Several people have asked me to spell out how I created this site on
ASSTR, and I thought I'd post this message as an answer.
I wanted a way to easily have a site on ASSTR without having to edit HTML, learn a huge new program (Dreamweaver, etc.) or just have a hassle. I wanted a simple way to do a decent site. Oh, and have I mentioned I have no talent as a graphic designer?
Turns out it's not too difficult to set up -- and once its set up, it's dead easy to use. You should know the basics of creating a website -- how to use FTP, how to edit HTML, etc. You won't have WRITE any HTML, you'll just be editing it, so the skill level isn't as high -- but you'll have to have some idea what you're looking at.
When you create a site as an author or collector on ASSTR, you have a number of ways of modifying it. One way is via FTP. The idea is that you create a website on your hard drive at home and then use an FTP program to upload it to ASSTR.
We're going to combine that with a free service called
blogger. First you'll need the ftp username and password you received when you signed up for ASSTR. Hold on to those. Go to blogger.com, and sign up for an account. When it asks you where you want to publish the blog, don't pick blogspot. Pick FTP, and then let it know you want to publish your blog on ftp.asstr.org, and fill in your username and password.
When you publish your blog, you'll find it has several advertisements for Google and Blogger on it. According to the terms of service of ASSTR, advertisements are not allowed. Here's where the HTML comes in. You'll have to go to the template section of the blogger interface, and edit the template that you choose to remove the lines that put in the ads. This process will be different depending on which template you choose, so I can't give more specific instructions than that. If you get stuck you can use the form on this page to ask for help, but be warned -- my response time tends to be measured in weeks, not hours.
I suggest also using a
Creative Commons license on your site, as I have done. If you're publishing your own works it's a must -- it gets your work more widely distributed, while still prohibiting (at your option) any commercial use of your work. Well worth checking out.
I also check the stats on my pages with
Stat Counter. It's a free service and while it's kind of basic it's good enough for my needs. And it's free.
I hope these quick tips will help -- I'll be updating them as I get questions and learn which parts are unclear.
