I received an email from a reader of mine, David Valentine, who explains that he has quite a bit of experience as an investigative reporter and has had an excellent time using these skills towards publishing weekly ezines and even an eBook. He wants to take his talents further but doesn’t have much experience with blogging, HTML, and things like that. Here is a copy of his email.

Am a writer and retired investigative reporter. Have zero skills in setting up websites. Have been writing a weekly ezine for a bit over a decade( now via icontact). Also have one ebook. The person who has been doing my websites is uncomfortable with setting up blogs. Have hosting with GoDaddy which has some kind of facility for webhosted blogs. I prefer not to have one of the free blogs.

What instructional material (pdf and video preferred) do you recommend?

I really know nothing about html, meta tags and uploading. Am well versed in a variety of Keyword programs to a point where I am doing Keyword research to help friends. I am using a combination of free tools and Micro Niche Finder (have a beta copy of their new upgrade).

Although only having discovered you in the past month; your blog has been down to earth, intelligent and significantly helpful.

David Valentine

Very simple answer to this one. Caroline Midddlebrook and Jennifer Ledbetter. These two are skilled and have a lot of material that can help you. You can of course search my blog for information related to learning, but these two sites have a much higher concentration of it. 

I believe Caroline has a free eBook that teaches how to set up a WordPress blog from start to finish. She then has other premium material available such as The Blogger’s Bible. Jennifer is a very organized and detailed minded individual and someone who you can trust. She has many premium grade articles and material as well. She started from the ground up without any prior skills or knowledge and currently today she is quite successful with online business.