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TIPS ON A SUCCESSFUL AUTHOR WEBSITE- PART1

Your website is an essential tool for book marketing. We’ve gathered some tips you can take advantage of.

1. BASIC INFORMATION

The clearer the design and structure of your website, the more likely the visitor will stay on your site and be interested in its content. Guide the visitors to sections where the important information located, good navigation is key.

For example, if you want to build an audience list, you can place the registration form for your mailing list in a visible place on the home page. Do you want to sell your books through your online bookstore? Then it should be clear that this is possible on your website, eg. through a shopping cart.

The rule of thumb: Make everything available with as few clicks as possible. Remember to formulate brief and informative sentences and texts. There are various Content Management systems, which makes your life much easier and offers many much-needed functions.

Some are easy to use; others require a longer learning period. In order for you as an author to concentrate on the most important thing we can help you to create a professional author website, just contact us.

Before you start building your author’s website, you should consider your goals. Think about what you want to present and what you want to focus on, eg. the sale of your book, build a community, get reviews, etc. The layout of the website depends on your goal, but the tips we give you below apply to all kinds of websites.

2. THE CONTENT

HOME

Present yourself and your books briefly on the homepage. Preferably with a good and compelling picture of yourself. Tell the readers in what genre you are writing to let them know at once what the page is about. It is good to add information about the entire content, e.g. with excerpts that link to further sub-pages.

ABOUT ME

Write about who you are – be creative, surprise, tell a story. And be sure to use high quality photo of yourself. If you do not have a good photo, you can leave it. More about it under point “3. Design” in the Pictures section.

BOOKS

Present the books that you have published so far and link to the subpages that contain more information. If you sell the books through your website, you can add the opportunity to buy the book here. Present your book with a big picture on the cover, a title and an interesting description. For many readers, it is interesting to know if the book is hardcover or a softcover, how many pages the book contains and what it costs. If you sell the book through the website, it is wise to add some reviews, if they already exist.

PRESS

Here you can add images and information about you and the book such as journalists can download for reviews.

CONTACT

You should give your readers the opportunity to contact you. 

GENERAL INFORMATION

On some page layouts, there is a menu in the right or left column, in others there is a footer at the bottom of the page. Here you can place social media links, registration link for your mailing list, a button for contact etc.

Create a custom color concept for your theme. A good tool is e.g. Adobe Color. You should not mix competing colors (for example, two very bright tones). Red on blue flickers – so it’s not a good combination. Use complementary colors, preferably two different ones, one of which is “dirty” and the other “fresh”. Everything else can be created in black and white. If you are not sure which colors match, you can choose a basic color and work with contrasts.

3. DESIGN

A stylish design is nice to look at; it also ensures that visitors stay on your site without quickly bouncing. It arouses interest and confidence in you and your books.

TEXT AND TYPOGRAPHY

Readability is the most important thing. Remember to use clear and simple fonts – concentrate on fonts without serifs and do not use display fonts. Never use more than two fonts! If you use two different ones, preferably use one with and one without serifs. The serifless font, for eg. headings, the one with serifs for the text.

Choose a font that is slightly too large, since there are also users who read your page on your mobile. A suitable line spacing is also important, preferably 140% or 150%.

Also, consider the contrast between the elements. A big headline should really be big and bold text bold – strong contrasts make the page interesting and at the same time they offer a good overview of the content.

For structuring the website use headings H1 to H3 – on subpages; however, you should use heading H1 only once.

IMAGES

Images should, above all, awaken emotions. Therefore, they should be of high quality. There is probably nothing worse on a website than poor quality images, which does not inspire the reader. Remember that your website should reflect your brand. Use a photographer for your author portrait and product images; it pays off.

Best, S. Kohen

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