Why You Should NOT Abandon Your Author Website
If you missed the memo, most writers aren’t rolling in cash. We have to be selective about the tools we invest in for our craft, and we watch the inflation on those tools carefully. So, as we look at author sites, should we continue to toss money at them?
For many writers, the temptation is to leave their author sites behind. That’s especially true if the site doesn’t directly lead to book or other content sales.
But author sites are not just about selling books. They are about demonstrating a fuller platform.
WordPress blogging, StockSnap from Pixabay
A full profile for more opportunity and income
This is the point many authors miss. A website allows you to do all kinds of things that support your career. You can share clips from speaking engagements, let people read the most latest posts from your social media RSS, put up episodes to a writing- or subject-expert-related podcast you host, host events and classes, make interactive announcements about upcoming content (e.g., a book cover poll), and much more.
Many writers don’t see this fuller potential simply because they’re thinking like writers, not teachers, marketers, and entrepreneurs. But letting others see the “whole you” is important. It helps build trust with readers and signals to professionals like literary agents that you’re capable of truly engaging in the industry.
Now keep in mind that it’s much of this “extra” engagement that actually delivers cash. For example, if someone sees your site and is impressed enough to invite you to speak or co-host an event, you can get paid for that work. You can bring your books to the event. Even if you give them away as loss lead gifts, most attendees will take a closer look at your work afterward. You might end up selling much more content because of that, and the event means you look more attractive to others for future work, as attendees know you’ve been vetted. In many cases, this more than offsets the expense of keeping the author site going.
Why most writers don’t create true hub
Although other free platforms like Substack offer a lot of flexibility for writers, none of them truly allow authors to build an ecosystem that directly supports fully customized goals and writing preferences. But to leave those kinds of platforms requires writers to think critically about exactly what they want their career to look like and deliver. It requires knowing the readers well enough to integrate what the readers will find most useful, too. Many writers simply haven’t challenged themselves enough to be that deliberate and intentionally create the specific infrastructure they want.
To win, showcase you, not just your writing
In fairness, I understand the challenge of creating a true hub. I’ve lived it, fighting with WordPress more hours than I can count and struggling to find moments to build between other responsibilities. It IS a lot of work, and I’m not going to chide anybody who hires a designer to help. But to me, the freedom to adjust in real time and go where I want without the limitations of a third party’s control, knowing exactly how elements of the site work, is worth it. The ability to showcase a career — not just books — matters.
Remember, people don’t come to an author site just because of the content. They also come because they want to know about you as a person. Show the full scope of who you are and what you’re doing and the sales will follow.
[Transcript summary]
Hello, everybody. I’m Wanda Thibodeaux of takingdictation.com, and I was on Substack the other day, and I happened to see this post by a fairly well known author. And this author was basically saying that they were going to drop their author website. And they mentioned the expense of all that, which is valid. But I just kind of cringed when I saw that.
If you are an author and you are thinking about dropping that, please do not. Keep your author site. The reason — the rationale that this person had given for dropping that was because they weren’t selling a whole lot of books. I understand that.
But here’s the thing, okay? Your author site is not just about selling the books. Your author site is a funnel. It is a home base. And when people talk about having a platform, like when you are working with an agent, or anybody who’s doing promotion and wants to know who you are, that is where they can go to see your entire ecosystem. It is not just about the book. It is about showing your bio. It is about showing everything that you have been doing over your life. You can put a social media feed on there. You can do all kinds of things, show videos, everything. It is not just about the books. You can communicate with your readers there. So, it’s very much bigger than that.
And so, this is — I want you to see this as your one home base that does so much heavy lifting for you. That heavy lifting is well worth the expense of keeping the website up. Now, if you get to the point where the — the site is driving everybody, and that’s where you’re making your sales, okay. But for now, you know, you could just use that to say, again, it’s a funnel. And if people want to click out to Amazon, they can do that. If you want to click out to Barnes and Noble, they can do that. But that’s not really the main function. Okay, it is part of it, but see the bigger picture. That’s my advice. Take care.