A Few Thoughts on the 'Author Website'
"Should I create one for myself?" "Is mine good enough? & other questions
Dear Friends,
The “should I create an author website for myself?” question was directed at me recently, and although I have a lot to say about this, I thought I could answer this in a brief-ish newsletter and revisit the topic later down the line if I need to. For those of you who already have an author website, don’t tune out just yet, because I also have some thoughts on the platonic ideal of the author website, which maybe could encourage you to do some of your own digital spring cleaning.
A lil background info: I have been creating websites since the late nineties. It’s one of those rare memories, looking back, that I’m oddly proud of. I don’t think I could teach my current fog-addled brain to code in the same way my more youthful, pliable one did. Back then it was more about creating fan shrines to fictional characters on websites like Geocities and Angelfire (obviously, I had a Sailor Moon fan page), or just coding for the sake of coding because the internet was this new, infinite, mysterious place. I got a lot of pleasure out of fussing with HTML and CSS and then switching over to see how that code transformed into a real, live, working website.
Jump ahead to my college years, and I was required to code portfolio sites for myself through web-centered classes during my art school coursework. I say this not only to establish ethos, but because the clean, minimalist websites of photographers and visual artists certainly inspired my own design philosophy for the author websites I’d create down the line (which is: to not distract from the work itself).
Eventually I took a departure from this visual artist version of myself, but I took a lot of what I learned from those years to apply when I made the first author version of my website. So let’s get back to that first question.
“Should I create an author website?”
My answer is almost always a resounding yes, especially if you are currently doing something under the guise of authorship or literary citizenship that you want to face the public. Additionally, building an author website might help you overcome some impostor syndrome and work toward actualizing some other goals.
In any case, I highly recommend registering your .com author website name if it’s still available and not being used/squatted by someone else. It’s always worth paying the ~$10/year just to have your author website name locked down, even if you’re not doing much with it yet. Securing and keeping a website with your name is only going to get more difficult as time goes on, so I’d recommend keeping tabs on that, even if you don’t have much to put on your site at the moment. Even if you have nothing else, you should, bare minimum, have a contact form or email address where people can reach out to you.
My “JD Scott” author website emerged around 10 years ago. To be clear, I wasn’t publishing much, but I kept an active blog centered on writing and editing, and I can say with certainty that it helped me overcome some of my own impostor syndrome. I was spending quite a lot of my creative focus editing a literary magazine at that time, and a lot of the ways I was meeting the world of writers was through that editorial hat, and I catalogued much of that on the website. I also remember doing NaPoWriMo (writing 30 poems across 30 days in April) and publishing a new poem on my blog each day. When I read at local reading series, I also took photos and posted them. It was a way for me to keep myself engaged with the literary activities I had going on, even if they weren’t centered on publishing itself.
The internet has changed a thousand times over since then, and the blog-o-sphere has transformed into the newsletter-o-sphere (which will one day change again and become outdated), but one truth remains for me: I found a way to maintain an author website even as a baby author who was trying to build their way up toward sharing their work with the world, but not really publishing yet. If I could do it, so can you.
“What is the purpose of an author website?”
The author website is essentially a brochure with information about you and what you do. It doesn’t need to be that dynamic—in fact—I’d argue against it. It should be a quick, intuitive experience so those seeking to learn more info about you as an author can find what they need in the shortest amount of time/clicks as possible. That’s it. Too many gadgets and gizmos are disruptive. Too many embedded clicks are exhausting and might cause someone to click away. Consider our collective attention spans, how they shorten with each passing year. Visitors are usually there to sample your work and get a taste of you as an author, so don’t make that challenging for them.
I’d also argue there is a second, secret purpose beyond the outward facing brochure: so you can have a mobile CV on you at all times in case you ever need to provide biographical information on yourself for opportunities (I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve had to send someone an author bio and copy-pasted it directly from my site).
“What should an author website have on it?”
I’d say the bare-boned essentials are:
Biography: a short statement in the third person listing what you’ve published and other accolades.
Personally, I like to have a longer one (solid paragraph) and a shorter one (two or three sentences). The longer one, for me, is when I’m trying to establish my full credibility and demonstrate all of my accomplishments. I use this on applications. This is not something I ever want read out loud, though. That’s what the short one is for (I also prefer to use the short one when publishing). (Please, if you coordinate literary events, do not read the long bio! There’s nothing more agonizing than standing still for five minutes as someone reads every lit mag you’ve ever been published in while everyone shuffles uncomfortably in their folding chairs.)
Writing/Publications: These are all the magazines, journals, reviews, newspapers, and cultural websites you’ve been published in. You may want to separate this by genre, because ultimately, this is about helping a reader visiting your website find your work easier. I personally split up “Fiction” and “Poetry” on my website.
Books/Chapbooks: Maybe you haven’t published yet, but if you have, it can also be beneficial to separate the individual publications from the book-length (or chapbook-length) ones. What to actually put inside these “Book” pages could be its own full newsletter, so let’s nip that one in the bud for now.
Some writers list their books by name in their navigation bars/menus on their site, which is one less click for your website visitor.
Events/Appearances/Workshops: This could also be optional depending on whether you do public events or not, but if the purpose is to guide your reader toward engaging with your creative work, then this is otherwise a must.
Contact: This is arguably the most important tab and the one I will eat crow about. Long ago I publicly stated how cold and alienating I find contact forms to be, but a bunch of fellow writers came to their defense, saying they can help mitigate bad actors and online harassers—and how not everyone wants to publicly list an email address on their website. I’ve come to acknowledge that those people were right (and even use a contact form on my site now!).
But I will also say this: contact forms can be wiggy. Their code can break or even go to spam without you noticing. I’ve had people I’ve tried to invite for paid opportunities who lost out because their contact forms on their website were non-functional. So while it’s really up to you to decide how you’d like to be contacted, I’d ask that if you use contact submission forms to make sure to check your spam every couple of weeks, just in case something slips through the cracks.
Also, if you have a literary agent and/or speaking agent, you may just want to side-step the whole contact form completely and have readers contact your agent(s) directly. IMO, I find this a little impersonal, but ultimately you know what’s best for your author website and personal well-being.
Depending on your preferences, you may also want to include: Press, Interviews, Book Reviews, any Freelance work you do (e.g.: editing services), Honors, a public CV, links to Social Media, Podcasts, Videos, Press/Media Kits, Newsletter, or beyond.
“I don’t know the first thing about coding or creating websites. How do I make one?”
I’d wager about 95% of the author sites you see online today are hosted through SquareSpace. I’ve used it before. It’s fine! The pros are that it’s easy to use, doesn’t require HTML knowledge, has tons of gorgeously designed templates, and it has a much smaller learning curve. The cons, I’d say, are the costs (it runs anywhere from ~$15-25/month) and the fact that because so many writers use SS, their templates are pretty recognizable on sight, which steals away a little bit of that unique spark of your individual authorship.
Personally, I use WordPress[.org]—the free content management system—not to be confused for the blog hosting platform WordPress.com. The former is a free CMS platform you can install on any website and customize; the latter is a free/freemium/paid service closer SquareSpace.
Wordpress has a much higher learning curve than SquareSpace because it requires buying a domain name, paying for a hosting service, installing WordPress, customizing it, and then trying to install a bunch of plugins to mitigate hackers and spammers (WP is targeted by a lot of spambots). However, I only pay about $5 per month and have much more customization to create my website as I please. Maybe one day I’ll do a more thorough WP tutorial for paid newsletter subscribers, but for now I’ll just leave you with a couple more options.
Beyond SquareSpace and WordPress, some people also use Wix and Weebly. I’ve known a few artists who use Cargo Collective, which is more comparable to SquareSpace.
“Do you still do any web design/dev work?”
Sadly, not really. I used to have people seeking me out pretty frequently, but with the growth of WYSIWYG websites like SquareSpace, most people seem equipped to figure this whole creative website thing out for themselves without the need of a coder friend.
To be honest, I used to find it a bit of a headache because even after the website was done and you’ve been paid, people want you to be their on-call, pro-bono IT person. If this whole teaching thing doesn’t work out, maybe I’ll go back to content design/management, but otherwise I don’t mind that chapter of my life being closed.
So that’s my basic FAQ about author websites. I hope you got something out of that. As a final note, I’d recommend making a practice of updating your website as soon as you have news you can share (which means: after you’ve signed a contract or have the blessing to make a public announcement) and personally feel ready to share. Make sure to include dates too (e.g.: when a publication comes out). I do this simply because I only update my actual CV about once or twice per year, and I always know I can go to my website for help recalling everything I’ve been up to. This way, whenever you apply to some fellowship or grant, you’ll know that you already have an excellent resource to turn to without anything slipping through the cracks.
Otherwise, good luck on creating or updating your sites. Even just writing this and flipping through my own site, I’ve already spotted a dozen housekeeping updates I need to make. Thus, I am off again with my virtual dustpan and that great broom of zeroes and ones.
Until next time,
JD