RSS feeds are cool. They deliver your content directly to your reader...readers don't even have to visit your site!!

Many writers have found the fun and promotion opportunites of blogging. As a published author, blogging keeps your fans engaged and keeps your name in the forefront of their minds. As an unpublished author, you can keep your writing skills sharp and as you gain readers you’ll have a great place to announce your new publishing contract.

Beginning a blog is easy. Just pick a blogging software, decide on your angle and go! There are several software solutions to choose from. Blogger is free and very popular. Typepad is a pay service which is very solid and used by several authors I read. Another alternative (the one I use) is WordPress. It’s similar to Typepad, but actually lives on my server. There are pre-made templates, called themes in Typepad, you can use to give your blog a little personality.

Recently, I had a client who had her domain name held hostage by a former web designer. Whether it was malice on the part of the designer, or just busyness I’m not sure, but I do know it caused us a week’s work of headaches.

Unfortunately this is a fairly common occurrence. My client had the utmost trust in her designer when she hired her. She probably didn’t think twice about the details of domain registration and site hosting when she signed up, instead she trusted her designer. While a great relationship with your web designer is essential, so is control over the finished product -- including the domain name.

It happened again. For the third time in as many months I received an email from a client reading something like this:

Hey Mary, I just received a letter from XYZ Internet Marketing Corporation and they’re threatening to remove my website from all search engines if I don’t renew my domain with them by the third of next month. They tell me I’ll get detailed search engine reports monthly from them, but it costs $60 to do this. Who are these people and could I possibly have an account with them??