My blog

[Peanutte]

I decided I would write a blog.

Whether anyone would be interested in reading it I don't know - but there's only one way to find out.

With hindsight, I should have got someone to set it up for me - but I didn't have hindsight at the time. I have set up a website. Or a blog - with Wordpress. I have actaully written an introduction. But I am now faced with loads of stuff which I do not understand.

Plus, I thought I was signing up to £8 per month - but £200 zoomed off my credit card, which is for two years. That's ok but it was not what I intended. It also makes me sound incompetent, which generally I am not.

Can anyone suggest where I can go to get an expert to take this on for me?

Thank you.

[UncleEbenezer]

Your blog is for whatever you choose to share with the world.

There are plenty of zero-cost options available, such as wordpress.com or blogger.com. Which leads me to wonder what you're paying for? Surely whoever is taking your money should, at the very least, be offering a support line?

Since you mention Wordpress, presumably you're using their software. Wordpress's own fora should offer mutual support with that.

[PrincessB]

Whether anyone would be interested in reading it I don't know - but there's only one way to find out.

I'm likely to get corrected here.

If I have this right:

If you want to set up a free blog, your output is owned by the company that provides the service to you free (no obvious charges). The devil is in the detail.

If you pay money, you'll retain the ownership of your output, so if someone wants to publish, it's all yours to sell on. While I've never read 50 shades of Grey or Bel de Jour's stuff, they may have taken the precaution to retain ownership.

I never minded the Motley Fool or for now, Lemon fool owning my output given the sort of stuff we talk about (usually topical and out of date in time).

If I were writing interesting (or perhaps) saucy stuff with a view towards a set of books, a TV series and a few films, I'd research further into who owns the content.

B.

[dionaeamuscipula]

Whether anyone would be interested in reading it I don't know - but there's only one way to find out.

I'm likely to get corrected here.

If I have this right:

If you want to set up a free blog, your output is owned by the company that provides the service to you free (no obvious charges). The devil is in the detail.

If you pay money, you'll retain the ownership of your output, so if someone wants to publish, it's all yours to sell on. While I've never read 50 shades of Grey or Bel de Jour's stuff, they may have taken the precaution to retain ownership.

I never minded the Motley Fool or for now, Lemon fool owning my output given the sort of stuff we talk about (usually topical and out of date in time).

If I were writing interesting (or perhaps) saucy stuff with a view towards a set of books, a TV series and a few films, I'd research further into who owns the content.

B.

I'm pretty sure TLF has a perpetual licence to publish your and my posts, but that the copyright is retained by the author. I would expect this to be the same for wordpress but I don't know.

DM

[UncleEbenezer]

Wordpress's T&Cs grant them and others certain rights to use your contents published there, but it looks like "fair use" terms. This works for me:

You also give [...] permission to share your Content [...] so long as they use only a portion of your post and they give you credit as the original author by linking back to your website

They make no attempt to claim copyright, or to deprive you of rights to use your material elsewhere, in the way a publisher or employer may do in much more specific circumstances. I should imagine any such claims would be held invalid or unenforceable in most if not all countries.

[supremetwo]

I decided I would write a blog.

Plus, I thought I was signing up to £8 per month - but £200 zoomed off my credit card, which is for two years. That's ok but it was not what I intended. It also makes me sound incompetent, which generally I am not.Thank you.

Is it via the 'official' Wordpress web site?

if so Purchases made on WordPress.com can be canceled and refunded during the refund period.

And does this involve the purchase of a domain name as well?

[Peanutte]

Thank you for all the responses.

I didn't know you could do it for free - I didn't understand about the host.

After reading the comment by UncleEbenezer, I went back to the hoster and looked at their set-up videos, which looked easy on the screen, but (I found) trickier to do myself. So I did an online chat with one of their people. I succeeded in reducing the package I have bought to a more basic package which gave me a refund of about £40 - but I still thought it was expensive for what I needed.

So I went on the online chat again last night and cancelled my membership.

I have cancelled everything and they are going to refund all my money in the next 14 days.

So - back to the drawing board.

Thanks again.

[UncleEbenezer]

It's a shame if you cancelled. Wordpress is very easy and intuitive to get started just blogging. You can leave more complex stuff - like tailoring the appearance of your blog - until later, when you feel the urge to explore your options. That's also the right time to decide what if any paid options you want - apart from the initial decision over whether to fork out a few pence for a (non-Wordpress) domain name.

I guess that's the advice I should've given in my first reply. Just get blogging, and leave all the more complex stuff until you're ready to play.

[mrbrightside]

It sounds like your hosting company answered your request for 'a blog' by selling you a WordPress blog and 24 months hosting which was rather more than you wanted or needed.

However, don't be discouraged. You can get started with a blog and use WordPress completely for free (without any need for a hosting company). The free WP version creates a site like http://myblog.wordpress.com, adds some ads to your content and doesn't allow plugins or themes but is user friendly and ideal to experiment and evaluate blogging.

After your recent experience, just make sure you select the 'Start for free' option !

https://wordpress.com/pricing/

HTH - Andy