Why every author needs their own website

If you’re an indie author you’ll have a good understanding of just how much work goes in to publishing and then promoting your book, recent reports also show us that self-publishing has increased year on year, and there are now 2,000 plus books being self-published each an every day in the USA alone.

As an author you will find yourself in a very crowded market place (and one that continues to grow), so marketing your book and having a platform to reach a larger audience has never been so important.

The platforms that the majority of authors will initially use will of course be within social media, creating pages through Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Instagram are most author’s first steps, the great thing is that they are free to set up, they’re established (as in, most people will have access to these platforms and know how to navigate them) and they have some great options to promote and use paid advertising

But social media should not be your only tool when it comes to promotion, having a presence upon a platform that you can control to a greater level and is completely branded to match your books and you as an author is crucial. It shows that you are a serious author and that your book should be viewed in the same light as those from the bigger publishing houses.
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Remember, these big-name books are still your competition, if your branding/theme/design of your book and its advertising looks cheap and poorly made, people will make the assumption that the content of your book is just the same.

Of course, these big-name authors all have websites and before you go off and start yours it’s worth checking out their sites first. Stick to the authors who you admire and preferably are within the same genre that your book is written in. A couple of hours research first will give you a good idea as to the standard your website will be judged against.
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Okay, once you have viewed several professional author’s sites you may think to yourself that creating a website that looks that good is out of your skillset, or that you don’t know how to write code and wouldn’t know where to begin, or that you may not have the budget to pay a designer and web developer to build a website for you. Don’t panic! There is a way you can get a great website and not have to pay a fortune, hire a developer or learn how to code.

There are plenty of build your own website services available now which take the hassle out of creating a website, these tend to be based on using pre-designed templates where you drag and drop elements into the page to personalize to your own taste. They are incredibly easy to use, cheap, reliable and enable you to have a profession looking website with a domain name unique to you. What’s more, you can also have an email address which is just as professional (not the usual yourname@gmail.com).

Your website will give you the option to engage deeper with your readers, you can promote offers, downloads and events, it will give you the opportunity to host your blog and also give another way for your readers to contact you (should you wish), your website should be a platform to promote, inform and engage, all of this within a professional environment which highlights you as a professional author.
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So, the next step is looking for a service to build your website, here are three of the most popular website building services that you may want to take a look at first.

1. Squarespace – A very well-designed interface for the user with some great themes and templates. Pricing starts at $12* for their personal website plan and goes to $18* with their business plan (this gives more options for the user and allows you to sell products, which you may want to consider if you plan to sell your book directly).

1. Weebly – An incredibly easy to use platform with some beautiful themes and templates for the user. Pricing starts at $12* for their Pro package and then goes to $25* for their business package, this offers loads in the way of marketing and selling goods online (again, great if you plan to sell your book directly).

1. Wix – Intuitive site building service which offers lots of templates for the user, straight forward to use and very popular. The prices start from free but uses one of their own domain names (not really what you’ll want for your website), their regular packages start from $11* and go up to $29*.

*Prices correct at time of publication