Being an author involves more than just writing. If you want to ensure a spot for yourself on the bestseller list, you need more than just an amazing book, novel or poetry collection, you need an amazing marketing strategy. This is where author websites come in. Creating an author website is the first step to creating an effective marketing strategy for your writing career.
Your author website is basically your online portfolio, your business website and your marketing platform all in one place. It is the central hub from where you can begin the process of turning your work into a bestseller. But what does it take to create great author websites?
This article covers all the reasons why a website is important for all professional writers and poets. We also share some of the best tips for creating amazing author websites to help you out in your website building journey. Finally, because inspiration is key for all creative endeavours, we have compiled some of the best author websites built with Pixpa to help you learn the secret behind their success! See some stunning portfolio websites created on Pixpa to inspire you to create yours!
Here are 4 top reasons why you need an author website:
- An author website is very effective for branding
- Author websites are essential for marketing and promotion
- Let's you communicate with readers
- An author website shows the world that you're serious about writing
An author website is very effective for branding
Branding is not just for products and commodities. Authors need a brand as well. The Harry Potter series has turned out to be an effective brand for J.K. Rowling and the same goes for George R.R. Martin with A Song of Ice and Fire. Both of these writers have author websites which is a huge part of their branding. Rowling’s website Pottermore helps her consolidate her brand and create a marketing and promotion platform for both her books and herself.
Another way in which author websites help you in branding is by ensuring that you get a platform where you have full control over your image, the information you give out and what you choose to promote. In this way your author website can be the focal point for your brand as a writer.
Author websites are essential for marketing & promotion
Apart from branding, author websites are also important for marketing and promoting yourself as an author. You can use your website to share updates about your books, promote new releases, and more. You can also use your website to get people to sign up for your newsletter and use that as a method of retaining your readers and keeping them interested in your work. Authors with websites are able to handle their marketing strategy better because their website gives them a central platform from which they can branch out.
Do check out our selection of 25 best portfolio websites, which are full of stellar web design lessons to help you level up your portfolio website and make it stand out!
Lets you communicate with readers
It is very important for a writer to be able to communicate with their readers. Readers get invested in books. They get invested in stories and characters and feel connected to the poetry they read. If you are a good author, then chances are that your readers feel connected to your books and are curious about the person who wrote them. By communicating with your readers through your author website you are able to nurture this connection and form a rapport. This helps you know your readers and what they want to read which in turn helps you write better books.
A contact form is the simplest way of fostering a relationship of communication with your readers. This article on how you can create an effective contact page talks more about what makes for a good contact form and how it can help you and your website. You can also use regular newsletters to update your readers about new releases and behind the scenes news.
An author website shows the world that you’re serious about writing
In general, authors with websites appear to be more serious about their writing career. This is simply because creating your own website shows a certain degree of dedication not just to writing as a craft but to writing as a profession. It shows that you don’t just write as a passion but are keen on turning it into a viable career and earn an income from it. Through your author's website, you can move beyond just the creative aspect of writing and get involved in the business side of the craft. It is important to remember that being a good writer and being a successful writer are often two very different things.
Do read these articles
Here are the top 5 Tips to creating a successful author website
Pick a modern, minimalist template for your author website
The most important factor to keep in mind when you are building your author website is that it must make an impact. You may not think of minimalism as a particularly impactful design choice but it really is! Minimalist website design ensures that your website is clear of clutter, and creates a single focal point. This makes your author website more impactful because the viewer’s eye is not being constantly distracted by different elements but instead focusing on one thing. This makes it easier to make an impact.
To learn more about how minimalist website design can help author websites check out this article on the best minimalist websites and if you want to choose a minimalistic web design, here is a comprehensive guide that covers all the different angles to help you.
Include an author bio to make yourself more approachable
Author websites are an excellent way of connecting with your readers and forming a relationship with them. But for this you need to reveal yourself as a person. Remember that it takes two to form a good relationship or rapport. Creating an about page introducing yourself as an author and as a person is a very good way of preparing the groundwork for this. Your author bio does not need to be very long, in fact it is best to keep it brief, but it should be warm, direct and approachable in order to make your readers feel like they know you and that they can get invested in you just as they get invested in your work.
This article on how to create the best ‘About’ pages is the perfect thing to help you in this!
Communicate with your readers by adding a blog
As we have noted already, communication is key when it comes to marketing yourself as an author. In order to communicate better through your author website, you can include contact forms, or integrate your social media channels or create mailing lists to send out newsletters to your fans and readers. Another good way of communicating with your readers is by adding a blog to your website. A blog gives you the opportunity to share some of the behind the scenes process of writing your books which can help your readers feel more invested in your work. You can also use your blog as a sounding board to get feedback from readers, share your love for writing and literature and simply express yourself as a writer and as an individual.
This article on how to write the perfect blog post can be of particular interest to you here.
Integrate your social media channels with your author website
It is a truth universally acknowledged that social media platforms are one of the foremost tools to market yourself and create an online presence. The best book author websites belong to those writers who are able to successfully integrate their social media channels with their website. This helps you in creating a seamless online presence and also enables you to manage your brand better. By integrating your social media with your website you can also encourage people who visit your site to further follow you on other social media platforms. This gives you an opportunity to forge a continuing relationship.
Social media marketing may not be easiest but it is one of the most effective for sure. This article on how you can use social media marketing to grow your business is a must read!
Choose the right website builder platform for your author website
Given that creating the perfect website is so essential for you as an author, the importance of choosing the right website builder is impossible to overstate.
Pixpa is an easy to use, all-in-one website building platform for writers, creators and small business owners. With Pixpa you can build a professional author website in no time. You don’t even need any advanced technical skills or coding knowledge! Pixpa makes website building incredibly easy, accessible and most importantly affordable.
With a wide range of pixel-perfect, professional, modern and minimalist templates. Pixpa is the perfect choice for author websites. The easy to use visual editor and drag and drop page builder empowers you to create your website without hassle and without touching a single line of code. Along with this you also get access to Pixpa’s integrated SEO and marketing features including marketing pop-ups, announcement bars and mailing lists to help you use your website as an effective marketing platform for your writing career. Want to read more? Here are top 25 reasons why you should choose Pixpa to build your website are guaranteed to convince you!
We know that there is no better way of learning than by example. These top 6 best author websites built on Pixpa are sure to help you and inspire you! Let’s take a look at some of these incredibly talented writers and poets to see how they use their author websites to promote their work and boost their writing career!
Here are the top 6 best author website examples built with Pixpa to give you some ideas.
Elizabeth Nelson
Elizabeth Nelson is an author, artist and playwright. Elizabeth’s website is a great illustration of how minimalism and simplicity of design can make for stunningly impactful author websites. The landing page is simple, clean and gives us all the information we need about Elizabeth in a succinct and uncluttered way. When we enter the main part of the website we are greeted with a well-organized archive of her work. The secret behind the best book author websites is clarity of thought and ease of navigation and Elizabeth Nelson’s website ticks all the boxes in that regard!
Nel Stephenson
Nel Stephenson describes himself as a New Yorker transplanted to Los Angeles. His author website uses bold colours and a simple colour palette which is a great choice as it echoes the tone and general theme of his writing as well. This gives Nel’s website a lot of personality which is always a great thing! His author bio is fun, direct and humorous which is great for building a rapport with readers and encouraging them to engage with his website and his work more.
Parev Books
Taleen Moughamian is an Armenian-American children’s author who wishes to accomplish two things with her writing: to introduce young kids, especially from the Armenian diaspora, to the Armenian language, and to foster a connection with Armenia at a young age. Through her book Parev Yerevan, she wants to inculcate a sense of community and cultural heritage in young Armenian-Americans. Her author website is simple but incorporates the use of bright illustrations and child-friendly language which is perfect for the kind of readership she is looking to attract!
Rina Deshpande
Rina Deshpande is a poet, writer and educator. Rina’s interests are varied ranging from yoga to poetry, illustration and school education. This is very visible in her author website which does a great job of taking all of her diverse interests and bringing them all together in one cohesive website. Rina also uses her website to link to her other channels, including social media platforms as well as mainstream media platforms where her work has been published. By doing so Rina is able to turn her website into an effective marketing tool.
Elif Sezen
Elif Sezen is a Turkish-Australian multidisciplinary artist, bilingual writer, poet, researcher and translator. Her artistic work spans many different genres, fields and mediums, including writing. Memory and exploration of memory in its various forms feature prominently in her work and she tries to evoke this same theme through her website’s landing page. Her website is simple but impactful in its simplicity and purposefulness. Elif’s author website is a very good example of how writers can use their website as an extension of their artistic work.
Faith McClure
Faith McClure is a visual artist, creative writer, art critic/journalist, and arts educator. Faith’s author website is another very good example of a simple, minimalist yet impactful website. By using her artwork as the centerpiece of her landing page, Faith manages to make a powerful first impression as well as introduce site visitors to the primary themes in her work. Faith’s website can be a great template for those who are looking to create author websites that are focused on creating a strong impact.
Conclusion
The age-old writing maxim says that showing is better than telling. Nothing shows your commitment to your writing career better than creating a website dedicated to it. Author websites can be the most powerful professional tool in your arsenal when you are trying to find your footing as a writer or poet. What’s more? They are not as expensive to create as you may think! This article on how much does a website cost will be informative for you if you have been thinking about the cost of building a website!
We hope this article was able to shed some light on how you can create the perfect author website. We also hope that these beautiful author websites built on Pixpa gave you the inspiration you were looking for. So while this inspiration is still fresh and the creative juices are still running, why not start working on creating your very own website to level up your writing career? Pixpa is the all-in-one, DIY solution for all your website building needs! You can start creating your author website for free with Pixpa’s full-featured 15-day free trial.