If you’re a writer, you know that the best way to get your work out there is to publish it yourself. But what if you don’t have a publisher? What if your work isn’t well-received by the public? What if you can’t afford to pay for an editor? Well, then there’s Posterous. This platform lets you write and publish your work from anywhere, without having to worry about any of those pesky publishing costs. Plus, Posterous offers a free account so that you can start publishing right away. So what are you waiting for? Start publishing today with Posterous!

Posterous makes it drop-dead simple to create a new blog.  Simply open your favorite email app, and create a new email to post@posterous.com.

Seconds later, you’ll receive a new email from Posterous.  This message will contain a link to your new post on your blog; click it to go check out the blog you just created by sending an email!

Here’s our first post listed on our new blog, that was created seconds after we sent our first email.  Note that our blog has a autogenerated URL based partly on our email account’s name.

You can now keep posting new content to your Posterous blog just by simply emailing post@posterous.com, but if you’d like to personalize your blog and choose a custom blog.posterous.com or your own unique yourblog.com address and more.  To do this, click the link at the bottom of the email you received.

Now, enter a site name and password that you want, and click Sign Up to start customizing your Posterous blog.

Now you can add your name, picture, and a bio to personalize your Posterous profile if you wish.

You’ll be asked to find your friends from your email and social networks that may be using Posterous, but you can skip this if you want.

Strangely, you’ll have to confirm your email address again once your signed up.  Check your email and click the link, and your account will finally be fully setup.

Customize Your Posterous Blog

Once you’ve confirmed your email, you’ll be able to manage your blog from the Posterous dashboard.  There are tons of options here, so let’s look at some of the most major ones.

You can even post a new blog post directly from the web dashboard if you want, or of course continue posting by simply sending an email to post@posterous.com.

The most important part of the dashboard is the settings panel.  This lets you change a lot of your blog’s feature.  Most people will want to customize their blog, and Posterous has many options for personalization.  Click the Edit Theme button beside Look and Feel to edit your theme.

Now you can choose from several premade themes, or customize the CSS on your blog’s theme to make it look just like you want.

One nice features is Google Analytics integration, which lets you see how many visits your site’s getting.  Click Edit to get started with this.

Now click Add Google Analytics, and enter your Google Analytics tracking code.  You can signup for Google Analytics if you haven’t already by following the first steps at this tutorial, or if you already have an account, here’s how to find your tracking code.

Another thing you may notice on the left sidebar is Autopost.  Select this to have Posterous automatically update a variety of online services whenever you post content on Posterous.

Now, you can add all the services you want.  Posterous can automatically post on your other WordPress or Blogger blogs, post updates to Facebook and Twitter, and more.  This way, you can actually use Posterous as an easier way to automatically update all of your services by simply sending a single email.

If you’d rather move all of your content to your new Posterous blog, Posterous can import your content from a wide variety of blogs, photo services, and more.

No matter what you want to post, or where you want to post it, Posterous is a nice blogging option that makes it easy to use your existing services easier.  Its online dashboard is definitely more complicated than simpler options such as Tumblr, but you can always just post via your favorite email client which makes it easier to post.  We’ve heard from many readers who really liked Posterous, so feel free to give it a try, and let us know what you think!

If you’d like to try out another blog service, check out some of our other articles about starting a blog, including:

Start a Professional Blog with WordPress. com Install WordPress. org Manually on Your Website Create a Beautiful & Easy to Update Blog with Tumblr Design a Beautiful New Theme for Your Blogger Blog

Signup and Learn More About Posterous

Import Your Blog Into Posterous