#author site

[the0phrastus]

I designed new cards and had them printed ahead of Readercon, pointing to the new site, https://ChrisHowardWriter.com Also got a bit creative with the QR code, a little watercolor fill and rounding the corners. #authorsite #booksite #websitelaunch #bookstagram 📱📚

[its-a-writer-thing]

The Importance of an Author Website

Author websites are yet another way for writers to promote themselves to their readers. You can aggregate your collection of writings, advertise new releases, share social media links, leak extra tidbits about your stories, or even introduce yourself to the reading community. But that’s mainly for big-time authors, right? Or those who have contracts with publishing companies?

On the contrary, when it comes to launching yourself as a self-published author, an author website can be the most important platform you have – even over an Amazon or Goodreads page. While both those options are important as well, an author website accomplishes six main things:

Why to Have an Author Site

It’s a hub of information about you, your books, new releases, and serves as a base for linking to other things.

It shows professionalism. When a reader finds an unknown author in their recommendations list, before they commit to buying, they’re likely to do a quick Google search of your name. An author website shows you’re invested in your craft and have confidence that your book is worth their time.

It secures a presence. Anyone can create an Amazon or Goodreads profile, and there’s only limited information you can provide there. An author website establishes you as the one and only author of your name.

It better advertises your social media presence. Rather than hunting through the web by themselves, trying to determine which 'so-and-so’ is the one they’re seeking, they can easily follow you across all your available platforms from one effortless location.

Better advertise later releases. Rather than starting from scratch with your next published book, or risk getting lost in the news feed of Twitter with your promo, an author website allows you to promote and share your next release to an audience that already knows you. Plus, if a new reader were to find your website after checking out your first book, they can easily view that you have others in store.

It’s easy to organize your collection. As you publish more books, there’s no danger of getting the sequence out of whack; readers can look to your officially declared order, and get back to reading without hesitance or confusion that may cause them to look elsewhere.

The question stands, however: Do you really need an author website?

If you intend on publishing your book as a one-off, just for your own satisfaction, then no – not necessarily. However, if you hope to make your book sell, if you hope to write and sell more in the future, or if you want to establish yourself as a serious author (while providing ease for your readers in finding out more about you and your stuff) - then yes. Definitely. You need an author site.

With that said, when you set to the task of creating an author website… where do you start? Is it as easy as buying a domain and a Wordpress design? Well, no.

To help us better tackle this endeavor ourselves, L S Andersson, author of Behind Closed Doors: Trusting The Unseen, is here to help. After having started from scratch and worked her way up, with no web design experience, she’s here to offer advice on going from, “Where do I start?” to successfully having her very own author website (AnamMara.com).

Tune in for our next article in this five-part series, How to Build an Author Website, where we talk about the budget requirements of this venture. What kind of budget do you need? Do you hire a professional or build yourself? What are thrifty ways to get the site you want?

After that, we’ll discuss finding the right hosting provider, learning how to design your site, and how large an author website really should be. Be sure to check it out. 

Thanks for reading, and happy writing!

[exoticarmy127]

Finally got the time to vamp up my website. <3 Check out my new bookshelf page!

Buy links and goodreads pages are included. :)

https://kayeallen.com/books

[x-sites-blog]

We’re proud to announce the resurrection of Anne Haynes’ fanfic site. 

Anne Haynes was a popular author of X-Files fan fiction from the mid to late 1990s.

After initially publishing stories under her real name, she later chose to remove much of her existing work from external archives and publish exclusively on her own site, which has been gathering dust in a corner of The Wayback Machine for way too long.

Sadly Anne passed away in 2017, so we’re glad to have the opportunity to remember her through the legacy of her fiction.

[theinfernaldevicestrilogy]

Write with Me | Young Adult Books | Sarah Sutton's Stories

I was breathing fast. Like, someone-get-this-girl-a-paper-bag-she's-about-to-throw-up fast. And maybe I was

Been a few months since I’ve uploaded a new Write with Me, and I’m pretty sure it’s evident in this one shot. But here it is, since some of you have been asking!

[its-a-writer-thing]

How to Build an Author Website - Budget

To continue off our last installment of “How to Build an Author Website” (peek in on the last post to see why they’re so necessary), we’re going to dive into an important detail on every thrifty writer’s mind: the budget.

Websites are everywhere, so you might assume they’re cheap to create and manage. Technically speaking, they are! You can create a free blog here on Tumblr, Wordpress, or somewhere else without spending a penny. You can have your own custom URL through these providers for basically pennies. But how about a more advanced site?

First, let’s discuss why it’s important to have your own site, rather than going for these free options.

Advantages of a Free Site:

Well – it’s free!

It’s already connected with the social media platforms that are hosting it – such as the aforementioned Wordpress and Tumblr.

Little to no building hassle.

Disadvantages:

You’re stuck with that platform’s name in your URL – for example, “blahblah.wordpress.com.” This looks unprofessional and generally establishes you as someone who isn’t that serious about promoting themselves. For a casual writer, this is perfectly fine. For a serious author, it’s a little distasteful.

You’re limited to the design templates that everyone else is using. They’re free after all, so many people will be using the same one. Even with a few color changes, you’re easily recognizable as someone who clicked the generic option rather than investing in something unique. If you’re not that invested in your writing, why should readers take you more seriously?

Your site is littered with ads. The platform has the right to advertise on your site – which includes a horde of ads (of their choosing) littering all your posts and pages. While we’re all used to ads by now, it’s unprofessional and an annoyance to visitors, which may cause them to look elsewhere. Even more concerning – since you have no control over what those ads are, you could be offending or otherwise irritating your viewers by accident!

With that said, creating your own website is really the better option – both for looks and functionality. Additionally, it gives you a solid foundation to build off of as your writing and your brand as an author grows.

The good news is, this can be accomplished for as little as $40 a year – or $3-ish dollars a month, which is a fraction of what even Netflix costs! The budget for a website depends on three main things:

Reoccurring Costs

These will come in the form of domain and hosting fees.

Your domain is your website’s URL or name – so, this could be lsanderssonauthor.com or some variant of that. You’re paying for the exclusive right to use that title/URL. The price of a domain name can be paid monthly or yearly, and yearly can cost anywhere from $10 to $60 on average.

Hosting is where you’ll effectively be ‘storing’ your site. The content on it, the pictures, the links, and everything in between need to be stored somewhere, and sadly the great wide internet isn’t willing to do this for free. A hosting company will offer packages depending on how large you intend your site to be, how many emails you’d like, and so on. Some hosting sites also offer design classes or articles on how to customize your site, which further helps in building your own, should you choose this.

The average yearly cost for hosting can vary, depending on if you sign a contract for 12 months, 24 months, 36 months, and so on – but can rest anywhere from $50 to several thousand.

Pro-Tip from Lena S Andersson: “Be sure to get an email address with your website! This will be a huge advantage if fans ever want to get in contact or if you need to sign up for events as an author.

“Also, prices can vary a lot depending on which hosting provider you choose and what is included in your package. Month-to-month rates tend to be more expensive than if you are on an annual plan.”

Building Yourself

Building the site yourself can be almost free. Wordpress offers many site templates that you can buy for anywhere from $20 to $200, and their platform makes it easy for a novice to edit. 

However, it’s recommended you stay away from the free or extremely low-cost templates, unless you have some design knowledge, as you may end up looking just like every other website that chose that design. Not only does it look unprofessional, but it could lead to some difficulties in the future if one of these sites decides to call you on that.

Pro-Tip from Lena: “Getting a site up and running can be super budget-friendly if you do most (or all of the) things yourself, or you can ask a professional web designer do the whole thing. So we are talking anything from the cost of a hosting package and a domain name (if you do all work yourself), to hundreds and perhaps thousands of dollars if you hire a professional web person. That’s why I chose to tackle the venture personally!”

Hiring a Designer

Designers will be able to create a better, more complex site that has the looks, widgets, and features you’re seeking but may not be able to create yourself. However… they’re expensive.

A template site, which is where the designer takes another site’s design and then tailors certain things to make it unique for you, can cost anywhere between $100 to $700. The less tailoring they do, the cheaper it will be. With this, they often set up your email, may offer hosting and domain packages with the design, and can factor in your wishes for the look and layout of the site – all with no effort required from you.

You may think, “If they’re just customizing a template, why bother? Why don’t I do it myself?” And that’s a fair argument. But it’s worth noting exactly how much they’ll be changing the site to make it unique and how much coding knowledge they’ll leverage to do this. A $100 site will look far different from a $700 site, even if they both originated from templates. All in all, you’re mainly paying for peace of mind (as a professional is on the job) and a lack of effort on your part (you don’t have to teach yourself how to do this, which can be a lengthy process).

A bespoke site, which is where the designer builds an entirely new site for you - from the ground up - can be valued at anywhere from $800 to several thousand dollars. Granted, it’s entirely yours and entirely unique, but it costs a pretty penny.

Do You Need Monthly Updates?

If you go the web designer route, you may find them recommending monthly updates to be included in their package. These serve to tighten your security and modify some of the features of your site as the internet naturally upgrades, progresses, and leaves your site looking a little outdated.

While this is absolutely valuable in its own right, it mainly applies to sites used by businesses or vendors, where they’re selling a large number of products or gartering a great deal of traffic. For an author site that will generally remain static, save a few updates posted by you or the occasional new book added to your ‘shop’ feature, there’s not much that will happen to leave your site in the dust next to other sites.

Pro-Tip from Lena: “It’s wise to check other author sites every few months and see what features or widgets they’ve added, and maybe incorporate some into your own design so that you stay ‘fresh.’ As your collection as an author grows, it may be worthwhile to consult a professional to see what can be ‘tuned up’ in your site.

“However, if you’re staying budget-friendly, a monthly WP update (or other platform, should you choose one) isn’t crucial. You could even consult with a designer once every year or so to see if any modifications are necessary – but you can also achieve this on your own with a little extra work.”

All in All

If you’re looking to be very budget-friendly, you can secure your own site for under $100 every three years (assuming you sign on for a package long-term).

Building your own author website, instead of relying on free options, is not only savvy for your overall appearance online as an author, but can also be cost effective in the long run. You can gain and keep more visitors on your site, better advertise your work, and even place ads of your own choosing on the site! A web designer that creates a ‘bespoke’ site will certainly give you a more customized and crisp look – but with enough research and effort, you can accomplish most of this yourself, for free!

So, if you decide to go the do-it-yourself route – where do you start? What hosting and domain services should you use? How do you find a good one? We’ll discuss this in our next article, “Finding the Right Hosting Provider” – so stay tuned!

[its-a-writer-thing]

How to Build an Author Website – How Many Pages + Social Media

In our last installment of “How to Build an Author Website,” we gave some advice on where and how to learn the skills necessary to build your own author website. Now we’re taking a peek into the final bit of nitty gritty involved with designing your own site – how big should it be? How many pages should it have? And, of course – does it replace social media?

Let’s dive in.

How Many Pages Does an Author Site Need?

You may think ‘the more, the merrier,’ but this isn’t always the case. In fact, across all industries, people are adopting a cleaner, non-cluttered approach to their web design. It’s considering ‘modern’ to put everything you need on one or two pages, since viewers have very little patience to click around in a mad hunt for answers to their curiosities or questions.

So, one or many?

Advantages of One Page

Less design needed from you! With every page you add, you’re increasing the amount of design effort you’ll have to invest. With just one page, you can focus all your creativity into a single area and ensure it truly shines.

Less clutter. As stated above, we’re becoming less and less patient as internet users. We know what we want and we’d like our answers in a snappy fashion, thank you! By having only one page, you allow readers to quickly learn all they need to know without having to switch tabs. As a bonus, it’s a godsend for those with slow internet connection, who certainly can’t tolerate more load time.

Less weight on your server. The more pages you have, the more data that results in – and that means your server has to store more. By limiting the amount of pages, and therefore data, you can stay within a cheap hosting plan that only provides a few megabytes worth of storage, saving you money.

It’s in vogue. A great number of author websites stick to just a landing page, since there are only three to five things readers are truly looking to know. A) Who you are as an author. B) What your book is and what it’s about. C) Do you have social media? D) Do you have more books coming out, and where can I find them? E) Fun facts or interesting snippets from/about your writing. There really isn’t much else! As such, many authors are choosing to go with the one-page format, so you’ll be sticking to the industry standard!

Disadvantages

Limits your layout. While a one-page site is in-fashion among authors, there are still some who choose to leverage multiple pages. Because, well, it looks nicer. It gives a more orderly sense to your website, and since a great number of websites have a menu bar with additional pages to view, if you lack this, it can make your site look a tad claustrophobic.

No shop function. Since shop functions are a complete system of their own, they will require their own page, even if this is linked on your landing page. Should you intend on selling your book on the site as well, you’ll have to create a second page anyhow. If you’re selling on Amazon, Smashwords, or another venue, however, one page with several links will be fine!

Overload. Additional features and plug-ins have a ‘weight’ of their own, and too many of them in a single area can lead to an incredible lag for visitors. Like the shop function, if you intend on adding a rotating album of your books, a ready-play video, or other flashy features, it’s better to spread these out on multiple pages, so visitors can decide to click in and accept that load (and that load alone) or pass it by for the more crucial aspects of your site.

Advantages of Multiple Pages

Better organized. As mentioned above, a site with multiple pages allows you to categorize information and spread it around neatly, so readers can more easily find the details they want without having to scroll, scroll, nothing but scroll.

Not in vogue, but an old favorite. While slimmer websites are in fashion, that doesn’t mean they have to be only one-page slim. It’s been a favorite of visitors and site builders for some time to limit the amount of pages – but to spread this over at least two, so as to ease navigation.

Less load. Also mentioned above, spreading out data makes it easier for visitors to load a single page at a time, without taking the brunt of an entire site all at once.

More features! You can have a shop function, a little animation sequence, videos, photo albums – the works! This can be spread across as many pages as you like.  

Disadvantages

A labyrinth. Visitors are impatient. If they’re forced to search throughout your entire site via multiple pages to find the simple information they want, they’ll cut their losses and click away.

More design effort. With many pages comes many design options. You could leave all the others rather plain while tidying up your landing page, but this will give it an unfinished look. Remember, the more you have, the nicer it all has to look!

More cost. If you hire a designer, they will likely charge by the page, raising your overall expenses. If you do it yourself, you still have to ensure your server can hold all this new data, and that may result in upgrading your hosting package.

Pro-Tip from Lena S Andersson: “One of the most important things is to keep things clear and simple in terms of layout and looks.”

If you have enough content to span 10 pages, be sure to ask if it should. Is there anything you could remove without truly hurting the site? Then you should, as a cluttered site can be even more damaging than no site at all!

“It all depends on the message you have. If the book you’re publishing has an attached history that’s really crucial, then perhaps more pages are needed to convey the magnitude of what comes with this simple book. If your story is a more straightforward, then one page may be enough.”

To Social Media or Not to Social Media?

Now that you have a site, does it replace social media? Does it make social media less important?

Pro-Tip from Lena: “I wouldn't say a website replaces social media, but the two can do a great deal for each other. Social media can help you get the site out there and reach people in a different way than what just a website can do on its own. A website can give people more information and guidance than just social media can do. Both are important in their own way.

“It’s key to remember that, on social media, you’re playing on someone else’s platform. Having your own website means having your own platform!

“So, both are needed, but having a website can do more for you than existing only on social media. It gives you a solid presence that is easy to reference and easy to share.”

Wrapping Up

That’s all for now! If you’ve missed them, please check out the other articles in this series of “How to Build an Author Site.” A big thanks to L S Andersson for her insights and advice about this exciting (though daunting) venture for writers.

If you’re interested, please take a look at her author site, AnamMara.com, and check out her debut book, Behind Closed Doors: Trusting The Unseen, available on her site and on Amazon. Along with her book, Lena is preparing to launch an inspirational project, called AnamMara.

The Project

Can you briefly describe the project?

“A lot of women around the globe are not able to leave dangerous and violent surroundings, domestic abuse, and sexual violence due to fear, lack of resources, and a lack of funds. Even worse, they’re trapped because they have nowhere to go and nobody who 'sees' them.

With this project, I work passionately and actively to empower women to break free from the destructive cycle of poverty, unemployment, domestic abuse, violence, and modern slavery. I hope to accomplish this through advocacy and my book, as well as through a network of independent stylist resellers.”

The Goal

Can you briefly describe the goal and overarching purpose of the project?

“I am passionate about creating business opportunities for women, and empowering individuals to create independence via their own income. This vision comes from my own past experiences of abuse, socially vulnerable, and disadvantaged situations. You can read more about this in my book.

I also feel we need to talk more openly about these issues in society and in the world. As such, my goal is to educate and inform - to tell people how the world looks for millions of women everywhere, a fact which is so silenced and oppressed.”

The Steps Being Taken

What steps are being taken to launch this project and make it a success?

“I am partnering with organizations working to get the voice out for people who have no voice. I hope that - through advocacy and my book, by partnering with organizations, and by collaborating with resellers and ambassadors – together, we can make a difference and see change when it comes to abuse and violence against women.”

Sign Up or Support

You can sign up via the website AnamMara.com to participate in this project now, donate via GoFundMe, or buy her book Behind Closed Doors: Trusting The Unseen on the website or on Amazon.

Thanks for reading, and happy writing!  

[its-a-writer-thing]

How to Build an Author Website – Learning to Build a Site

In our last installment of “How to Build an Author Website,” we discussed finding the right hosting provider, the details of securing a domain name, and how to ensure you were getting a good deal that has everything you need!

This time, we’re down to the nitty gritty – learning how to build a site. As mentioned in the “Budget” article of this series, you do have the option of hiring a professional designer who can handle all of this for you. For that matter, they may be able to make the site far more complex and ‘beautiful’ than what you can manage personally. They’re professionals, after all; it’s their craft. They could probably write their own very nice stories, but if they wanted a bestseller, they’d come to you!

Nonetheless, they want a pretty penny for their expertise, and if you lack the budget or have confidence in your self-teaching abilities, you can certainly create a fantastic author site all by your lonesome. After all, that’s what Lena did, author of Behind Closed Doors: Trusting The Unseen and the dynamite gal providing us with some insider knowledge on building your own author site.  

Here, we’ll dive into learning to build our own author sites, from scratch, with no previous experience.

Custom Build or Pre-Built

Now ‘from scratch’ can absolutely mean from scratch. However, we don’t recommend starting with a blank page and a dream, as this would require more coding knowledge than any of us are really willing to gain (unless you want to dual as a web designer and a writer; then by all means!). That leaves you with two other options:

Custom Build

This involves taking one of the most basic templates you can be given via your hosting provider and completely redeveloping it.

Pro-Tip from Lena: “I would suggest any of the WYSIWYG websites (“what you see is what you get,” in the industry’s shorthand). A lot of hosting providers offer these types of websites nowadays, and they are very easy and straightforward to build and design with. You design these sites with blocks and image or text boxes, and it’s so much easier to both build and edit the site with these functions. Many providers also offer functions with easy drag and drop function that can add things like dividers, social media galleries, videos, widgets, plug-ins, etc.”

Divi on Wordpress, for example, is one such plug-in. Though it does charge a fee to use, it makes web designing more intuitive and less coding intensive.

This option will also allow you to create, nearly from scratch, your own ‘shop function’ – should you decide to sell your works off the site itself, as well as link to Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and so on.

Pre-Built

This one is about using an existing template that has the look and features you like, and then redesigning it to be personalized to your tastes. This will be less thorough than the above option, but can still achieve the purpose you’re seeking. So, for example, the template you choose may have a social media plug-in, two set dividers, and then a few pre-set locations for photos.

In this, you’ll mainly aim to change the color scheme, add a banner or picture section higher or lower in the layout, and customize what other features it allows you to work on.

Advantages

Less investment. You don’t need to buy plug-ins such as Divi for more advanced reworking.

Faster to set up. With fewer customizations and less time necessary for learning how to customize, you can have your site up and running in two days or less.

Leaves room for later improvement. As time goes on, if you decide you’d like to upgrade to a more customized layout, you have all the opportunity in the world. For now, it does the job pretty well.

Disadvantages

You may end up looking similar to other sites, who also sought to lower costs and time.

May not be as custom-tuned as you’d like it. Since this site will be your digital ‘first impression’ on readers, you may be disappointed that it doesn’t emulate your aesthetic as well as you’d prefer, or that it doesn’t provide as many options as you’d like to treat your viewers with.

Online Classes vs. General Internet Research

If you choose the custom-build site, or decide on a more in-depth approach to designing your own website, you’ll need some extra know-how.

Of course we rely on the internet for a lot of our answers, including some things that could put us on a watch-list (hey, that information about C4 was really important for the one scene!). But then again, the internet can only offer so much for a single query. Would you be better off seeking online classes to show you the ropes? Let’s weigh the pros and cons.

General Internet Research - Advantages

Well, it’s free! If you’re willing to type in enough queries, follow enough links recommended in articles or videos you find, and can Google terms that fly over your head (with a willingness to follow those rabbit holes as well), you can absolutely become more fluent in designing a site without spending a dime.

You get more opinions, and that means more options. While an online class will perhaps give you a more thorough look in a shorter span of time, you are limited to the knowledge and opinions of that teacher. Maybe they have a bias to a certain hosting provider, or perhaps they dislike certain widgets. Google will give you all sorts of insights and opinions, which translates to a better-rounded look at the practice. You may even find someone willing to offer you uncommon but useful hacks! (Life-hacks, not regular hacks. Those are in bad taste.)

More control over your learning process. If you’re quick to pick up new concepts, then general internet research allows you to go where your knowledge level takes you. Skip ahead and become well versed in the terms, take advice on one plug-in and run with it before exploring the others, or get a feel for the entire process and then dive into practice! You get to choose your own pacing, so while some may need a several-week class, you could arguably do it in a week.

Disadvantages

Unreliable, to an extent. The internet being the internet, not everything you find will be entirely helpful or factual. As such, you’ll have to look up multiple sources and then compare notes by yourself to decide what is really helpful and what can be discarded.

Beginner’s guides aren’t always beginner friendly. Since you’ll be asking a broad question in an even broader room, you won’t get a customized answer every time. This means you’ll have to swift through a lot of information and try to figure out what’s beginner friendly and what’s way over your head! That leaves you with the task of then finding something beginner friendly.

Takes time. Sadly, since you’re looking to glean knowledge ‘needle in a haystack’ style, this will take a fair amount of time – and time that you can’t necessarily schedule in advance. You just have to start and see when it is you feel confident enough to put that knowledge into practice.

Online Classes -  Advantages

Concise. By entering a class, you’re avoiding all the fluff and white noise of the internet. You know exactly what you’ll be taught and how long you can expect it will take.

You have peers just like you, and a teacher to answer specific questions. While the internet leaves you to ask the void over and over again until you find someone who maybe answered a question similar to yours, a class gives you a closed group of people just like you, who may ask the questions you’re thinking. At the minimum, you likely have access to a teacher who can answer your questions - or at least guide you to an answer.

Trackable. Most classes offer a promise of what you’ll find at the end; you’ll be able to do ‘this’ amount of web design, or build a site like ‘this.’.

Disadvantages

Costly. While you can certainly find free classes, most of those which give you the advanced tools necessary to fully customize your site will cost money. It’s an investment, but it still hits the budget.

Limited. Sadly, you will be limited to what this exact class teaches, and that may leave gaps in your knowledge that must be filled with other classes or even internet research! You may also be restricted to that specific teacher’s opinion on web design, which, while valuable, could result in you missing out on a life-hack that may have worked perfectly for you.

Time consuming. While this seems counter-intuitive to the facts above, a class will be scheduled over several weeks. It’s unlikely to find a quality one which takes only days, and that means you’re committed to waiting for more information. The internet could let you speed along at your own (perhaps much faster) pace.

Resources

Whichever you choose, here are a few great places to start:

Website Builder Expert

Research-Backed Web Design Tips

The Site Wizard

Free Web Development Courses

All in All

That finishes up this article, so check out our next installment in this five-part series, where we discuss how large or small your author site should be according to industry standards, as well as explore whether or not a site negates your need for social media.

Thanks for reading, and happy writing!