In my search for the perfect website template, I find myself writing down notes on what I see on writers’ websites that I need to consider and thought instead of jotting on notepaper and perhaps later having to repeat the information on this blog, why not write it here as a blog post. It is a learning process for me. And I hope it might help you in your search for your perfect or near-perfect website template.
After having to change my blog to wordpress a month ago, I had to find a new blog template – this one you’re seeing now and it will change – I wish I had researched at the beginning before I started the blog so I wouldn’t have to waste time finding out if I could transfer all that I had written since March 2010 to wordpress. I found out I couldn’t. So now with the website, I’ve decided to do some research on what’s on other author’s websites.
So you’re not wasting time changing your template every few months – because trust me it takes time and effort – the aim is to set a website up so that you don’t have to keep changing the template but to just add to it. Well, that’s my aim.
When looking at websites, you want to look at authors, novelists and writers who are on top of their game. They are published many times over and are just churning book after book out.
The website I’m getting a lot of my research inspiration from is AuthorBytes.com. If you go to that page, you’ll find all the authors listed there are writers who use their web design services. If you take a look at their services it’s quite impressive. But you kind of wonder if you could afford that. I can’t. Also you wonder how much control you have of adding information to it. I like to add things when I want without having to send emails to the web designer just to change a word or two.
Anyway, this is research and it’s just the possible pages you need on a website. Design etc another post perhaps.
So a published author website has these following basic pages:
- Home – has photo of the author, a big thumbnail photo of the most recent book or smaller thumbnail photos of others, a review of one of the books and links to other websites author is found.
- Books – the photo of the book cover, a synopsis and other details of the book
- Biography – about the author and a ‘Q&A‘ section might be included or on a separate web page.
- News & Events – or ‘Where’s Jessie?‘ self explanatory; sometimes ‘Reviews‘ are on here or on a separate page on its own. This page is sometimes simply called ‘News‘ if you’re not participating in events yet.
- Blog – don’t need to tell you what that is. I like how the design goes with the rest of the website.
- Media Room – or just ‘Media‘ where you’ll find photos of author and book covers people can download.
- Contact – contact details for the author, the agent etc.
These are extra pages you may want to consider having but they’re not compulsory: -
- Read excerpt – samples of your writing.
- Mailing List – or ‘Sign Up‘ – not all writers have this. I’ll cover this another time in another post.
- Other Writing – self explanatory see Susan Isaacs’s as an example or sometimes ‘Article & Essays‘ if you want to be specific.
- Reading Group – or sometimes called ‘Book Clubs‘ one author had questions about his characters and the book for a reading group critique. Lauren B. Davis says she’s happy to participate in any way possible.
- Resources – links where you’ll find useful information.
- Gallery – with photos of the authors with their life with family and friends or landscapes or anything else you want to share.
- Podcasts - not many had this but Paula Butturini did. She doesn’t read out her book but if you like reading out loud, perhaps you can have a podcast.
- Speaking - as seen here at Joan Biskupic‘s website if you speak at events regularly.
- International Editions – photos of your book covers translated internationally eg Chris Bohjalian.
- Videos - for book trailers.
- Films - see Alice Hoffman’s website.
- Products – I have added this one in case you do have a fan base who are crazy for your characters on a mug or bookmark. Think Lord of the Rings and cartoon characters.
What I do like about AuthorBytes.com’s websites is when they can add it to a page, they would have the book cover and a link to where you can buy it. It’s good marketing sense. If a potential customer is flicking through the description of your book and they like it, the book cover and a link to buy it is right there, they might just click it.
Depending on which stage you’re at in the whole process, some of the basic pages you may not need until you get the agent, the publisher and have confirmed book covers. But you want a website template that can cater for all those pages you may want to have in the future when you need them.
For someone at my stage who doesn’t have a book published, instead of a ‘Books’ page call it ‘Work in Progress’ or something like that so before someone clicks on it; they won’t get upset that the ‘books’ aren’t available to buy yet. A ‘Work in Progress’ page is good because it gives people an idea of what you’re working on. It’ll force you to write a 25 word summary, a synopsis and everything else to go with getting the story across not only to people in the industry but to your readers as well and that’s always helpful.
If you’re at the stage where I am, you only need ‘Home’, ‘Biography’, ‘Work in Progress’ and ‘Contact’. The other pages ‘Media’, ‘News’ and ‘Books’ you could be working on but will only need later on when you’re looking for an agent, once you’ve got your agent and the launch date for the books are confirmed.
Though saying that, you can have ‘News’ if you’re heavily involved in writing associations, unions, conferences and it’s a way to let people know where they can meet you next – great for networking – or you’re just telling people you’re in hibernation coming out for book clubs and reading groups like Lauren B. Davis. With the social media you’re juggling; sometimes if you’re going to disappear off radar for a few weeks or months, it’s good to let your fans know. Facebook does the same thing only if no one else is updating your Facebook posts for you. Telling fan via Twitter is fine especially people expect tweets from you but if things are not going to change for a while, the ‘News’ is there for people to see whereas with tweets posts will have disappeared after a day on your followers’ pages.
And the extra pages is for the author who has quite a large following eg ‘Mailing List’ or want to provide something different. You decide what you want and make sure the website template you choose, free or paid, caters for all of the above before you even start. It will save you a lot time messing around later.
Have you any good author websites you think is exceptionally good? What do you think? Do you need a website and how many of these pages would you have?
[pic taken from here]
~Until I sleep, the Internet will be my playground~
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What to Have on Your Website (part 1)?
What to Have on Your Website (part 2)?
What is the Writer’s Platform?
“So let your deepest desires direct your aim. Set your sights far above the ‘reasonable’ target. The power of purpose is profound only if you have a desire that stirs the heart.” Price Pritchett – Author
CURRENT STATUS: Reminder, Motivator and Daily Review Meeting (Read on if you want to join me in my Corporation of One meeting)
What l learnt today:
- Found this website full of published author websites – AuthorBytes.com via The Savvy Book Marketer site. Great for research when you’re looking for a new website template. There are some really good-looking sites. Okay to the blackboard I go.
- Having a website is one way to publicize you and your books. Editorial Ass talks about giving away customized stationery as well. I’m a stationery freak so I just love that idea. Can’t wait.
- Self-promotion can turn people off and what not to do.
What I have done today:
- Changed my bio details on blog so people have a better idea of where I’m coming from and what I’m trying to do.
- Changed my blog template to cater for the website I’ve decided to create myself. It was fun choosing my own RSS Feed icon and Twitter icon.
WORD COUNT: Night Walker 121,500 in total; Wednesday 30 June 500 words.
Hi Jessie. I was on Mike Duran’s blog and your name caught my attention (everybody calls me Jessie) so I thought I’d hop over. It looks like we have similar backgrounds and aspirations. I also happen to be a little geeky (computer programmer by day). I’m actually in the midst of redesigning my site. It is difficult to decide on a look and feel, something you think you can be happy with for awhile. My first design lasted a couple years. In the meantime I’ve done a major rewrite of my novel and changed the title, so I feel the need to revamp my site. Good luck finding the right template. I use
Now I’ll have to do that all over again. Eeks!
Wordpress also. Like I said, I’m a geek, so what I did was chose the most basic template I could find, then I tweeked it to match my website.
Good to “meet” you!
LOL, the entry into my site is broken, how fitting! Better fix that tonight!
Great post, very informative. Keep up the good work, Thanks.
Hi Jessie, good to ‘meet’ you too. Glad you popped in and said hello. Being on the Internet is like mountain climbing on your own and it’s mountains and mountains around you. You know people are out there but you just can’t see them; people like yourself climbing. So the blog is like you calling out and your voice called back. It’s cool.
Just to let you know there’s nothing wrong with your link – got to your site okay – you’ve fixed it I guess. Though the ‘in the queue’ link says ‘page not found’. I like the sound of ‘The Exception’ – I am quite partial to sci-fi myself eg Asimov. The story sounds very intriguing. What title are you changing it to? Have you sent it out yet to agents?
Yeah, you’re right we do have similar backgrounds but I know nothing about computer programming. Trying to sort out codes etc on this new template of mine. It’s maddening. Having your website a few years is pretty good; now there’s so many ‘new’ things to add it’s hard to keep up eg trying to add social media buttons for people to share individual posts – without knowing code it’s very much trial and error. When I said I dabbled in web design, I use Dreamweaver – self taught – and the split screen showing code and actual image is a lifesaver.
There are so many cool-looking wordpress templates out there. Good luck with that. Give me a buzz once you’re done – would love to check it out ; )
See you around Jess.
Thanks for popping by Success Ladder – really appreciate the comment. I do like the concept behind your website ‘simple thoughts to lead a better life’.
“Being on the Internet is like mountain climbing on your own and it’s mountains and mountains around you.” Great way of putting it! And sometimes it just feels like echo echo echo.
Thanks for checking out my story. I’ve been working on it several years and it’s had many iterations. I originally sent it to ‘non-Christian’ sci-fi agents. That was quite awhile ago. Nothing came of it and in hindsight I realize it was still too rough at that point.
Once I get my rewrite done, I plan on ‘launching’ the new website, new cover concept, and new title at the same time. We’ll see how that goes. It’s hard to find time to coordinate things.
Coding can definitely be maddening! Especially CSS, if that’s what you are tinkering with. Wow. Yep. It has a mind of it’s own.
Have a great weekend! I didn’t have time to pop around your site earlier, so I’m going to take a look around now.
I smiled when I got your message. It’s so cool to hear from you. Talking about ‘non-Christian’ sci-fi agents – is your book centered around Christianity? You know I’m sure I’m come across some agents who only specialized in Christian books if that’s its focus.
; ) I can’t wait for you to ‘launch’ your website. Mine is going to be pretty simple at first. I might not even have ‘biography’ and ‘contact’ so really all I have to ‘create’ is a ‘Home page’ and ‘My Writing’ or ‘Work in Progress’ page. That’s just two. The bio and contact can go on the ‘Home’ page. See how I just made that seem so much more manageable and easy. I’ll take my time on a proper ‘bio’ – but won’t need that until I’m published. You should check out JK Rowling’s ‘proper’ bio. Her website is really cool – I have to stop using that word – it’s not cool for over 30s. I’d love to be able to design a website like hers. I remember this horror film I watched once – just tried to find the website but couldn’t find it – but it’s Korean or Japanese (one of the phases I went through devouring Korean and Japanese films) and it had the most amazing website. Right, imagine horror – think JK Rowling’s website but horror – so as your mouse cursor moves around faces and bodies pop up. The English title was something to do steps – eg 28 steps or something. And it’s on the premise of if you walk up these particular steps and count, if you step on the 29th step that doesn’t exist, spooky things happen. So imagine taking your mouse cursor up these steps and one of the girls in the Korean language counts with you…it was really spooky, on every page things pop out even if you just had the screen open. Anyway, I digress – I wish I could create a website like that – as if you’re going on a journey on the website – like a virtual mystery tour. But going to keep mine simple ‘cos I can only do simple.
Anyway – yes, its CSS stuff – it all looks a bit like gibberish – at least with Dreamweaver you can see what you’re changing etc. Otherwise it is simply copy the original on to notepad and then play, publish and see. I google a lot to find answers ; )
With your website, concentrate on one thing at a time. Good luck. Have a great weekend too. See you around.
Will this work for both men and women?
“Will this work for both men and women?”
I don’t see why it shouldn’t work for both men and women. Thanks for commenting.
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