About the Site
Why I'm Turning My Love for England into a Website...
For me, England has always been the Enchanted Isle.
I'm Sue and I've wanted to live in England since I was six years old.
That's when I realised that Robin Hood didn't live in the woods down the road.
But I grew up in East Germany, and for many years my love for England was little more than a pipe dream until the Berlin Wall disappeared, just as I was finishing my studies.
However you looked at it, the world as we knew it changed overnight. Nothing was as it had been before. "No job, no money, prospects bleak" - as it says in the song.
In the Northumberland Hills © essentially-england.com
But that wasn't strictly true. My England dream was still there. And once I had grasped that England was now, suddenly, accessible - which wasn't that easy when you've experienced the fall of the Berlin Wall in the centre of Moscow - it needed only my best written English, a couple of stamps and a lot of courage.
Nothing happens until first we dream.
Carl Sandburg
And then, one September morning, I stood outside London Victoria Station and watched the beginning rush hour. I was in the right city, but had arrived several hours early, on the wrong station and - in a time before mobile phones were common - had trouble contacting the people who were already on the way to meet me.
Did it matter? Not a bit!
All that mattered was that I was in England
In the years since that day I've married, moved from London to Sheffield to the Cotswolds to Northamptonshire, gained my doctorate, had a few jobs, published more than thirty books, and explored the country.
England has been all I dreamed of as a six year old. But as I've grown older I've learned that our interests colour the way we look at things.
England's history and legends attracted me first. Then its rocks (I'm a geologist) and landscape. And later its food and traditions.
And when I now look at a glossy England brochure, I realise that I see a country very different from the England shown in the brochure. Even though the sites advertised and the images used may be the same.
That's because to me, each image is connected to something else I know about it:
- a story I've read
- an obscure fact I've dug up somewhere
- an anecdote someone told me
- the way the light falls on a late Sunday afternoon
You simply see deeper if you use more than your eyes and the memories stay with you, always.
Ladywell Holystone © essentially-england.com
So did the dream fade?
No. My dream of England is still there. But it changed and it's growing. First, I just wanted to see England. Then, I wanted to explore it. Now, I want to share it. I want to build the best, most helpful, most informative England web site that food and history lovers can find! And I want to spend all my days doing it!
If you think that my wish sounds crazy, you're not alone. I've dreamed this dream for a while now, but until 2007 it was just another one of my pipe-dreams.
Back then, I was a writer with a passion for England who could drive a laptop. I didn't know HTML or Java or Turbofish 8 or whatever one uses to build websites with these days. I didn't know about internet marketing and I was certainly no graphic designer. I was a writer with a passion for England, history, and food. So how could I build a website, let alone a successful one that earned me enough money to pay the mortgage?
Chasing the dream
If you've had a look around my site, you'll have seen that it can be done! Essentially England is still a long way from perfect, and miles from being 'finished' but it is 'online' and it grows a little every week.
In August 2008, eight months after the first page went live, Essentially England made it into the top 1% of all sites on the web. And every month visitor numbers and income from the site are growing.
I could never have done this alone. Not without spending many hours and tons of money learning all the technical bits. But in 2006, while looking for ways to turn my writing into a full-time occupation, I found somebody to help me.
That man is Dr Ken Evoy, the CEO of SiteSell Inc. I found one of his books - Make My Site Sell (which you can download for free by clicking the link) - in which Dr Evoy claimed that anyone with passion and dedication can build a successful online business based on information.
This was just what I wanted to do! Earn my money doing what I loved! And I was definitely interested (and passionate and dedicated) enough!
Well, to cut it short, I joined SBI on November 29th 2007. Essentially England, was born on December 14th. Since then I've built over 500 pages, started teaching online business building at the local college, built a second site, started my own business helping local companies with their keywords and content... and published novels!
SBI really does take care of all the tech stuff leaving me free to do the writing. And what this has done to my confidence and my writing, I cannot even begin to tell you. Before Essentially England I loved to write novels and articles, but a bad day at work could ruin a whole weekend's writing. Now, I write all the time: during breakfast and lunch at work, in the car, while out walking, while doing the housework ... probably even when I sleep.
It's amazing what you can do when you believe you can do it. And SBI helped me to believe just that.
Thanks, Dr Ken!
And if you'd like to know how I'm getting on with making my next pipe
dream come true, then please look around my site.
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