Resources for Your Journey

This section can be considered the tool cabinet for your online woodworking journey. We all know how vital it is to have the right tools to make our woodworking projects the best they can be. The same goes for bringing your woodworking to the online showroom. What you’ll find here are only the tools and resources I’ve used and believe will bring tremendous value to you.

These are affiliate links, so when you use these links to purchase the product or service, you allow some extra income to be made for The Woodworker’s Journey. That extra income makes it possible for me to keep bringing the best resources for your passionate pursuit of the craft.

All of these tools come highly recommended to you because I’ve used them for my own online woodworking journey. I’m giving you honest reviews and opinions of my experiences with these tools, so you can make a very informed decision before acquiring them for your own tool cabinet.

Be sure to keep checking back as I add more valuable resources for your Woodworker’s Journey.

If you have questions or need more information about them, please don’t hesitate to contact me.

Woodworking Instruction

If you’re fairly new to the art and craft of woodworking, chances are you’re also self-taught. It’s vital at this stage to find a resource of fundamental skills that will challenge you as well as strengthen your abilities and confidence. Welcome, my friend, to The Wood Whisperer Guild. (sounds so official doesn’t it? That’s because it is!)

The Guild is the brainchild of Marc Spagnuolo, aka The Wood Whisperer (perhaps you’ve heard of him?). In Marc’s own words, “The Wood Whisperer Guild is a virtual woodworking school.”

Inside the guild, you’ll find a large archive of videos, interviews (including one with yours truly), articles, resources, live demos, a tremendously supportive forum, and many opportunities to interact and learn from fellow guild members. Plus, you get three opportunities each year to put those skills to use during the seasonal “Guild Builds.” Also if you ever run into serious problems, Marc has a special emergency email so you can receive fast replies to your urgent woodworking quandaries. Oh, and did I mention discounts? Yeah, Guild members get exclusive discounts on a large variety of tools and products.

Web Hosting

This site, as well as all of my sites, run on WordPress. Each site is self-hosted, which means I have space on a server somewhere…out there. I pay for that space from a dedicated hosting company. Before I ever set up my first web site, I did a lot of research into the top hosting companies and their reputations.

After an exhaustive comparison I went with BlueHost and almost two years later, I can honestly say it was a fantastic decision. Their prices are very competitive, you can host unlimited domains on your account, and their 24 hour tech-support is top notch. Setting up a website with BlueHost is really easy. They have the whole process down to a few points, clicks, and passwords. In under an hour, you have a fully functioning web site with WordPress loaded and ready to be filled with your amazing woodworking knowledge.

Website Themes

When it comes to website themes and customization, I am a real newbie. Seriously. When I created my first website, I searched for days looking at all the free themes out there. It was sensory overload! There are some terrific free themes floating around, but each one I tried didn’t have the look and feel I needed for the site. About that time, DIY Themes released this revolutionary new theme called Thesis. If you’ve cruised around the web a bit, you’ve more than likely come across an add or a mention of a site using Thesis. I know for a fact, you’ve interacted on sites using Thesis because that’s what I use for all of mine!

Now, Thesis isn’t free. It’s definitely a premium theme, but it is a real investment. The latest version has a huge control panel to customize all the colors, fonts, columns, … you name it. It’s easy to use, and anyone who can point a mouse can make customizations. If you’re looking to make major changes you will need to know a bit of coding. If that’s not your game there are hundreds of free skins for Thesis that you can tweak to fit your look. Also, search engines love sites with Thesis. When you invest in Thesis you get premium upgrades for life, and you get access to the amazing Thesis help forums. I’m not big on forums, but this place has saved my skin more than a few times. Everyone is there to help and lend a hand in every possible way. It’s fantastic

Email Marketing

Setting up a website is half the battle. Staying in touch on a regular basis with your awesome audience is a must these days. The best way to do this is using an auto-resonder email service. No, I’m not talking about spamming your people. I’m talking about sending regular emails and newsletters to people who sign up for them. The beauty of auto-responders is the ability to compose messages and have the delivered at a pre-set time. You can also customize messages for certain groups of people. It’s pretty amazing. This means you type an email only once and then it’s delivered to your thousands of fans instantly!

I use and love Aweber. It’s easy, they have simple walk-through instructions the first time you use it, and there are a lot of templates for email newsletters. To be honest I haven’t found the templates as pleasing to my taste as I hoped, but that’s an issue that can be worked around with a custom template. Aweber is very reliable and in the time I’ve used them, I’ve never had a message come back undeliverable. It’s very affordable and brings a valuable service to your website and business.

Shopping Cart

If you’re going to take orders or sell items online, then you need a shopping cart. There are a lot of high quality services out there, but if you’re just starting out, the high cost is very prohibiting. That’s why I love E-Junkie.

With E-Junkie you can sell digital products, physical products, create discount codes, and even set up affiliate programs so other people can sell your work. Also, at higher price levels, E-Junkie will host your digital products. It integrates smoothly with PayPal, and other payment systems, so taking credit cards as well as PayPal payments is a snap. But, the part I love most about E-Junkie? It starts at $5 a month! Yup, $5 and you’re ready to start selling!