Author Website: Adding Your Author Content
At this point everything we have covered applies to anyone setting up a new website. This is the point in this Blog Series where look at how to add author specific content to your new WordPress site and what content every author should have on their website.
What pages should the website have?
There is certain content and pages that every author website should have. If you are not careful your author website could end up missing some fundamental pieces. There are some author sites out there that don’t have ways to purchase the authors books, have no way to contact the author or have no descriptions of the authors books. With some author sites you can’t even tell if there are books for sale!
The following guidelines should help make sure you don’t miss any important aspects of your author website.
Here are the basic pages every author should have on their site as a bare minimum:
- Homepage
- About
- Books
- Contact
Here are three additional pages most authors are going to want as well:
- Events
- Blog
- Resources
In this Blog Series we will go through each of these pages and discuss
exactly what content should be on each one. But before we move on,
there is something we should cover.
Email Lists
Let me remind you that your #1 goal in building out your website, and in everything you do to generate sales of your books online, is to grow your email list. Your email list is more important than Twitter, Facebook, blogging, podcasting or anything else you do to generate book sales.
As we step through each page and highlight the content that should be on each one, you will notice that the email subscription box shows up a lot. This is because as far as book sales go there is nothing more powerful than having a direct connection to your readers through email.
What should I put on each page?
In this section we are going to step through each page and discuss exactly what content you should make available on each one. Once again, this is a guideline to make sure you don’t miss anything important, but feel free to make it your own.
Homepage
Your homepage is a portal. Don’t try to cram everything in, but don’t leave off the important things either. Give highlights of your most important things and allow your readers to click to find out more.
- Latest book – Make your latest book front and center on the site. Show the cover, give a brief description including blurbs and make the links to purchase very prominent. This serves two purposes. First, it makes it easy for your readers to buy your new book. Second, it’s good for branding. If people have read your latest book and land on your website, they’ll immediately know they’re in the right place.
- Email subscription box – As either #1 or #2 call-to-action on the page, invite people to join your email list.
- Headshot and short bio – Have your headshot and a short bio that ends with “read more” and links to your About page. Again, this is good for branding. You want readers to know they’re in the right place. Pro tip: Use the same headshot everywhere – Facebook, LinkedIn, Amazon Author Page, website, etc.
- Excerpts of other content – Show your latest three blog posts or links to your resources page or short stories you have available online. Make it easy for readers to find additional content online.
- Connect – Highlight where readers can connect with you online. Social media links, contact page, etc.
About
This page serves two purposes. It allows readers to learn a little bit more about who you are and what you do. It also allows media, bloggers, etc. to easily get information and images when needed.
- Headshot – Use the same picture as the homepage. Potentially make it available in hi-res to download if you are planning to do media and interviews.
- Short bio and Long bio – Give two versions of your bio. A two paragraph version that is very straight forward and then a longer version that goes into your background, where you grew up, what led you to being a writer, etc. Again, this is a place for readers to get to know you so don’t be afraid to share your personal story.
- Email subscription box
Books – Overview
Make sure it is easy to find all of the books you’ve written in one place. Especially for fiction writers, your backlist is extremely important. On the books overview page you should have all of your past books showing in reverse chronological order. For each book on this page you should have:
- Book Covers – The most instantly recognizable part of your book. Make it front and center, though if you have a larger backlist, I recommend showing them as thumbnails so people aren’t overwhelmed.
- Title
- Short description
- Links to buy the book
- “Read More” link – Link to the Single page for the book (covered in the next section)
- Email subscription box
Books – Single
For each of your books, you should have an entire page of your website dedicated to it. You can link to it directly when promoting the book, but it is also linked to via the “Read More” links on the Books – Overview page.
- Book Cover
- Title and Subtitle
- Full Description
- Blurbs and Testimonials
- Links to buy the book
- Email subscription box
Books – “What if I don’t have a book yet?”
If you’re working on your first book, still add a Book page to your site. Add as much to this page as you currently have and continue updating it until you have all of the pieces listed above. If all you know is a tentative title and short description, add that. Once you have a cover, add that too.This is the preview page for your upcoming debut title!
Contact
Make it extremely easy and clear how people can contact and connect with you.
- Email address – Authors from time-to-time do not want to post their email address online for fear of spam. As long as you are using a reputable service such as GMail, you shouldn’t have to worry about this.
- Mailing address – If you’re uncomfortable sharing your home address, use your office address or a PO Box. It’s important to make it easy for people to mail you things.
- Social media links – Share your Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Pinterest, etc. links for everywhere you are active so readers can connect with you on these platforms.
- Contact form – While this will merely send an email to your inbox, it saves an extra step for the reader so is nice to have.
- Email subscription box
Blog
Whether you blog or not is a personal choice, however if you do there are a few things you may want to have in place if you decide to start blogging.
- Blog posts
- Author – List your name as the post author, even if it’s your website. You want to make it very clear to new readers that you are the one writing.
- Share links – Make it easy for readers to share your blog posts through social media.
- Comments – Consider starting out by opening comments. You may have problems with people being trolls, but for most authors this isn’t an issue. You can always block people or close comments later if it becomes a problem.
- Sidebar – Most blogs have a sidebar and it’s a great place to pull new readers deeper into the site. Don’t overload it though with word clouds and other miscellanea.
- Email subscription box
- Headshot and short bio
- Latest book
- Popular posts
Resources
Having a resources page is a great way to share your “evergreen” content – the content that doesn’t get old over time. Use this to share your tips on writing, short stories, white papers, videos, interviews, etc. It’s going to be extremely specific to you and your platform, so don’t have any specific things that have to be on the page except, of course, for an email subscription box.
These are the pages and content that you should consider having on your author website. Overall, you want to make it easy for people to know they’re in the right place, buy your books, sign up for your email list and connect with you through your content.
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