Oct 17 2008

Building a compelling writer/author Web site

A quality Web site is your professional face to the world, and fortunately it takes relatively little money and effort to put on a good face.

You should consider developing a writer/author Web site long before you even plan to write books. A Web site highlighting your credentials can prove invaluable in selling your book idea to a commercial publisher. And if you self-publish, it provides the foundation for your book and publishing company Web sites.

Your Web site can also help sell your book-in-progress to a publisher. For example, I created the Web site for Explaining Research long before the book was published. And by including its URL in e-mailed pitches and proposals for the book, I gave publishers access to extensive material on the book, as well as evidence that I planned an active marketing effort.

With the huge range of Web development services available, you can easily create your own professional-looking Web site and manage it yourself — and at a reasonable cost. At the end of this article is a list of Web hosting companies that offer both do-it-yourself sites and Web design services.

However, developing your Web site should not begin with a design. You should conduct a "discovery process," in which you analyze who will be using your site and what they will want to know. From this analysis, you can list the features your site will have and determine the architecture and navigation. The online information source Quamut offers a good guide to building a Web site. Also, science Web site consultant Merry Bruns offers a comprehensive Web editors resource section.

According to Guerilla Marketing for Writers, author Web sites should contain such content as

  • Contact information
  • Bio
  • Sample chapters
  • Tables of contents
  • Answers to Frequently Asked Questions
  • A feedback form and message board for comments, advice, etc.
  • A signup form for audio and/or Skype visits with reading groups. For example, see this this signup page.
  • Photos of your book covers
  • Media kit, including news releases and photos
  • Video or audio of talks and interviews
  • Links to articles and reviews both about your book and what you've written about other topics
  • News and updates on your topic
  • Links to other useful sites
  • Reading guide (Make money from this guide by joining the Amazon Associates program and selling books through Amazon.)
  • A link to purchase your book
  • A description of other products and services you offer

In designing your site, consider your home page as your "grabber." You have less than a second to persuade visitors that your site is worth exploring, so make the home page a showcase. Your writing should be tight and dynamic. Also, consider your site as a resource for your audiences and not simply a store where you can tout your book. People are more likely to buy your book if they see you as an expert who is committed to helping them, not simply to selling them a book.

Also, in designing your site, check out other author Web sites for ideas. Exemplary author sites I have found include those for Natalie Angier, Sandra Blakeslee, Deborah Blum, Richard Dawkins, Timothy Ferris, Laurie Garrett, Stephen Hawking, Michael Lemonick, Michio Kaku, Kathy Sawyer, Neil deGrasse Tyson, and the author Web sites of the commercial developer FSB Associates.

You should also obtain a memorable domain name. You can search any domain name registration service for names that include some version of your name or the title of your book. The Web hosting companies all offer this search capability, or you can use such services as Register.com or Network Solutions.

Importantly, your work on your Web site is by no means finished once it's up and running. You should constantly add new content, and you should actively market your site to other sites and ensure the site is included in search engines. Include keywords in your site that enable search engines to find your site, and submit your site to search engines, especially Google and Yahoo. Two good guides are Search Engine Optimization for Dummies and Web Marketing for Dummies. A good general guide to the use of Web sites and social networking sites to market books is Social Networking for Authors by Michael Volkin.

Fortunately, designing a professional looking site is easy, because Web hosting companies that offer design tools that do not require HTML coding experience, and there are many good Web design companies that specialize in author sites. Here is a list of such hosting and Web design companies:

While these hosting services are quite inexpensive, you can even get a free Web site, if you are willing to host ads on your site. Here is a list of sites that offer free hosting.