Three key features of a writer’s website
Whether you have hired a web development team to create you a multi-page website or you are setting up a free profile on MySpace, it’s important to first consider what sort of information you’re going to make available.
You might choose to have a blog, an online forum or animated games which fit the theme of your book. You might want to post reviews of your work or exchange links with other writers. These features all add to the website experience and may keep your readers coming back, but they’re not, in my opinion, ’essentials’.
These would be my essentials:
1. Information about your work
For many writers, promoting their work is a major reason for having a web presence. Simlarly, for many readers, finding out more about the writer’s work is a major reason to visit the writer’s page.
On Beverly Cleary’s website, for example, there’s a list of her published books. Clicking on the cover image next to each one takes you to a page with more information about the book. There, you can read a sample chapter online or find out where you can order that book online.
If you’re a journalist rather than a novelist, you might want to include links to online examples of your work. If you’ve had poems or short stories published in an anthology that is not available in online book stores, you might still want to mention the title so readers can seek it out by alternative methods.
2. Information about you
There may be some who argue with this one, but I like to find out about the person behind the writing – and there’s more space on a page of a website than there is on the back cover of a book.
It’s up to you how much information you want to reveal. Some writers include their entire life history, while others keep this section very much focussed on their writing. On her ‘about’ page, young adult writer, Lauren Barnholdt includes both the ‘official’ biography and ‘what you really want to know.’
3. A way to get in touch
Readers may come to your website with questions. Reviewers too. Journalists or agents. These people may leave frustrated if there’s no way to contact you.
To remedy this, you could include an online contact form like the one here on web stuff 4 writers.
An email or PO Box postal address will also serve the purpose.
Your thoughts
What features do you think are essential to writers’ websites? Do you agree with the three I’ve listed here, or would you argue for others?
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