An author website is the one place online you control where readers, booksellers, librarians, event organizers, journalists and agents can find what you have written, where to get it and how to reach you. The good ones are small: a home page that leads with the newest book, a page for each book, an About page, a newsletter signup, events and contact. Social platforms change their rules. Your domain and your mailing list stay yours.
Below, each of those pages is written out for one invented novelist, Mara Kettering, who writes a historical mystery series. After that come the patterns for a writer who is still querying, a series author, a nonfiction author who speaks, a poet and a self-published author, then the steps to build your own. Every name, book and venue here is made up: copy the structure, not the facts.
The pages an author site needs
Each page answers one question a visitor arrives with. If a page answers none of them, it can go.
| Page | What the visitor wants | Must include |
|---|---|---|
| PageHome | What the visitor wantsWhat you write, and what's new | Must includeTagline, newest book, buy link, signup |
| PageBooks | What the visitor wantsEvery book, in order | Must includeA page per book, series order, formats |
| PageAbout | What the visitor wantsWho you are | Must includeBio, photo, where you live, agent line |
| PageNewsletter | What the visitor wantsA way to hear about the next book | Must includeWhat you send, how often, one field |
| PageEvents | What the visitor wantsWhere to see you | Must includeDates, venues, RSVP or ticket links |
| PageMedia | What the visitor wantsMaterial to run a story | Must includeBios, headshots, cover files, contact |
| PageContact | What the visitor wantsThe right person to write to | Must includeRoutes for readers, rights, press, events |
Optional pages earn their place when readers keep asking the same thing: a reading-order page for a series, an FAQ (yes, you can start with book two), book club guides, content notes, maps and extras. A blog is optional too. One whose last post is three years old does more harm than having none, because it tells every visitor the whole site is abandoned.
Example: the home page
Mara's home page has to answer two questions on the first screen of a phone: what kind of books she writes, and what's new.
Mara Kettering
Historical mysteries from the Lake Superior shore
Books · About · Events · Newsletter · Contact
New March 2, 2027: Ice Out (Iron Bay Mysteries, Book 2)
The ice goes out of Iron Bay harbor in April 1925 and leaves behind a man who should have gone down with the freighter Ellen Strand five months earlier. Ruth Lindahl keeps the ledgers at the ore dock, and her ledgers say he never boarded.
Pre-order: Bookshop.org · Amazon · Barnes & Noble · Apple Books · Kobo · Audiobook · Ask your library
New to the series? Start with The Ore Dock Ledger →
Letters from Iron Bay. One email a month: the history behind the books, what I'm reading, and new releases first. [Email address] [Subscribe]
The tagline under the name does more work than anything else on the page. Jane Friedman, who writes about the publishing business, recommends a header line on every page that says what kind of work you do, and points to thriller author CJ Lyons's “Thrillers With Heart” as an example. Mara's tagline names a genre and a place, so a reader can tell at a glance whether these are their kind of books.
The newest book goes at the top, with its date, and changes at every launch: “Pre-order” becomes “Out now,” and the next book replaces it when it is announced. One book and one row of buy links beats a rotating carousel of every cover. The “New to the series?” line is for the reader who heard about book two and needs to know where to begin.
Example: a book page
Every book gets its own page at its own address, such as marakettering.com/books/ice-out. That is the link for the newsletter, the back matter of the previous book, interviews and event listings, so it has to hold everything a buyer, bookseller or librarian looks for.
Ice Out · Iron Bay Mysteries, Book 2
[Cover image. Alt text: “Cover of Ice Out: a lighthouse beam crossing a frozen harbor at dusk.”]
The ice goes out of Iron Bay harbor in April 1925 and leaves behind a man who should have gone down with the freighter Ellen Strand five months earlier. Ruth Lindahl keeps the ledgers at the ore dock, and her ledgers say he never boarded.
The shipping company wants him buried as a drowned sailor. His widow wants the insurance. Ruth wants to know who signed his name on the crew list in November, and why the handwriting matches her own late father's.
- On sale: March 2, 2027, from Fenwick & Lowe
- Formats: hardcover, 336 pages; ebook; audiobook read by [narrator]
- ISBN: [hardcover ISBN-13]
- Buy: Bookshop.org · Amazon · Barnes & Noble · Apple Books · Kobo · [Local bookstore, signed copies]
- Listen: Libro.fm · Audible
- Borrow: Libby · WorldCat
“[One-sentence endorsement.]” — [Author name], author of [Book]
Read the first chapter · Book club guide · Content notes
The Iron Bay Mysteries: 1. The Ore Dock Ledger (2025) · 2. Ice Out (2027) · 3. Lamplight at Split Point (coming 2028)
The description is the blurb, word for word, the same copy as the back cover and the retailer pages. The dull lines matter more than they look. Publisher, imprint, formats, page count and ISBN are what booksellers and librarians look a book up by. Name the audiobook narrator too: some listeners choose by narrator.
List several stores, not one. Bookshop.org sells on behalf of independent bookstores and runs an affiliate program that pays authors and other affiliates a commission on sales (10% at the time of writing; check the current terms). A link to your local store, especially one that takes orders for signed copies, gives that store a reason to stock you. Library links let a reader borrow the book or ask their library to buy it.
Write alt text for every cover: screen readers read it aloud, and “book cover” tells a blind visitor nothing. If you post content notes, a practice many romance, horror and YA authors follow, put them behind a link so readers who want no spoilers can skip them.
A series reading-order page
Each Iron Bay mystery solves its own case, so you can start anywhere. Ruth's life moves on from book to book, though, so if you like to watch that happen, read them in this order:
- The Ore Dock Ledger (2025). Iron Bay, fall 1924. Ten tons of ore missing from the books, and a dockhand dead under the chute.
- A Winter Ledger (novella, free to newsletter subscribers). The frozen months between the first two books.
- Ice Out (2027). Spring 1925. A drowned man who never sailed.
- Lamplight at Split Point (2028). Summer 1925. Details soon.
Answer the question readers ask most (does the order matter?) in the first sentence, then list every story, including novellas and short stories, where it falls. Friedman also suggests putting the series title in the main menu if you write one.
Example: the About page
Visitors want a face, a few facts and a reason to trust you. Give them a photo, a short third-person bio that an event host can paste without rewriting, and one personal paragraph in your own voice.
[Photo: Mara on the breakwater in winter. Photo by [photographer]. High-resolution headshots are on the Media page.]
Mara Kettering writes the Iron Bay Mysteries, historical novels set in an iron-ore port on Lake Superior in the 1920s. Before writing fiction, she spent fifteen years cataloging maritime records for a county historical society, where she first read the shipping ledgers that became Ruth Lindahl's. The Ore Dock Ledger was her first novel. She lives in Duluth, Minnesota.
I grew up two blocks from the ore docks and still can't sleep without a foghorn somewhere. The series started with a 1924 ledger in a box nobody had opened in decades: one line crossed out, in a different ink from the rest of the page. I never found out whose hand it was. Ruth does.
Represented by [Agent name] at [Agency] for literary, film and translation rights.
Keep the third-person bio identical to the one on the jacket and the press page, and update all three together. The personal paragraph is where a reader decides they like you, so give it one specific detail (the crossed-out line) instead of a list of loves. For more lengths and styles, see author bio examples; the About page examples cover the page as a whole.
Example: the newsletter signup
Friedman advises putting the signup on every page, because most visitors will not come back on their own. “Join my mailing list” gives nobody a reason to. Say what arrives, how often, and what a subscriber gets that a casual visitor does not.
Letters from Iron Bay
Once a month: one photo or document from the archives behind the books, three books I've been reading, and news of new releases before anyone else. New subscribers get A Winter Ledger, a free novella set between books one and two.
[Email address] [Send me the letters]
Subject: Your copy of A Winter Ledger
Thanks for signing up. Here is the novella: [download link]. It takes place in the winter of 1924, when the harbor froze and Ruth had four months with nothing to count.
The first real letter arrives on the first Tuesday of next month. Until then, a question: if you could set a murder in any Great Lakes town, which would it be? Reply and tell me. I read every answer.
Mara
[Mailing address] · [Unsubscribe]
The free novella is a reader magnet, a habit series and self-published authors use because it turns a visitor into a reader of the whole series. The mailing address is not decoration. In the US, the FTC's CAN-SPAM guide says commercial email must carry a valid physical postal address (a P.O. box registered with the Postal Service qualifies) and that unsubscribe requests must be honored within 10 business days. Many authors rent a box rather than print their home address. Other countries have their own rules, so check them if your readers live elsewhere. What to put in the letters themselves is covered in how to write a newsletter.
Example: events, media and contact
- Tuesday, March 2, 2027, 7 p.m. Launch party for Ice Out, [Bookstore], Duluth, Minnesota. Free; RSVP [link]. Signed copies on sale.
- Saturday, March 13, 2027, 2 p.m. “History into Fiction,” a talk and signing, [Public library], [City]. Free.
- Thursday, March 18, 2027, 7 p.m. Central. Online conversation with [Author], hosted by [Bookstore]. Register [link].
Invite me: libraries, book clubs and historical societies can book a talk, in person around the Upper Midwest or by video anywhere. Write to events@example.com with the date, place and audience.
Put the time zone on anything online and the city on everything in person. Past events, listed under the upcoming ones, are proof for the next organizer.
The media page holds what journalists and hosts download: bios in two lengths, high-resolution headshots with the photographer's credit, cover files, a fact sheet per book and a publicity contact. The press kit examples guide builds one piece by piece.
- Readers: I read everything sent through this form and answer when I can. [Name] [Email] [Message]
- Rights (film, TV, translation, audio): [Agent name], [Agency], agent@example.com
- Publicity and review copies: [Publicist], Fenwick & Lowe, publicity@example.com
- Events and book clubs: events@example.com
I'm sorry, but I can't read manuscripts or answer blurb requests sent here.
Routing saves everyone a round trip: a film scout writes to the agent, a reporter to the publicist, and your inbox keeps the reader mail. A form keeps your personal address off the page.
Patterns by kind of author
Before the first book
A writer who is querying needs less than they think. An agent who likes your query may search your name, and what they should find is one current page, not a half-built site. Name, a line on what you write, a short bio, any publication credits and a way to reach you.
Theo Marchetti writes speculative fiction about small desert towns and the people who refuse to leave them. His short stories have appeared in [Magazine] and [Anthology]. He is finishing a novel about a water rights clerk who can hear the aquifer, and lives in Tucson, Arizona.
Contact: hello@example.com
Leave the manuscript and long excerpts off. Many literary magazines count work posted on a public website as previously published, so check each one's guidelines before you post a story or poem. The query itself is covered in how to write a query letter.
A series author
The home page leads with the newest book and a “start here” link to book one. The Books page groups titles by series, in reading order, with standalones after. The series name goes in the menu, and the reading-order page answers whether order matters before anything else.
A nonfiction author who speaks
For an author who speaks, the speaking page does a job the book page can't: it tells an organizer what you will talk about, for how long and to whom.
- Talks: Why good cooks quit, and what the ones who stay have in common · Schedules people can live with · The first thirty days of training
- Formats: keynote (45 minutes), half-day workshop, panel
- Audiences: restaurant associations, culinary schools, hospitality conferences
- Recent: [Conference], [year] · [Association], [year] · video of a recent keynote [link]
- To book: send the date, city, audience size and budget to speaking@example.com
A poet
A poet's site is mostly a record: collections and chapbooks, a list of publications that links to poems the journals host online, readings, and one or two poems in full where you hold the rights. Linking out sends readers to the journals that published you.
A self-published author
Here the site is also a storefront. Some self-published authors sell ebooks and signed paperbacks directly, which can keep more of each sale and brings the buyer's email address with it. The reader magnet, series bundles and pre-order links sit near the top, and the signup gets as much space as the newest book.
How to build your author website
- Register your name as the domain
Use your name or pen name, not a book title: you will write more books. If
yourname.comis taken, add “author” or “books” (marakettering-books.com). Renew it on auto-pay so it never lapses. - Write every page before you build
Draft the tagline, a description for each book, two bios, the signup promise and the contact routes as documents first. Copy is easier to fix on a page than in a template's text boxes, and you will reuse most of it in press kits and queries.
- Choose a builder you will keep updating
Squarespace, Wix and WordPress all have templates that suit an author site. Pick the one you will actually open at every launch, and check that your email service's signup form embeds in it. Friedman suggests revisiting it every six to twelve months, as your focus changes.
- Check it on a phone
Google uses the mobile version of a site for indexing and ranking, and many readers will meet yours there first. Keep body text at a contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1 against its background, the WCAG AA level (pale gray on cream usually fails), and give every image alt text.
- Link to it from everywhere
Put the address in your back matter, email signature, social bios and retailer author profiles. It is the one link that will still work in ten years, as long as you keep renewing the domain.
What separates good author sites from the rest
Works
- The newest book at the top, with its date
- One page per book, with every format and several stores
- A signup that says what arrives and how often
- Separate contact routes for readers, rights, press and events
- Updated at every launch
Doesn't
- A home page still promoting a book from years ago
- A single Amazon link
- "Join my mailing list" with no reason to
- A blog that stopped two years ago
- Light gray text that disappears on a phone in sunlight
Draft your site copy in Strokes
Most of an author website is writing, and it changes with every book. In Strokes you can keep a Website folder in the same project as the manuscript, with one document per page: home, each book, bios, signup, contact. Select a blurb and press ⌘K to ask for a tighter version, or ask the AI Assistant whether the About page sounds like the person who wrote the novel. Version history keeps last year's launch copy when you rewrite it. When the words are final, copy them into your site builder or export Markdown or HTML, and use Share to web to send a single document, such as a fact sheet, as a link before the site exists.
Frequently asked questions
Do I need an author website before I have a book deal?
Not a full one. While you are querying, a single page with your name, what you write, a short bio, any publication credits and a contact address is enough. Build out book pages, events and a media page once there is a book to sell.
Should my author website domain be my name or my book title?
Your name, or your pen name if you publish under one. A book title works for one book; your name works for every book you will write. If the .com is taken, add 'author' or 'books' to it.
How much does an author website cost?
A domain is a yearly fee, and builders charge a monthly or yearly subscription. Some offer a free plan that shows their branding and uses their address instead of yours. Prices change often, so compare the current plans, and include the email service if your newsletter grows past its free tier.
Should an author website have a blog?
Only if you will keep it up. A newsletter reaches readers directly and does most of what an author blog used to do. If you do blog, put the date on every post and the signup at the end of each one.
What should a book page on an author website include?
The cover with alt text, the series and number, the description, the publication date, publisher, formats, ISBN, links to several stores, an audiobook and a library option, praise, an excerpt, and links to the rest of the series.
