Since 2021 and the release of my book is rapidly approaching–let’s all be honest, we’d all like to time travel at least six months ahead, right?–I’ve hired a web designer to create a new website for me! Many authors are much more talented than I am and are able to create something on their own, but I feel much more confident focusing on the content and handing over design to a professional. My blog will be imported into the new site, so if you are one of my regular readers, I will definitely still be blogging, and from what I understand, you won’t have to do anything to keep following me.
I’m in the process of organizing all of the pages that will be on my website, and while I’m doing that, I’d love to hear what you like to see on an author website. Here are a few questions related to features I’m considering:
- Do you like it when authors include fun facts with their bios? Do you like straightforward bios focusing on the present or those that include childhood memories as well?
- What most catches your attention on an author’s homepage? Book info? Author info? A landing page that shows all other pages? An interesting design?
- What resources do you find most helpful on author websites? Writing resources? Resources related to the author’s books? Something else? Note: I will definitely still have the page that lists MG/YA books agents represent, as this is one of my most-visited pages.
- What’s your favorite author website? I’ve been checking them out for inspiration!
If you’ve been following me a while, you know I have a LOT of posts here. As I was looking through other author sites and seeing how their blogs looked, I realized I’d made a mess of categorizing my posts, so I spent the past week and a half adding sub-categories, converting some categories to tags, and deleting others altogether. My goal was to make it easier to search for posts using the categories. I made this word cloud to show my greatly reduced list of categories (you can also see them–with sub-categories–on the sidebar of the blog). Now I’ll just have to make a key so I don’t forget what I did with them 😂.
The new website is coming in early September. In the meantime, I’d love to hear your answers to the above questions as I’m pulling together all of my content for the designer.
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So excited that you’re working on a website. Let me know if you like your designer because I may need some technical advice for my blog. I look at a lot of debut author sites and I like ones that have some fun facts in their bio. I also like when they list interviews and guest posts in case I want to read them. One author who got a lot of good reviews had quotes from them on her about her book page.
I really like how Jennifer Nielsen did her landing page because she has a lot of books and you can see them on the landing page. She has a lot of other info that you might find helpful. Many landing pages don’t have much info and you click on buttons for about the authors, book info, events, etc.
One thing I hate is when authors don’t provide their email or a contact me form to complete on their websites. I’m shocked how many don’t have that. It makes it hard for bloggers to contact them for interviews or guest posts when you have to rely on Twitter to contact them.
I’m just starting to work on my 2021 schedule and will email you soon to see if you’re interested in being spotlighted. So excited for you! And looking forward to learning from your experience as I’m writing more now.
Thanks so much for answering my questions and giving me some specific tips, Natalie! I agree on authors not having contact info. I will definitely have a contact page :). I look forward to hearing from you about a spotlight!