by Penny Sansevieri
It’s simple: if you’re an author, you need a website—period.
An author website is essential to your brand, and when used correctly, your overall success. But that doesn’t mean your website needs to be some big, elaborate endeavor; in fact, sometimes the simplest, most streamlined websites are best. In the end, the look, feel, and functionality of your website—and the book-marketing strategies you’ll use—will all depend on your unique goals as an author.
Still, it’s important to remember that presentation is always key.
Websites, like book covers, rely solely on first impressions, and readers (potential buyers) instantly know a good book cover from a bad one—or a good website from a bad one. And with all the competition out there, you won’t get a second chance. So let’s go through a list of must-haves for maximizing your website’s performance.
Decide What’s Best for Your Brand
First and foremost, you need to determine the goals for your homepage, not just your website. Obviously, you want to sell books, but you may have other goals as well. Maybe you want to do speaking events or get more media—or maybe you have a second book coming out you want to tell everyone about. Where do you begin?
First off, be careful how much you cram onto your homepage. Consider the toothpaste aisle at your local grocery store. Lots of options, lots of different tubes of toothpaste. And you know what? It’s overwhelming. Someone who’s overwhelmed will often go for the most familiar brand or simply not choose at all.
Now, let’s break this down by genre.
If you’ve written non-fiction—and let’s say you have a book that’s tethered to your business or speaking—then your primary goal for the homepage likely won’t be selling your book. The goal probably will be to get people to use your company, sign up for your consulting, or book you for speaking.
If your book is fiction, then yes, you want to have your book on the homepage—but honestly, when was the last time you bought a book off an author website? Probably not recently, unless the person is a friend, a writer’s-group buddy, or someone in your family. For this reason I’m going to suggest having a mailing list sign-up front and center on your website.
Play Up Your Reader Sign-Up
Even if you opt for a basic site, you should still have a mailing list. Why? Because readers turn into fans, and fans love hearing about your next release, and in some cases fans also help you spread the word about your book. This is one of my favorite book marketing strategies. Make signing up for your mailing list easy and worthwhile. What do you want in exchange for sharing your information? Consider giving them something in return for signing up.
Don’t bury your mailing list, making your reader scroll too far down the page—because most won’t. Make sure your sign-up and your reader magnet are up top, ideally on the right-hand side of your website. Why right? Because we read from left to right, and we scan websites in a “Z” formation.
Determine How and Where to Sell
How you decide to sell your book on your website is really about whether or not you want to ship copies of your book. Have a bookstore on your site, but consider sending folks to Amazon or maybe two other places (at most). Again, consider the toothpaste aisle—giving a reader too many places to buy your book will only cause them to do nothing and leave.
If You Want Them to See It, Promote It!
Maybe this sounds silly—I mean, why promote something that doesn’t put you and your work in the best light? But it’s amazing how many times I see an author with links to social media sites they haven’t updated in ages, an outdated bio, or an author page on Amazon that has no author photo or bio. Details matter.
Remove links to the social media sites you don’t update, and fix whatever else you need to. If you haven’t updated your blog in months, then don’t showcase it. It makes you look like you aren’t showing up for your own party.
Check In for Monthly Maintenance
On the heels of the bullet above, it’s always good to review your site at least once a month. I’m constantly surprised at the things I find—or don’t find, as the case may be. It’s all part of your first impression and your chance to sell your book. I’ll say it again: details matter.
For example, if your website’s homepage is still announcing your upcoming release two months after it’s come out, it shows you don’t take yourself seriously. So why should readers?
Stand Out from the Crowd
The one thing that can set you apart from the competition is your author brand. Small details can do big things for your likability! One author I know asks people to tell her the best place to get pizza in their hometown when they use her contact form. It also happens to tie into her brand (one of her books is set in an Italian restaurant). So doing things like that—tying your brand into who you are and being memorable—will give your website’s overall performance a boost.
At my firm, we’re big dog lovers, so you’ll see pictures of our dogs on the About Penny page as well as on our podcast page. If you haven’t seen our four-legged podcast team, you really should take a look.
If you’re new to the website world or you have a website that you know needs updating, do some recon! Search similar authors in your genre and see what they’re doing. Find websites you enjoy visiting, consider why you sign up for some newsletters or marketing emails and not others. Incorporate ideas reasonable for your platform and make them your own!
Finally, if you write across different genres, make the experience positive for each of those markets. One example is making the site welcoming for your cozy mystery fans, giving them a dedicated page, and then doing the same for your romantic suspense fans. Don’t assume genre readers are willing to wade through books they have no interest in—you’re asking too much. A good way to do this is to have a main website with pages hidden within the site for your various genres. And share these pages when you promote these books.
So much of the world is online these days, and that’s where you want to be too. Author websites are an investment in you, your author brand, and your future—and they’re a great way to compile and store your work so your audience is sure to find it. Your website is your storefront: it welcomes new readers, engages existing ones, and should, above all, build your author platform.
Penny Sansevieri, CEO and founder of Author Marketing Experts, Inc. (AME) and an adjunct professor at NYU, is a best-selling author and internationally recognized book marketing and media relations expert. Her company is one of the leaders in the publishing industry and has developed some of the most cutting-edge book marketing campaigns.
