Your Author Site: Do You Really Need One?

Whether you're a new or experienced writer, you may be wondering how important is it to have your own author site. Find out here!

What is an Author Site?

Perhaps you're a new writer (or at least new to the idea of having an author site) and you're wondering if you should publish an author site. The truth is, author site are a VERY important asset to have if you want to increase your online presence and promote your brand. It is also a vital part of building your audience and email lists.

You can use your author site to introduce yourself to the world--the part of the world that doesn't know who you are or that you even exist--let alone the fact that you're a published author. If you have a publishing company, they may already be promoting you on the internet as one of their writers, but you still should publish your own site so that you can establish an independent name for yourself.

Author Sites for Self-Published Writers

If you're a self-published author, you absolutely should have your own author site. This is one of the main ways you can introduce yourself and promote your name as an independent author. You can also use your site to promote and sell your books--both ebooks and print copies.

Not quite sure where to start? There are tons of FREE website hosters and site building tools on the worldwide web. I totally recommend using Wix.com, which is the same one I have used to publish my own author site. They offer both free and paid website publishing tools and options and in my opinion, they are, by far, better than many of the other website builders out there.

Us self-published authors have to work extra hard to build up our reputation, our reader base and our online presence. Also, we need ways to market our books, otherwise, we'll never get them out there and noticed so that people can purchase and read them.

Using Your Site to Promote Yourself

After you've published your author site, you may want to add pages to it so that when you finally get your page noticed by newcomers, you have content to keep them intersted and possibly offer some valuable information and/or suggestion, tips and/or advice. I suggest you have at least 3 to 4 pages on your author site.

You want your homepage to introduce you as an author and to maybe give a bit of detail about who you are and what you've written. Maybe even link to a book or two of yours, as well.

Most importantly, absolutely place a SIGN-UP link on your homepage (and/or one or more of your other pages so that readers can sign-up using their email addresses. This is the best and most popular way to buiuld your email list. (Offering your readers something for FREE is a great way to pique their interest, too!)

You also want to have a blog. That way, you can add posts to your blog and keep your readers and fans engaged and up-to-date with what you're doing and also offer some valuable info and/or products to them. In the future, I will also be discussing ways to monetize your blog, as well.

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