Cybersquatting

I often wander around the 'web' just to see what's going on. Anyway, last week, in response to a post on my favorite writing site I went and checked out this site www.sfwa.org/beware. It is basically a scam buster site with some general advice.

However, I spent some time wandering around the site & they have some fun stuff too, just couldn't resist this page Writing how to, it's a real hoot.

I also read this article on something called Cybersquatting by Nancy Mehl very scary.

Anyway it got me to thinking, there must be loads of writers out there who would like to promote their work but don't have the resources or funds. So I wrote to the author Nancy Mehl at MyShelf.Com with an idea on combating the problem. Then I thought (God I'm doing a lot of thinking these days) why not offer the idea on good old Purple Hat so, I've reproduced the e-mail below in case any women reading this might like to take advantage of it.

To all the men out there. Sorry Guys but my site is about women's word so, unless you change gender!!

E-MAIL SENT TO NANCY MEHL AT MYSHELF.COM

Hi, my name is Carol Wills and having read your article on cybersquatting I am appalled at this insidious practice. This is particularly distressing for new writers as, many do not have the resources to put up and maintain a website in the early days.

I would like to try and redress the balance a little by offering a home to any women writer published or unpublished who registers their domain name and needs a site to direct the domain name to, without the bother or expense of paying for hosting.

All they need to do is contact me with a bio and any info they want to display. I can put up a page for them on my site where the domain name can be redirected. This will of course be totally free of any charges by me. I know just a page or two is not much but every little helps, anything I can do to help 'Starve Out Cyber Rats' is a plus in my book.

Reminding yourself of the renewal date for you domain name can be a problem so, if they tell me the date they registered I will put the domain name renewal date on the authors page as a reminder for them. I will also remind them by e-mail when they need to renew the domain name. BTW while not huge my site is growing and currently attracts a couple of thousand visits a month.

I already have some bio pages on my favorite authors. I am in the process of combining the authors on Womens Words into a directory for the convenience of my visitors. There will be an authors link on the navigation bar on the home page of my site to the main authors directory for visitors to Womens Words as well as the authors own domain link redirect to their page. If the author wishes to contribute to Womens Words she is free to do so, again at no cost. This means there will also be links from the Story or Article to the authors page on Womens Words.

When the author feels able to go it alone with a full website via whichever means they like. I will willingly direct anyone through a link on the page they have on my site to their new site for as long as they wish. I have unlimited bandwidth with my host so, cost is never going to be an issues for me in the foreseeable future. I'd just like to help in some small way.

Just one more thing, I do have an affiliation with Amazon and if the author has books for sale with them I would wish to keep my affiliation commission if the book is advertise on my site. (Books with any publishers I do not have an affiliation with will also, always be linked to from the authors page on Women's Words) The affiliation commission I earn is very small but does help to defray some of my hosting costs. I also have Google ads on the site for the same reason.

If you feel this service would be useful please don't hesitate to put people in touch with me through this link Contact us and ask them to put AUTHOR DOMAIN LINKS at the top of their message. I can also be contacted at my blogPurple Hat.

Sorry this is such a long message but I have tried to anticipate most of the questions people might have however, I'm happy to answer any questions you or the author might have on the above contact info.