1) Active social media profile links
I’m not interested in links to social media sites they’re not active on. What’s the point?
But if they freakin’ love Twitter and they’re on there all the time, then they better have a link to their Twitter profile!
2) Fantasy author? Maps! Illustrations! Graphics!
Maps being the key one here.
I know not every author has or can afford to commission maps and illustrations. But if they can, then I love to see them.
For the maps, I want them to be high resolution. A teeny tiny map I can barely read isn’t going to help me. I want to be able to make it nice and big so I can see ALL THE THINGS.
3) High resolution book covers
I can usually get my small 315×475 pixel covers from Goodreads. But if I’m in the market for something higher resolution (like for a book quote image, banner, etc.) then I hope to find it on the author’s website. At least 800px wide is nice.
4) Book inspiration
This isn’t actually something I’m interested in, but I think a lot of other people are. They like to get a better picture of the author’s inspiration of the book and how they picture the characters, scenery, etc. This often means:
- Pinterest boards
- Playlists
If you have ’em, show ’em!
5) Information & news
The kind of information I’m interested in:
- Proper reading order of books in a series.
- Publication dates for upcoming books.
- News and explanations if a book is delayed (why, new ETA, etc.).
- Cover reveals.
- New book deal announcements.
- Announcements about upcoming events.
The content on your site is just as important as the design
A lot of people get caught up in thinking that design is the most important thing. While designs can improve the user experience and create a good first impression, what happens when we look beyond the design and see no useful information?
We leave and may never come back.
As an author, your website is one of your best marketing platforms. Many of your viewers will be:
- Readers who have heard of you, but haven’t read your books yet. They visit your website to learn more.
- Readers who’ve read and loved your books more than anything. They’ll visit your website to devour more information, extra tid-bits, and news about future books.
Don’t make a bad impression by setting up an empty shell of a website. A little more content goes a long way!
Tip: Use Novelist to help build your website
The Novelist plugin makes it easy to organize and add books to your website. Create consistent book pages with all the information your readers want to see.
This! I also have to add on that it’s nice to see press kit on author’s websites (like who to contact for getting an arc of a specific book, author pics, author bio & that sort of stuff)
Ohh good one!
News is a big one for me. They don’t have to run an active blog or anything, but I like to see some part of the website that’s updated with events they’re doing, projects they’re working on, etc., rather than a completely static website.
I totally agree Briana. I don’t need them to be a full on book blogger. Maybe they only post once every few weeks. The important thing is that they keep it updated when relevant news does pop up.
This is such a cool post, Ashley! (I mean, what’s new though, you always post cool stuff!) One thing I’d prefer to see though, are email addresses instead of contact forms. I also agree that they should have hi-res photos of their book covers! Press kits would be cool too!
The last one is so important! I’ve been to author websites that are quite visually appealing, but also very difficult to navigate. It makes it hard to get information about anything, even if it is there.
YES YES YES! The biggest frustration for me is not being able to find news and information about books signings, book release dates, etc. So frustrating!
I get so happy whenever I visit a fantasy author’s website and they have lots of information and world building stuff from their book. Agreed on only posting active social media profiles. People get into the habit of posting all their social media accounts when often they either aren’t super active on the platform or it’s not a place their audience would go to (why put a Flickr & LinkedIn buttons on a book blogger website? haha).
YES TO ALL OF THESE. I absolutely hate when I read a book, loved it, and then can find NO INFORMATION FROM THE AUTHOR WHATSOEVER. What’s coming next? What other books have they written? When is their next book coming out? Chick Lit authors are THE WORST at having websites. Honestly, YA authors seem to keep their sites updated regularly, but Chick Lit authors? HELL NO. It’s like their upcoming books are a secret and it drives me insane.
And yes! I do graphics for each of my reviews, and trying to find decent hi-res images is a task all by itself. Google, Twitter, GoodReads, Amazon, sometimes even contacting the author just so I have a decent sized image to work with.
It drives me nuts when the authors have smaller book covers than Goodreads. X_X Sometimes they’re horrible!
Yes to all of this…especially the active links and updated events page!!