40 Reasons You Don’t Actually Want an Author Website

Mar 12

This might be a surprising assertion, but my clients don’t actually hire me because they want an author website. My guess is, you don’t want an author website, either!

You want something beyond that: things that a professional author website represents, or enables, makes easier, quicker, or more joyful.

In other words, you and my clients are seeking the change that becomes possible, after your new website launches.

I took a look at my project portfolio and assembled a list of the excellent reasons why people hire me to create a quality author website for them. I was surprised how many great angles I found.

Take a look down this list, and make a note of the results that you’re looking for from an author website. If you decide to chat to me about creating your custom author website, I’ll be asking what came up for you here.

Your author goals will not be the same as everyone else, and that’s great.

40 Things that become possible, when you have a professional-quality author website

Don’t aim for all of these at once! However, here’s the spectrum of “wins” that my clients report, after they invest in a professional website:

Get taken seriously

Establish a professional online presence
Show your family that you really are serious about this writing lark!
Legitimize your calling, mission, or other world-changing work
Boost the credibility of your work by showing reader reviews, testimonials, or praise from clients
Showcase your portfolio of writing clips, including articles, research papers, guest blog posts, poetry, and collaboration with others
Show podcasters and other members of the media that you’re a legitimate author and worthy of a guest appearance
Demonstrate your willingness to invest in yourself, before asking a publisher to invest in your work

Connect better with your readers

Offer suggestions for book club discussion questions, and show that you’re available to attend book club meetings
Have the perfect excuse to reach out and reconnect with friends, family, colleagues, and peers, around the topic of your book
Announce that your book is coming soon, and recruit beta readers or your launch team
Create community through your blog posts, and the comments that your posts receive
Offer bonus resources, on a password-protected page, for loyal fans

Sell more books

Showcase your book as a high quality, well-produced piece of work
Give your publicist a strong base to run with, when pitching you for opportunities
Get found in Google searches
Give readers a single place where they can easily see all of your available books
Sell signed books and author swag directly to your fans
Sell your next book, not just the current book (typically by building your author email list)

Build a long term author career

Feel more confident when querying literary agents
Rediscover the joy of why you wrote the book, and re-energize yourself for the next one
Show your commitment to seeing a project through, to underpin your crowdfunding campaign
Finally dip your toe into the water of online marketing!
Start to build your author email list
Significantly grow your author email list
Claim your own online reputation and official bio (this is great if you share a “common” name with others)
Encourage fans to look for you on real estate that you own (by having a single website address that will always be yours), instead of driving traffic to social media

Related: What kind of author are you?

Increase the impact of your writing

Share important resources from others, that you’ve gathered during your research or while building your expertise
Demonstrate your thought-leadership, by publishing long-form articles on your topic
Take readers deeper, with case studies, new information, or other ways to connect with your work, beyond your book
Support a pivot, either in life or your writing, by showing the connection between what you did before and where your work is leading you now

Sell related services and expertise

Enable website visitors to see services (like consulting, coaching, or teaching) that go along with your book
Make the case for why your services should command premium fees — and offer a guide for what your services cost
Politely discourage readers who are not right for your book, and clients who are not your best fit
Offer a taste of your expertise, for example with content on hidden pages that’s only available to your email list subscribers
Directly enroll people in your online courses, live events, or workshops

Make better use of time

Save time by not answering the same questions again and again (for example, because you now have an FAQ page)
State on your contact page that you don’t reply to some types of request. See mine for an example.
Commit to a writing habit, with a regular blog that your visitors expect to see
Put your appointment calendar online, dramatically reducing the back-and-forth for client scheduling
Offer a media kit with your author bio, headshot, and other materials that event hosts will need

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Of course, I’m not promising all of these results for you. The authors who get best value from working with me understand that at the end of the project, they’ll have a powerful tool, but they still need to use it to make these other things happen.

You can’t just sit back and expect literary agents to find you, or for your book to start flying off the shelves, or to show up on page one of Google search results.

But what I do know is, without a professional looking and well-constructed author website, all of your other efforts are in danger of falling flat.

Even if you put your best foot forward with other marketing, as soon as someone visits your ugly, dated, amateurish (or non-existent) website, you’ve damaged your credibility and results.

So my encouragement today is, stop seeing an author website as something that you just check off your endless to-do list, and start seeing it as a valuable cornerstone of every piece of marketing you’ll ever do.

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Would you like me to design and build your Squarespace author website?

As a professional specializing in author website design, I’m an expert in using your overall business strategy to drive your website project. If you’d like strategic planning, technical expertise, book marketing advice, and all of the implementation taken care of, consider hiring me.

After careful preparation together, I’ll design, build and launch your site in just 2 weeks. Learn more, and then schedule a complimentary consultation.

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