Giant pop-ups are another matter altogether.

These pop-ups practically fill whole screen when they load up and completely obstruct view of webpage. They are often filled with graphics and text and links and you name it.

Giant pop-ups come through like a power surge. They shock you for a second. After they load up, sometimes your web-browser stops functioning. For example, a giant pop-up can inhibit "Favorites" button. Until you remove pop-up, this function remains frozen.

Giant pop-ups are not a "user-friendly" form of online marketing. Annoying a person to this degree can cause a "failed sale". This is very worst thing that can happen when you are trying to do business.

For an explanation of why you want to do this, and how to determine what your target audience is, send a blank email to websitenewsletter@sendfree.com. That article will also tell you how to harness power of newsletters to bring in traffic.

This is something of a rough overview. If you have specific questions or want to know about something not covered here, write to michaellarocca@lycos.com and I'll try to help.

And finally, since websites that give you free advice on setting up websites tend to come and go rapidly, visit http://free_reads.tripod.com/bookpromo.html for latest version of information contained in this article.

Web Site

Free or registered? Buying your own domain name costs about US$35 A year, and paying someone to host it costs US$20 or less per month. Conventional wisdom has it that free sites don't place as well in search engines, and this is probably true. But if you're just learning, I'd start with a freebie and move it later. If you want a free webpage, you can run a search for "free websites." Here's what every web host should have:

FTP server

Banners, frames or pop-ups? Pop-ups are definitely a no-no, and personally I hate frames

An easy-to-remember address. Some use www.{server}.com/{user} and others use {user}.{server}.com. These are both fine. But something like www.{server}.com/{something}/{something else}/... is just to complicated to transmit verbally, assuming you can remember it.

CGI support, which means nothing to you now but which you'll definitely want down road

If you're looking for some help just getting started, visit Is Your Website Unfriendly? for some excellent pointers and a fine tutorial. It's at http://lbarker.orcon.net.nz/HTMLtips.html.

Also, visit Links To Helpful Sites over on MURDER MUST ADVERTISE. http://www.murdermustadvertise.com/Links.html. The site was set up for mystery writers, but advice is useful to any writer. Heavy on Internet promotion, meaning FREE stuff, but not limited specifically to Internet. Fine tips on writing as well.

You also want to visit two other sites that offers much same thing as this article does but have very different sets of resources.

Internet Authors Network http://www.xenite.org/internet_authors/

FictionHouse Raconteur http://www.fictionhouse.com/html/raconteur.html

If you don't know how to write a website, many of freebie sites give you tools to do it by menu in five minutes. Personally, I hate those. To learn all you need to know, visit:

HTML For The Complete Idiot http://www.geocities.com/hiker_jjw/

HTML Goodies http://htmlgoodies.earthweb.com/

HTML: An Interactive Tutorial for Beginners http://www.davesite.com/webstation/html/

HTML Primer http://www.htmlprimer.com/

The JavaScript Source http://javascript.internet.com/

Web Developers Journal http://www.webdevelopersjournal.com/

Webmonkey http://hotwired.lycos.com/webmonkey/