Author websites operate on two guiding principles. First, goals. Clear goals are your best friends for navigating the number of decisions associated with web design. What pages you need, what colors you choose, even font decisions fall under the powerful sway of goal. The primary goal of your website is to sell your book. Your public persona, social media, and speaking events are all means to this end. Your secondary goal is to build your email list. Your email list keeps you connected to your readers and gives you an avenue to grow your audience. An effectively organized website will highlight these actionable goals.
The second principle, simplicity, should guide most of your aesthetic choices. A clear website streamlines your reader’s experience and reduces the backend work required of you. So when in doubt, choose the simpler option.
Creating Pages
Depending on the size of your platform and readership, the number of pages you need will vary. Check out the many author websites interspersed throughout this article to see what authors in your genre or with similar audience size are doing.
The Basics
Every website needs to show (1) your author bio and picture, (2) your book cover(s) with a short description and link to purchase, and (3) contact information or a contact form. If you’re looking for low maintenance and have only one book, you can even fit all of that onto one page. For more books, split the content into three individual pages. Below are some well-made author websites for reference.
I want just the basic pages: Peter Thuesen.
I want only one page: Jasmine Holmes.
For Larger Platform
Links to your social media platforms are a huge green flag to readers and publishers alike. They allow readers to connect with you and allow publishers to gauge both your audience size and your commitment to an online presence. Reviews for your book or your author blog are also valuable additions to a website. For authors who do extensive speaking, an events page is essential.
I want to have a few more pages: Brandon O’Brien, Anthony Doerr, James Clear.
I do speaking events about my book: Qian Julie Wang, Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche.
My books bolster my speaking or ministry: Makoto Fujimura, Sam Allberry, Esau McCaulley.
Pitfalls to Avoid
Misplaced Focus on the Author
Unless you already have a significant readership or a large personality-based platform, the focus of your website should not be on you, but on your work. Remember, the primary goal of your site is to promote and sell your book. That means the visual focus of your home page should be the book’s cover, not your face. The examples provided above are largely of well-known authors whose personality-platform is now part of how they market, so they can afford to be more author focused. Check out Jasmine Holmes, Qian Julie Wang, and Anthony Doerr for examples of book-focused marketing.
Inaccessible Designs
Designs with low color contrast, small fonts, or too much happening on a page can overwhelm readers. Put your content in readable styles and bite-sized pieces. It’s a good idea to pull up your website on a phone, too, to be sure everything remains legible in the smaller format.
Achieving Your Goals
Back to those goals we mentioned at the start. How do you use your website to sell books and grow your email list? The first step is visual focus. Your website should highlight your book, its ability to meet a felt need, and how to purchase it.
Sell Your Book
Jasmine Holmes’s website focuses on selling her book. The two points of strongest visual interest on the homepage are the aesthetic cover and the subtitle, “The Black Christian Women Who Shaped Us.” Holmes’s use of the word “Us” draws the reader in, making them a part of the story—connecting to the felt need. And the next step in the visual journey down the page is the order button. Holmes effectively captures interest and directs it to the next step of buying the book.
Build Your Email List
James Clear’s website does an excellent job of building his email list, so let’s break down what is happening on his home page. Clear doesn’t lead with his visually compelling cover, he leads by connecting his book’s message to the reader, “An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones.” From there, the eye moves to the book cover, which sets the visual focus on the book itself. And finally, the eye moves to a brightly colored button offering a free chapter—Clear’s email sign up.
Both of these websites chose a single focus for their homepage. Depending on where you are in the publication process, you may have more need for emails than sales, or vice versa. Keep in mind that too many calls to action on a single page may overwhelm your reader into taking no action. When in doubt, keep it simple.