What you need to make a great author website

If one of your plans this year was to make an author website (or get your current author website in shape), today’s newsletter is for you!

Why do you need an author website? You need a place that holds all the information that your readers would want to know. Social media sites are often used as replacements for author websites, but you don’t own your Facebook page or your TikTok handle, and if any of those platforms go under or get hacked, you can lose access to those sites and to your readers. And those platforms are designed for specific purposes (i.e. to be social) rather than to transmit information. One central place that you can direct readers to and that you own will make your life so much easier.

If your goal is just to get your site up and running, I’m going to cover the tech basics and the pages you’ll need for your site here, and keep it super simple so you can quickly get it online. Then I’ll get into ways that you can make the content really pop so that readers can get the most out of your site.

Tech basics

If this is the part that’s making you not want to even put a website together, fair. I get it. The term “tech basics” scares me too. So let’s break it down step by step.

First, you should get your own domain name, e.g. authorname.com. Make it super easy for people to find you on the internet, rather than having to type an unnecessarily long website address with dots and backslashes. And this will also get you your own email address with your domain name (e.g. author@authorname.com), rather than just a gmail address (not required, but looks a bit more professional). You do have to pay for a domain, but I think it’s a necessary cost of doing business as an author.

You do NOT need to hire someone to design you a whole custom website right now, especially if you’re just starting out. That’s expensive and fancy, and you can make a website on your own without spending much money. We’re going to keep everything super simple at the moment, and then you can build up to higher levels of fanciness later if you want to. So get a website builder like Squarespace, Wix, or WordPress (I use Squarespace), and they will walk you through the process of putting a site together.

If you want to get a logo and brand colours and fonts, go for it, but if this is not your thing (it is so not mine), just keep things black and white with a pop of colour, and choose a easy-to-read font for the bulk of the writing on the site. For your logo, you can choose another font just for your author name. We want to keep this readable and easy to use. If you want to use photos, use your own or choose royalty-free ones from sites like Unsplash or Canva.

What do you actually need to include on your author website?

A bio: Just a short paragraph about who you are, what you write, and maybe some fun little tidbits about your life. I also suggest including a picture, but totally understand if you’d rather be faceless (an illustration/cartoon also works). A bio helps readers relate to you, get to know you, and get on your side so that you can make a connection with them and not just be the writer behind the curtain.

Books: Tell readers about your work by including blurbs for all the books you have out (it can be the back cover blurb copy/pasted there, that’s fine). Most importantly, make sure you have buy links directly to the bookseller of their choice. Use universal links for Amazon so that you can easily send them to their own country’s Amazon. As a Canadian, I find it so frustrating  when only American Amazon links are included, and if I’m feeling lukewarm about the book, it may stop me from seeking it out on Canadian Amazon (yes, I am that lazy sometimes). Don’t give readers a chance to talk themselves out of buying the book! The blurb should sell them on it, and then you need to give them the clearest path to go buy it.

Contact info: Sure, this might open you up to awkward fan interactions or unwanted criticism or pressure (“when’s the next book coming out?!”), but it also gives grateful readers the opportunity to tell you how much they loved your book and what it means to them, which: worth it. Also include your social media links so that readers can follow you and stay up-to-date with what’s going on with your work.

Newsletter link: Make sure you include multiple places on your site where readers can sign up for your newsletter. I’ve talked at length before about why newsletters are SO important, and if starting or reviving your newsletter is one of your goals for this year, I would say that the newsletter is perhaps even more important than the website. It took me a year or two before I started a newsletter, and I still regret that I didn’t do it sooner.

You can add more pages to your website, but these ones above are the absolute musts. If you want to have a page about events you’re going to or press you’ve done, or if you have a blog, you can include them as well. (If you don’t want to blog, you don’t need to, promise.)

How to make your website work for you

Here are a few tricks to help your readers find what they need on your site and understand you better.

We want readers to connect with you on an emotional level, so inject some personality into your site. Have a tagline that explains what you and your books are about (check out other writers’ sites to see the little one-liners they use to give readers a sense of who they are). What kind of romance do you write? What themes do you explore in your work? What kind of experience do you provide for the reader? What kind of tone/voice do you use—are you funny, angsty, wry? This will help set readers’ expectations so they know what they’re getting from you.

If you’ve written a lot of books already, give your readers good entry points into your oeuvre. What’s the best place for them to start? If they love X trope, guide them to specific titles. What’s the ideal reading order for your books and/or series? If they’re on your site, they’re already interested in you, so get them invested in your work and reading it!

Going back to that newsletter: tell readers why they want to get on your list. Usually you include a free lead magnet with your newsletter—most often it’s a story of some sort, whether it’s full-length or a novella or a deleted scene, a prequel or sequel to one of your previous books, or a standalone, or it could also be something book-related but not a story, like colouring pages, a game, etc. Whatever it is, make sure you tell the reader why they want that lead magnet and/or why they want to get on your newsletter list. Does the magnet provide deeper insight into the story that they’ve already read and loved? If you can’t convince the reader why they NEED this lead magnet, then maybe it’s time for a new one. (Change them out frequently—at least once a year.)

Or maybe it’s your newsletter itself that's the draw, in which case you’ll want to highlight what’s special about it. Do you do giveaways and sneak peeks? Do you spill the tea about what’s going on in your world? Do you write fanfic about your own characters and what they’re doing? Again, convince them that it's the best thing for them if they get on your list.

Finally: keep your site updated! Make sure all your information is current, especially if you have a book that’s just released—it shouldn’t say “coming soon” on your site anymore.

I hope this has convinced you to get working on or updating your author website. It’s such a valuable resource that’s often neglected, and it can really help you drive sales if you’re using it well.

What I Learned from Doing 30 Days of Reels

I’ve been doing Instagram Reels for…three years now? And every year, I write up a “state of Reels right now” to tell you what’s happening there and if you should be doing them. 

This year, I decided to give myself a challenge: 30 days of Reels to see what kind of patterns came up and if I can figure out this damn algorithm and what it wants.

Spoiler: I did not crack the algorithm.

I did do the 30 Reels, though, and I’ve got some insights to share with you!

Here's what I discovered doing 30 days of Reels

The Reels I did that were about writing or reading in general had the biggest views. (Examples: 1, 2, 3.) BUT this isn’t what I actually want. These attract writers of all genres; I want only the romance writers because they’re the ones who are ultimately going to buy from me. The lesson: Don’t go too broad. What do your ideal readers want to see?

You gotta be SUPER specific for your ideal audience. The ones that did well that were specifically targeted to romance writers hit on something that they want. E.g. Keeping readers buying through the series, what they need to be doing now, mistakes they’re making on Reels—these all had text in the video that got them to stop because it spoke to them, and then kept them reading through to the caption. The ones that were just mid and didn’t have enough of a hook ended up being the majority, getting around 400-600 views per Reel, instead of the 1000+ views.

I researched (*cough*scrolled Reels A LOT*cough*) and did EVERYTHING the social media “experts” tell you to do: use trending sounds, make your Reel dynamic with movement/transitions, have a hook in your video and in your caption, have a call to action in the caption. These were all hit-or-miss for me. To break it down:

• Trending sounds don’t seem to make much of a difference. IG may reward you with a slight boost in the algorithm for using it, but I don’t think it’s boosting your discoverability. I’m not going into a sound to find new people to follow; I’m just going in to see what kinds of Reels people are making with that sound.

• Movement is definitely important as a way to create anticipation and keep the viewer anticipating the next move. Movement combined with sound (a beat drop, usually) create great anticipation (example).

• Hooks, as above, have to be specific and scroll-stopping—if it’s not speaking directly to them, it’s not going to work. For romance authors, it might be a matter of grabbing the viewer’s attention with the first line of a quote from the book and keeping them watching by revealing the next line, then the next, etc. (For those of you writing spicy, this is where you bring out the sexiest moments in your book.)

• Call to actions are necessary to tell them what you want them to do: buy from you? follow you? leave a comment?

That said, even when doing all the things right, there were some that just did not pop off in the way I expected them to. And then there were ones that did really well even without all the things done right. Sometimes I genuinely think this whole thing is a crapshoot. So leave room for a margin of error for reasons no one knows.

Did doing Reels for 30 days help?

Kinda? It definitely boosted engagement and reach, though that did not translate to a ton of new followers or more comments than normal on individual Reels.

But the followers I got were good followers, i.e. romance writers and/or enthusiasts (I block anyone who doesn’t look like they’ll actually engage with my account—bye-bye, creepy dudes!), and that’s what I want. I don’t want to go viral and get a ton of followers that way because most of those followers likely aren’t romance people and will never engage again.

Was 30 days of Reels worth it?

Ehhhhh…I don’t know about that.

Coming up with 30 days of content on my own is a LOT of work. I had a lot of ideas and sounds and transitions banked in my Saved folders on IG and planned in advance (there was an epic spreadsheet), and filming part doesn’t actually take that long—I batched my content every Thursday, so I had the Reels with my face done for the week (I used stock photos/video from Canva for other days). But consistently creating hooks and captions that will hit right is HARD, and that’s where most of the time and work was every day. I was burnt out by the end of the month and so sick of my own damn face, and I definitely lost some momentum after that. (I’m still burnt out, honestly, so take this with a grain of salt, but I am continuing to post Reels two to three times a week instead of the one I was doing before the 30 days.)

However, these 30 days of Reels gave me a ton of data to pull from, and gave me a much better understanding of what I need to do to draw more of my ideal audience in. In that way, it was a good experiment.

Do I think YOU should do 30 days of Reels?

After doing it myself, I would say only if you have the bandwidth to do it. This is one of the reasons why I’ve been so resistant to TikTok—because it’s a platform that really seems to prioritize posting frequency and rewards users for posting multiple times a day. If you have the ability to post short-form video a couple time a day, amazing! If not, do what you can as consistently as possible.

(And by the way, don’t be afraid to reuse previous posts that did well, as a way to cut back on some of the work you have to do.)

Do I think you should be doing Reels in general?

Yes, if your primary platform (i.e. where the majority of your audience is) is Instagram. Reels reach is down in general, and carousel posts actually tend to be the highest-performing content on IG right now, but Reels are still a good way to reach new audiences, if that’s what your goal is. Also, I don’t think video content is going away any time soon, so you’ll need to know how to use this format to continue to grow and not fall behind.

Real talk

This marketing stuff, like Reels, is not the fun part of being an author, at least for most people. (It’s not the fun part for me, either—I would much rather be spending my time editing and coaching, but I feel that I need to do it in order to find people to edit and coach.) It is a necessary evil, though, and sadly most authors aren’t doing enough of it. You need to do more marketing than you think—not just Reels, but really be pushing your book often in every way you can, with social media posts, newsletters, podcasts, IG lives, blog tours, events, etc. (Yes, even if you are trad published. You’re still going to be the main marketing engine for your book, long after your publisher has moved on to marketing their next book.)

Take a look at Nikki Payne as a wonderful example of someone who does all the things for her book that came out in 2022 and for her latest that’s coming out in 2024. She’s a marketing machine and so good at applying trends to her books. I’m also watching Sarah Estep go hard promoting her upcoming book with clever memes and Reels and lives while also tying this marketing back to the previous book in the series. (Go give both of these brilliant authors a follow and check out their books!)

Please do not let the book you worked so hard on not find its audience because marketing feels scary and uncomfortable. Writing a book is scary and uncomfortable too, and you did that! This is just a new thing you’ll have to learn. It breaks my heart to see people make a couple of posts to promote their book around release day, and then nothing more. It’s gotta be way more than that.

Don’t worry about annoying people by posting about your book so often on social media—the algorithm is only showing it to a low, low percentage of your followers so they aren’t seeing your post all the time, and if they are, most won’t be bothered to unfollow you because of it. They follow you because they’re interested in your work and they care about you!

If you have any questions about Reels, I’m happy to answer them!

BONUS TIME!

If you’re ready to either get started on Reels or revive your Reels strategy, I have a brand-new resource for you: A Romance Author’s Guide to IG Reels!

Inside, I break down all the important parts of the Reel and how to use them to your best advantage, give you the dos and don’ts of Reels, tell you how often you should be posting, and present a bunch of prompts (including faceless ones!) to use when you’re trying to come up with ideas for your Reels.

Download it here!

Would you spend $35K to publish your book?

So, would you spend $35K to indie-publish your book? 

Listen, I know the answer to that question already.

But someone DID, and I nearly keeled over when I heard about it.

Here’s the video that breaks down how exactly this woman spent $35K (projected to eventually be more) on getting her book independently published.

My DMs exploded when I posted this on my Instagram a while back, so I thought it was worth talking about here.

So, let me say upfront, if you’ve published a book before and are thinking “but I didn’t spend that much!” or you’ve never published a book and are thinking “I don’t WANT to spend that much,” you should not be worrying—this is not a typical amount to spend on producing a book.

Chelsea has a much bigger platform than most debut writers start with—she has a built-in audience, albeit in a totally different field, but one that wants to support her, so she could aim high and know that her people are there for her. (I do wonder if this messed up her also-bought algorithm on Amazon, though, if her audience is not typically romance readers—the also-boughts are determined by what the people buying her book read, and you want those recommendations to be in the same genre so that they come up when people are looking for similar books.)

She also clearly has a lot of money to spend up front, which most new (or even established) romance writers don’t. It is normal to NOT spend $35K on a book—I would wager that most writers are putting in maybe a thousand or two TOTAL, and that’s still a lot of money to put into an investment that you might not recoup, especially for a debut book. But it’s an investment in future you and your ability to continue to write and get better and get more visibility that you hope will pay off in the future.

There are lots of things that she says in here that I agree with, specifically around genre fiction not getting its flowers—and its money—when it does keep the lights on in publishing, and her very healthy understanding of criticism, confidence, and fear.

Dos and Don’ts to Take Away from This Video

I agree with her spending the bulk of her money on editing and promotion. (I’m not sure what category her cover art ended up, but I’d also spend money on that.) Obviously, as an editor, I’m going to tell you to spend your money on editing, but OMG, $10K??? Like, I think I’m a great editor, but I’ve never approached anywhere near charging $10K for one book. All my romance editor friends were similarly befuddled. (There is something to say here one day about how romance as a genre devalues itself in so many ways, including how much money writers spend on producing their books and on pricing their books—a post for another time). If someone is trying to get you to pay that for a romance edit, something weird is going on there.

Do spend the money on getting your book into the hands of people who will talk about it. Organic discovery is great, but it’s incredibly hard when there are so many books vying for attention. You don’t have to necessarily send out physical copies if that’s not something you can afford, but you can send out eARCs to book influencers and on NetGalley or other ARC distribution platforms as a way to get your book out there.

And obviously don’t worry about physical book tours yet. Again, Chelsea has a substantial audience already—results not typical.

I’m very confused about the $6K she spent on production. It sounds like it was mostly labour, but most people order an author copy from Amazon before publishing, and that’s it. Don’t stress too much about paper thickness and ink colour and all of that.

I’m assuming Chelsea’s cover art cost a pretty penny because it was an oil painting she commissioned. Oil painting isn’t the typical style for romance novels right now, and I don’t see that changing any time soon. But we all know we judge a book by its cover and we've all bought books because of their covers, right? So it’s worth putting a sizeable amount of budget towards a beautiful cover that’s on-trend and designed by someone who knows what romance readers are looking for in order to attract the right kind of attention.

Be realistic in your goals. Chelsea said she needed 7000 books sold to break even on her 35K, but for most debuts, that’s probably not happening. Even with her huge platform, I don’t know if she will be able to meet her admittedly ambitious goal of 100K(!) books sold. Social media and viral sensations make it look easy—but the reality behind that is that it’s often not their first book by the time they go viral so they’ve got experience and a backlist helping them along, and you don’t know the kind of money they (or their publisher if they're trad) are putting into promotion. Some of them are genuinely organic word-of-mouth via TikTok or Insta, but many are manufactured and spending thousands of dollars to get there.

Spend within your means. Indie publishing is not a get-rich-quick scheme—it takes a lot of time and money and strategy to start earning out regularly on your books. Don’t spend all your money at once, hoping you’ll be able to earn it back and put it into the next book.

Moral of the story: you do not have to spend $35K to have a successful book (and please don't!)—but it is going to require a ton of hard work, no matter how much you do end up spending. Spend that money and time and effort wisely.

What was your reaction to this video (beyond “oh HELL no”)? Let me know!