A youngster with great plans

[Rethagos]

Greetings, friends.
I intend to create a website with forum attached, which will:

• be compellingly clear to browse (both site and forum)
• be responsive (adaptive to devices' screen width)(btw, a must-have nowadays)
• have a possibility to grow big

The main theme of my website will be writing per se. Fiction. Stories. That is all I can say for now.
I have a rather basic knowledge of HTML, CSS, PHP, MySQL, WordPress but, with a bit of guidance, I would even be able to write the website almost by myself.
My question is: how to make the process most efficient? I have stumbled upon some website templates, but over the time it gets kind of confusing when I try to figure them out. Not to even mention adding some new code to them.

Edit: To specify. The main website will be a blog with around 4-6 different pages. Most of content will come not just from me, but from the forum and its users. Revenue will be from ads and traffic.

 

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[Rethagos]

In addition, I have considered crowdfunding for the purpose of both getting the website funded and finding the users for the forum to post and generate additional traffic. Anything i should know before submitting my idea on Kickstarter? Or should I consider any other platform? Or drop the idea whatsoever?

 

[Vigilante]

Are you a successful writer?

People will want to know your credentials and your bestsellers before they listen to you give them advice.

 

[Rethagos]

Funny thing you ask about being a succesful writer. The thing is...
I am not.
Not a single book being published. Not that I did not try. It just... the story did not unfold.
The kicker is, many people, I believe, have the same problem.
What if we could... pool our efforts? Gather on one site, from around the world, and write stories never seen before - together? With more people, stories can unfold in unpredictable ways, gain instant appeal, and characters can be more realistic than ever.

Have you ever had a moment after you read a fiction book, which you had PAID FOR, when you put it aside and thought: "Bah, I could write a better one myself"?


There are already sites like that - concept is similar to PBF - but 99.99% of them suffer from being too niche, too ugly and too unreadable for a typical user. I am going to make this change.

 

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[Kingsta]

To setup something like this you don't need to know any coding. Use a phpbb forum as they're free/open source then host one on your website (i think theres a small charge). Then use something like wordpress for the blog side. Done.

 

[Aimee]

Just curious, but if you've never written/published a book before, what are you actually planning to write on the blog? You say most of the content will be from users posting on the forum, but how are you actually going to convince them to come to your website and, most importantly, stay there?

 

[parkerscott]

You need to take into consideration bounce rate, etc. You could be an overnight success or it may take years, but building up a forum with a large audience requires great user submitted content etc. People need to stay on your site. Ive probably joined 50 forums in the last 4 years. I only frequent 2.

Now then. For kickstarter. Kickstarter isnt a magic pill. It takes a lot of work, and people don't just magically find you on there most of the time, and not everyone opens there wallet. What do you have to offer them in exchange for their money?

You have a lot of work ahead of you in terms of marketing, and maintaining a high user retention. Building the site is the easy part. Best of luck.

 

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[Rethagos]

Promotion surely matters, can't deny that. And the fact that ppl won't flock to my website without a reason.
Thank you for pointing out these matters. I will try to work out some solutions for them and reconsider the Kickstarter, in due time. For now, I've got to get this started.
After all, the promotion is pointless if there's nothing to promote, eh?