Whether you’re on your hundredth book or are almost done writing book one, you have likely been told to get yourself an author website.
I’m going to go ahead and answer the central question of this blog post now: yes. You really need an author website.
Having a website nowadays is as essential as having a business card. In fact, your website is a digital business card. I don’t recommend reaching Patrick Bateman levels of obsessive, but an online presence is a terribly important thing to have if you intend for this whole writing thing to be your career.
Why do I need an author website?
In short, you need an author website because social media alone doesn’t cut it.
Think of your Twitter or Instagram bio. You’ve probably noticed there’s room for a link. You might already be utilizing that feature by linking to your book, or to the short story you got published last week.
But what happens when—not if!—you have a second thing you want to promote simultaneously? How are you going to make the decision? Are you going to take the time to update every #linkinbio across every platform?
New scenario: what if Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram goes the way of MySpace, and suddenly the followers you spent years cultivating aren’t logging on anymore?
These are the times when having a digital home for all things you, your works, and your brand comes in handy. But it’ll also come in handy way before then because having an author website will:
- Establish a home base for your brand that is uniquely you
- Be as accessible to anyone with access to the Internet as you like—as open as you want, or with as many password-protected pages as you want
- Remain the only platform where you will be one hundred percent in control of the content, ads, and user experience
- Provide a space for you to start an online store, blog, or wiki for your story universes
Should I have an actual website, or just a landing page?
A landing page is what it sounds like—a single webpage a user “lands on” when they click on a link. Typically, they’re used to provide a space for readers to sign up to a mailing list (which you should also have!). You can’t add pages like an “About” page or what have you, but you can add links to other websites. Your newsletter service likely already allows you to build a landing page. Mailerlite does, and I’ve already built a landing page for the pen name under which I write my fairy tale retellings.
The problem with a landing page is that it’s a smaller space, and it doesn’t let me have any of the bells and whistles my website has. I also have limited options in terms of the fonts, layout, et cetera. But I still picked a landing page for my pen name over a website.
Why? You may decide to have a landing page instead of a website if you:
- Don’t have any intentions of blogging, or needing anything more complex than links to online retailers
- Just want something up right now
- Want a foundation to build on later
- Like the idea of only logging into one service for all of your author website needs.
I’ve made my decision. Now what?
By now, you should have a pretty good idea of how you want to establish your online presence. If you are a go-getter like I am, you might be wanting to get started as soon as possible.
Well, we’re pleased to announce that Writer’s Atelier now has a course designed to help you through every step of the website building process using Google Sites!
I don’t want to DIY my author website or landing page. Is there an easy button?
If you’re interested in having a piece of the Internet to call your own without the hassle of setting it up yourself, WA offers such a service!
