How to Make a Website for Your Author Business
If you’re an author with an upcoming book, you’re probably wondering what you should do with your website. You might have heard about the author Cecile Andrews who wrote the best-selling American Woman series, and she inspired this article. While her books are more than 20 years old, she is still one of the top selling authors of all time with more than 150 million copies sold worldwide.
Her website was first and it is still one of the best examples of a successful author website. When she decided to write a new book, she wanted to expand on the concept and learn from her mistakes. She quickly realized that she needed to update her website to reflect the new direction her career had taken her in. She also needed a way to engage with her audience more effectively. While her original site focused on her books, she now covers a broad range of topics including family, relationships, career, and finances. All of these combined make up the full spectrum of online content that her fans expect and appreciate.
Choose a Niche And Build On It
When we think about websites, generally we think about blogging platforms like WordPress or Blogger. These are great for creating a space for an author to speak their mind and share their experiences. They are very popular and the ideal choice if you want to quickly get yourself set up with a blog.
However, if you want to create a more traditional website with a focus on content, you can choose from a variety of content management systems (CMS) that can help you with this task. You can use the open source content management system, Joomla!, for instance, to build a website that is comparable to Andrews’ original site. Another popular CMS is WordPress, which powers more than 27% of the world’s websites. Whether you are an experienced web developer or just want to write a blog, WordPress makes creating a website simple and fun.
If you want to create a website for your author business, it’s important to pick a niche and build on it. This is similar to picking a specialty and building a practice around it. For example, if you’re a lifestyle writer, you can build a practice around styling and fashion content. Once you have a small audience, you can then branch out into more specialized areas like health and beauty, fitness, or food. When you choose a niche, you are narrowing your target audience and tailoring your content to appeal to a certain group of people. This makes it much easier to build a sustainable audience that will eventually translate to book sales.
Invest In High-Quality Content
If you’re creating a website to promote your author business, you need to focus on high-quality content. This means that you should strive to create content that is informative, well-written, and engaging. While there is certainly room for personality in your content, it must still adhere to a certain standard. If you’re serious about attracting and keeping an audience, you should invest in creating content that is comparable to what you’d see on a premium news site or a reputable business magazine. For instance, if you’re writing about technology, you can look to specific blogs that cover this subject or check out the quality articles on popular technology sites like TechCrunch and Wired.
Even better, you can use tools like Buzzworthy to get high-quality content for free. With Buzzworthy, you simply need to submit your articles to a large selection of top-notch publications. Once these publications have vetted your articles, you’ll see them published on your site. You can find a quality publication that suits your voice and appeals to your target audience.
Build A Community
If you’re an experienced author, you probably already have connections within the literary community. You can use these connections to quickly get in touch with prominent bloggers and journalists that can help you to get the word out about your website. When you build a community, you’re creating an environment where people feel comfortable sharing and trusting one another. You can start by engaging with your audience through social media or holding live chats and online forums. Once you have a small community, you can then take it upon yourself to foster deeper connections by reaching out to people who can help you to grow your audience. For example, if you’re a fashion writer, you can reach out to other fashion writers for advice and collaboration. This is something that Andrews does regularly on her blog. She often asks other fashion bloggers for advice on styling and offers suggestions on their content. She believes that by creating a space for this kind of engagement, she is encouraging her audience to engage with her more frequently and with a higher degree of motivation.
Make It Mobile-Friendly
If you’re an author who wants to create a website, you should certainly consider mobile-friendliness when you’re building out your plan. After all, your online readership is gradually shifting to a mobile device, so it’s important that your website works well on these smaller screens. This means that you need to create content that is easy to scan on a mobile device. Fortunately, this is easier said than done. There are numerous design features that you can incorporate into your website to make it more mobile-friendly, like adjusting the font size, using images instead of text, or creating a simplified layout. Simply find what works best for your mobile readership and sticks out. This will encourage them to return to your site on their phones rather than their computers.
Find Your Own Voice
While there is certainly room for collaboration within the literary community, you should still create content that is personal and unique to you. Even more important, you should not be afraid to put yourself in your content. If you’re not comfortable sharing your experiences, you should certainly consider writing an article on the subject of careers or fashion instead. This is an area where your experience is valuable and can guide your audience in a way that someone else’s content can’t. This is particularly important if you want to attract a younger audience to your website. If you’re trying to grow your audience among Gen-Z, you should strive to write in a way that will resonate with this demographic. What is important is that you write from the heart and authentically express yourself. In doing so, you will develop an authenticity that will captivate and engage your audience.
Make It Social
An engaging website that can capture the attention of readers is one that is social. In this day and age, people are constantly connected to their smartphones, which means that they are constantly online. If you want your website to stand out, you need to ensure that it is sharing-worthy. You can do this through various social platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. These are the big three, but there are also many smaller platforms like Instagram that you can use to connect with your audience. The important thing is that you use these platforms to engage with your audience. When someone finds your content on social media, they will often want to come back and read your articles. This is valuable in and of itself, but it also means that you’ve now got their attention and they are potentially interested in your content. To turn them into paying subscribers, you can use tools like Google Adsense to manage your online advertising and engage with your audience through sponsored posts.
Make It Personal
While you should certainly engage with your audience through social media, you should not be afraid to put a face to your content. After all, your website is essentially a representation of yourself, your voice, and your opinions. To make it personal, you can add a personal touch by adding your own photos or changing the background image on your site. Even better, you can use items from nature to give your page a natural feel.
On Andrews’ site, she uses the background image on her home page as a seamless transition between the articles and images that she publishes on the site. She does this by taking advantage of the website’s full-width format. The image is designed to look like an oil painting and it seamlessly blends into the text and photos throughout the blog. This is an effective way to make your website more personal and inviting to your audience.
In conclusion, building a website for your author business is a lot of work, but it’s worth it. If you’re looking for a way to create a voice for yourself on the web, a website is a great place to start. Ultimately, you’ll want your website to reflect your professionalism and credibility as an author. Above all else, make sure that you commit to creating content that is valuable and helpful to your target audience. With these guidelines in mind, you’re sure to create a functional and engaging website that will eventually lead to book sales.