One of our goals here at Today’s Author is to help all of the writers among us to do what we love to do: write. One of the best ways to accomplish this is by talking to each other and learning from each other. Our Writers Circle series is designed to do just that – provide a chance for us to discuss writing, editing and publishing questions.
This week’s topic is:
Most writers and aspiring writers have a web presence today. There are so many platforms and options available, it’s sometimes hard to know what to do to make sure readers can find us on the web. Today, let’s discuss whether it’s important to have your own domain name (such as http://www.todaysauthor.com) or if having a site which falls under another domain (such as: https://todaysauthor.wordpress.com) is good enough or equivalent to having your own name?
Discuss this topic here in the comments or head on over to the forums to start or engage in a more thorough discussion.
Today's Author 
I think it matters, but I’m not sure how much.
From a technical aspect, I can see a benefit from having a domain that’s easy enough to use in a conversation or text message, and also that will not get automatically shortened when sharing the link.
But I don’t know if I think there’s a strong distinction as long as the platform/subdomain is well known. I.e., I don’t think blogname.wordpress.com seems unprofessional, and because WordPress is a common address it’s easy to remember.
Even with that, I still pay the extra to have my wordpress hosted blog appear as dcroe.com.
The reason I switched for one of my blogs was so I owned it. It wouldn’t disappear or get lost in the host’s servers. They couldn’t decide to shut me out for no reason. That only matters because it is a marketing arm of my non-fic books. For my writer blog, I’m fine being worddreams.wordpress.com.
The main reason I pick my own domain name was simply a matter of control. I own my domain, andrewsviewoftheweek.com and can do what I want with it. Sadly, it’s a horrible URL, but I am too lazy to move it. Other reasons for getting your own domain is so you can control the advertising and other aspects of the site. For most of us writers, that isn’t likely to be a major concern.