Author Website

What should an author website include?

While authors are all unique, there are some components that we identified as important for all author website designs, and incorporated into our design for laurakalpakian.com. For the majority of authors, their needs can be met with our basic site package.

Books

An author website, first and formost, should be set up to highlight the author’s books – present, past, and upcoming. Links to where those books can be purchased, at least from indie bookstores and two big online retailers, should be included for all books. Indie authors may want to include a shopping cart feature if they are selling their books directly.

Blog

A blog is one of the best things that can help with SEO. For many site owners, coming up with content can be difficult, but for an author website, this is a snap! We like to add a blog roll for each book so that articles about that book show up in the main blog, but also at the bottom of the page for each book. This is a great place to add a press release section, as well as an “In the News” section, where readers can access media such as interviews and talks that are offered by other outlets.

Contact

Whether an author likes to be contacted directly by their fans, or would prefer contact to go through their agent or publisher, that information should be found somewhere on the site.

Events

An events calendar is a great way to let readers know an author’s reading and events schedule.

Reviews

Reviews are important, throughout the site. Book-specific reviews are a great addition to each book page, as well as a page dedicated to editorial reviews. Some authors use a plugin that pulls their Amazon or Goodreads reviews automatically.

About

An “About the Author” page is a must, as well. At  a minimum, this should include a professsional headshot an a biography.