1. There is a bit of learning, but it's not so bad. it's done for amateurs to use with minimal craziness. And they have a good support forum. You select a free theme that works for you and customize (very basic CSS changes and switching a few graphics), maybe add some widgets you want...like a table of contents. Or RSS feed (which you have now, I beleive)

2. Having your own domain and host. Some learning right there, and will run you like a hundred bucks a year, payable up front.
BUT, this will not disappear on you, you have a simple URL registered, you have email at that URL.

Other than that, not so much difference. As far as switching now... let me suggest this. If you some great domain name you want like xdman.com or editcomix.com or something, go ahead and register it. Cost you around 7-10 a year. That way nobody else can get it. Some free blogs will let you direct that URL to their blog, so you can put up links to it, etc. without it changing and rendering your links useless in the future.
If you decide you need the extra power and features of your own setup, get a host at that point and transfer your URL to point to it when it's set up.
One way to go.
A lot of important blogs and novels and such are on free blogs. I consider them risky for anybody anticipating real major use, professional branding, monetizing, etc.

Your finances affect this, of course. But if you can afford the hundred bucks a year and think it's worth it for the project, start looking into it now before you've committed a lot of time into promoting the address.

If not, just go with what you have, since it seems to be working for you.

BTW, one thing about having your own domain is that you can install more than one site or blog on it. If you've got Darknite.com you can have this project as darknite.com/xdmann another as something else. And you can use the files of your host to store and back up files, as well.

Originally Posted by lin

Joomla and drupal work very well for people who know how to do them. Same with writing code to create html pages.

But most people use blog software to avoid having to spend time on things other than creating their work. For that, a free blog is perfect.

Moving up to a Wordpress blog on your own domain--which I suggest to most people--entails a couple of expenditures.
1. There is a bit of learning, but it's not so bad. it's done for amateurs to use with minimal craziness. And they have a good support forum. You select a free theme that works for you and customize (very basic CSS changes and switching a few graphics), maybe add some widgets you want...like a table of contents. Or RSS feed (which you have now, I beleive)

2. Having your own domain and host. Some learning right there, and will run you like a hundred bucks a year, payable up front.
BUT, this will not disappear on you, you have a simple URL registered, you have email at that URL.

Other than that, not so much difference. As far as switching now... let me suggest this. If you some great domain name you want like xdman.com or editcomix.com or something, go ahead and register it. Cost you around 7-10 a year. That way nobody else can get it. Some free blogs will let you direct that URL to their blog, so you can put up links to it, etc. without it changing and rendering your links useless in the future.
If you decide you need the extra power and features of your own setup, get a host at that point and transfer your URL to point to it when it's set up.
One way to go.
A lot of important blogs and novels and such are on free blogs. I consider them risky for anybody anticipating real major use, professional branding, monetizing, etc.

Your finances affect this, of course. But if you can afford the hundred bucks a year and think it's worth it for the project, start looking into it now before you've committed a lot of time into promoting the address.

If not, just go with what you have, since it seems to be working for you.

BTW, one thing about having your own domain is that you can install more than one site or blog on it. If you've got Darknite.com you can have this project as darknite.com/xdmann another as something else. And you can use the files of your host to store and back up files, as well.

I don't understand what an RSS feed is, but I'll research that on the net later and study how to do it. But from what little I know is that it will help people know when you've got updates on your blog. I've considered myself a tech guy because I can learn technical things easily, it's just a matter of focus I guess. Now I'll consider the domain name and website very carefully. Thanks.

RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication. And it is.