Blogger setup:
Blogger is the cheapest, easiest and most stable way to host a website today. Its FREE and they give you UNLIMITED BANDWIDTH so if your site happens to get a million visitors in one day it won’t break.
Now when I made the site for my new film Heart String Marionette and decided to do this whole sell it for $5 thing I was inspired by Louis C.K.’s Live at the Beacon campaign. If you’re not familiar with it, it goes like this.
Famous comedian sells his new video for $5 DRM free on a super basic website using paypal and makes a million bucks in a week. Now that’s all awesome except that it was reported that he was charged $32,000 for the original site design 0_0
I used to be a web designer way back when but nowadays I just customize Blogger templates as that’s all a filmmaker needs. I knew the site he paid $32k for could be made in about an hour with Blogger for free!
So let’s make a $32,000 site for free! It’s already a proven design as professionals made it and it was SUPER successful for Louis C.K.
So all I did was pretty much borrow that PROVEN SUCCESSFUL site design but I made it with Blogger with the help of my assistant. (If you want to hire her to create your site/design for you at an affordable price click here.)
One thing a lot of people don’t like about blogger is the blogspot.com address BUT if you buy your own domain name you can EASILY use that address for your blog so you wont have any of that blogspot business in your address. See my site here for example, there’s no blogspot up there in the address is there? I’ll show you how to do that at the end of the article.
Now let’s get your site going!
Steps to get your site up and running:
Download these files as they will be required.
Step 1: Go to Blogger.com and create a new blog, use the title of your film as the blog name, choose the “Awesome Inc” template
Step 2: Import the blog template I’ve supplied here by clicking the “Backup/Restore” button in the top right corner, be sure to click the upload button after selecting it
Step 3: Click on the gear icon underneath the Mobile blog template and select “No” to turn off the mobile blog template
Step 4: Click the customize template button. Click the “Background” tab, remove the image and replace it with your own based on the template I supplied.
*At this point you can make any color changes that you want to the template to match your background images colors.
Click the “Back to Blogger” button on the top left after saving your changes.
Step 5: Click on “posts” on the left hand side of the blog then “create new post” Leave it without a title. Click the “html” button and paste in the text I’ve supplied in the “Post_data” file. Switch back to “compose” made and replace the text with your text, replace the DPD buy button with your own, and replace the embedded youtube trailer with your own. Publish the post.
* To complete the previous step you need to have already setup your DPD account
Step 6: Switch to the “layout” section and click on the edit button on the lower right hand side of the “Blog Posts” box. Uncheck all the checked options then hit “save” There should be a wide box named “Blog archive” below the “Blog Posts” box, click “edit” on the “blog archive” box and press “remove” then hit the orange “save arrangement” button.
Step 7: Click on the “pages” tab and create two new “blank” pages, “Nfo” and “Screenshots” Copy and paste the text from the “Nfo_template” I supplied into the Nfo page, replace the placeholder data with your own the click “Publish” For the screenshots page click the image icon and upload three high quality screen shots from your film, click on the photo and choose then “X-Large” size. Click “Publish”
Step 8: Using the custom header image you made based on my supplied template. Click on the "layout" tab on your blog then click the "edit" button on the "header" box. Upload your header image and choose the option "Instead of title and description" Click "save"
Step 8: Using the custom header image you made based on my supplied template. Click on the "layout" tab on your blog then click the "edit" button on the "header" box. Upload your header image and choose the option "Instead of title and description" Click "save"
Step 9: The only thing left to do is to use your own personal domain in place of the blogspot address. If you bought/buy your domain through Google or Godaddy its an easy process. If you got your domain through Godaddy go here and enter your domain name. You can also buy one quickly and easily from Goggle in the next step if you don't have a domain.
Now go back into your Blogger “settings” and click the “basic” tab. In the “Publishing” section click “+Add a custom domain” You now have a choice to buy a domain from Google if you don’t already have one. If you’re buying one through Google now enter the desired address and purchase it. If you already have a domain through Godaddy or somewhere else click the “Show advanced settings” tab then enter your domain name and click “save”
Done! Your site is ready to sell your film! Getting the word out about your film is up to you! So go nuts! I hope you make a million bucks!
*If you don't have time to do the blogger tweaking yourself. You can hire us to do the site setup and design quickly and affordably by clicking here.