by Erin Mitchell
Having recently completed the re-vamp of the Bouchercon 2015 website (please check it out!), I’m motivated to make this plea…
Dear Authors:
Yes, my day job is marketing books. When people ask me what I do, I say, “I connect books and readers.” Much of what I do is online, and my goal is always the same: To make it as easy as possible for readers to find books (and authors) whether they’re searching in a store, a library, or online.
Last week, I talked about Mobilegeddon, and the importance of your website being responsive (mobile-friendly). But that’s altogether irrelevant if you don’t have a website.
It’s been said before, but bears repeating: There is no reason—none—for an author to not have a website. It doesn’t have to be fancy. Heck, it doesn’t even necessarily need to be pretty (although that’s certainly preferable), but to not have one at all? That’s inexcusable.
But I don’t have the money for a website!
Really? My guess, then, is that you don’t know how much a website costs. Let’s break it down…
A URL—an address—costs about $10, and that’s assuming GoDaddy isn’t having a sale on URLs for $3.99 (as they often are).
If you want to go the do-it-yourself route (which I can’t, in good conscience, recommend), you have of options: Google, Blogger, and Wordpress.com are probably the most popular free ones. If you prefer to work from a template and can pay $8-20 per month, Squarespace or Wix might be worth a look.
Or you can employ a professional, someone who knows what they’re doing and can help you with design, implementation, and maintenance. Pricing for this varies dramatically and can be anywhere from $500-$5,000 or more. But the point is that even is your budget is modest, you can have a professional website.
You haven’t convinced me.
Ok, fine. You want to be harder for readers to find? That’s your call. But if you’ve ruled out a website, at least consider having a Facebook page and/or Twitter account.
Because, really…you’ve gone to the trouble of writing a book and getting it published…don’t you want readers to be able to find it?
Love,
Erin
You can do most of the stuff on Wordpress yourself with a little research. It takes time but it can be done without money. THANK YOU GOOGLE. I'd say about twice a year, I run into something I can't do myself on my website and I ask my techie brother for help. I think my website looks really good and is very user friendly if I do say so myself and it's all done my me, who doesn't know jack about websites except for what I've learned from looking at other author's sites.
Posted by: Kristi Belcamino | May 01, 2015 at 05:40 PM
I enjoy having a blog to promote authors, books, and reading. I also have a FB book page and a Twitter account. I can only imagine that if I had written a book, I would use any online resource available to promote it. Great advice, Erin!
Posted by: Kathy Reel | May 01, 2015 at 11:13 PM
If you take Kristi's advice and go the WordPress route, I strongly advise hosting it on WordPress.com (you can have your own URL like myname.com forwarded to myname.wordpress.com). The reason is that WordPress and its plugins are CONSTANTLY being updated due to hacking threats, and if you don't stay on top of it, your site can be hacked and blacklisted. I've been working with WordPress for years and I spend WAY too much time dealing with security issues. Hosting at WordPress.com takes a lot of the responsibility off your shoulders.
I will also say that I think SquareSpace sites tend to be a LOT nicer than Wix ones. I'd recommend SquareSpace. They often have free trial offers so you can give it a whirl before shelling out any money.
Also, if you want to quickly/cheaply turn a regular HTML web site into a mobile site: dudamobile.com.
Posted by: twitter.com/trow125 | May 02, 2015 at 01:43 PM
Personally, I much prefer the flexibility Wordpress.org affords, and I've never found the updating cumbersome nor had security issues (that said, I use a reliable security service/plugin). I think it depends on what you're looking for...but my point remains: there is no reason for an author to not have a site, nor to have one that's outdated.
Posted by: Erin Mitchell | May 02, 2015 at 04:28 PM
Agreed, Erin. I'm glad to hear you've never had security issues. Last year, the company whose security plugin I had been using was itself hacked! So no one is 100% safe...
http://www.tripwire.com/state-of-security/security-data-protection/ithemes-plaintext/
Posted by: twitter.com/trow125 | May 02, 2015 at 05:40 PM