If you can afford to pay for web hosting, you’ll find companies like GoDaddy, HostGator, and others. You have little control over what those include. In exchange for using their “free” space, they’ll place ads on your author website.
JERRY JENKINS CREATE A BLOG FOR FREE FREE
Most free host sites require you to either use their address (for example: or ) or purchase the domain name from them. Your hosting company makes sure your website is broadcast on the internet 24/7.įree hosting is available. You are responsible for everything posted there. Of course, they don’t own your author website. These are also called hosting companies, so you rent your online space from them. Landlords own the hardware that makes websites work. Tenants decorate their apartments the way they want-but they don’t own that space. If even the idea of “hosting” a site sounds foreign to you (it did to me at first), think of the Internet as an apartment complex. In addition to WordPress, my team also recommends Squarespace, Blogger, or Wix.
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Its user-friendly platform offers a huge variety of themes and allows us laypeople to build a professional looking website quickly and for very little or no cost. It provides the best interactive experience for your readers.įorty percent of all websites use WordPress, including me. Choose Your PlatformĪ website platform is the foundation on which a website is built. Below are simple instructions to get you started. If the Idea of an Author Website Intimidates You Get your growing audience interacting with you and each other by posing a simple question or taking a brief survey on their favorite things: books, movies, celebrities-you name it. It’s where you collect email addresses and build a list. This is what publishers and agents look for in potential authors. Once you’re a published author, it’s where you can connect directly with your readers. Instant credibility.Ī professional-looking author website puts your best foot forward and implies you’re a serious professional. It’s where agents, publishers, readers, and fans learn about your work and communicate with you.
No way around it, an author website is crucial. In fact, you’d be hard-pressed to Google any published author’s name and not find their author website with a custom domain name (usually, like mine, their own name). Google my name and you’ll be directed to. The first thing that ought to pop up is your author website.
Regardless of what you say about yourself and your work when pitching agents and publishers, one of the first things they do-sometimes even before reading the rest of your proposal-is conduct an internet search for your name. Well, that all starts with having your own author website. You’ve heard and read of your need for an author platform-a following, a tribe, visibility. Why am I so forthright about this? Because of the realities of publishing today.
If you’re an author, published or not, you need your own website.