a Wordpress question

[mmegaera]

I do believe Google has hit my particular camel's back with its last straw.

Suffice to say that in less than a month, the perfectly good Blogger interface that works with my browser will be going completely away, rendering my Blogger blog uninhabitable by me.

I have excellent reasons for wanting to switch blog providers rather than screw with my existing software setup (including switching browsers -- which browser to use is my choice to make, not Blogger's), which I won't go into here, even if asked [wry g].

So I am looking to migrate my blog.

People keep talking about Wordpress. However, I notice that there are two versions, one where I have to host the blog myself, and one that works like Blogger. I am not particularly enamored of the idea of hosting the blog myself, because right now the rest of my website is hosted on the space included in my ISP contract, and I have absolutely no clue how to (or if there's enough space to) host my blog software there as well. And that's a learning curve I'd really rather not climb right now.

Is the Blogger-style version of Wordpress okay? Good? Bad? Excellent? Is there a better place to have host my blog that won't pull a Blogger interface switch on me?

Please, remember I read Dummies books on this sort of subject, not technical ones (I have one on hold at the library, but I don't know if it'll get here in time).

Thanks!

ETA: After poking around Wordpress.com's website for an hour or so, I'm not all that impressed. The theme search pages don't load properly (and not at all till after refreshed several times) and the filters to search the themes don't work at all. Is this typical of Wordpress? And if so, why are people so impressed with it?

Comments

[annathepiper]

I don't have an account on Wordpress.com so I can't speak to their ability to host a blog, I fear--I host my own Wordpress installations at murkworks.net, so I'm doing everything myself. All I know is secondhand, and that is that a lot of authors I'm aware of do have sites hosted there.

But Wordpress.com is a separate entity from Wordpress in general, so Wordpress.com may certainly have issues specific to its own site that Wordpress in general doesn't. I haven't ever had problems looking for themes on the Wordpress theme extension site, or the plugin site either.

[mmegaera]

Thanks. I'm thinking about simply setting up another account here at DW, and calling that my writerly blog, but I don't think I can customize its looks enough to be consistent with the rest of my website the way that I did with Blogger.

It's really a Don't Want To Fight This vs. I Want It To Look Professional battle right now.

[annathepiper]

FWIW, I know of quite a few authors who are perfectly happy to have an LJ or a DW blog be their blogging platform. Seanan McGuire and Naomi Novik both come to mind on LJ, as does Rosemary Edghill here.

[mmegaera]

Elizabeth Bear (matiociquala (I hope I spelled that right) does, too.

We'll see [wry g].

[annathepiper]

Yep, her too!

Good luck on getting a blog set up the way you want it, whichever way you go!

[mmegaera]

Thanks!

[cleverthylacine]

I think the best way to run a blog on DW would be to set it up as a community to which only you are allowed to post and require people to join DW or use Open ID and join the comm (you have to set it up so that not all members can post) to comment, which keeps things civil. I plan to do that with my fashion blog when I get that going. That way you can have the content public but don't have to deal with shitass anon commenters and trolls.

[mmegaera]

At this point (and in the couple of years since I started my Blogger blog) my main problem has been getting enough readers. If I didn't allow anonymous commenters (I haven't had a single troll so far, knock wood) I'd be able to hear the crickets chirping.

My main goal with the blog is to sell books, so the more the merrier.