I stared at the cardboard boxes sitting on the wooden pallet that had just been deposited in my garage and I very nearly swooned. Each one looked exactly like a cardboard box should look, with satiny, flat sides and sharp, pointy corners. But these sleek brown cubes contained irrefutable proof that I was now a published author.

Now I just had to find a way to sell them all.

I had commissioned a website to represent my book as soon as I had signed the contract with my publishers. I bought a url based on the name of my book, Shades of Teale, and I created a gorgeous site that beautifully reflected the tone of my novel. Less than a year later, I was busy at work on my second book (a collection of short stories by the name of Passages to Epiphany,) when I realized, with a jolt, that my first book-related website was incapable of representing it. Nor could it represent my third book. Or my fourth. Or my forthcoming, fifth book, Your Personal Marketing Playbook, which I am co-authoring with referral marketing expert Paula Hope.

Lesson #1 in creating a website for your book: don’t assume this is the only book you are going to write. If possible, obtain a url based on your name, and build individual pages for each book you write.

I had developed a new website to promote my content business around the same time as my first book-related website was launched. While the content-writing website showcased all my business services, it said almost nothing about my novel. Mention of the new books I subsequently wrote were jammed onto my “Portfolio” page, with links to separate pages for each book. But there was no way you could find the book pages through the navigation bar. It was a fiasco!

Lesson #2 in setting up your author website: At the very least, make sure you have a separate searchable page to represent each book you write.

More recently, I developed another new website for my evolving business and I had to decide how to also promote a) the books I’d written and b) the fact that I am a working Canadian author. This was a perfect time to fix the problem outlined in #2 above! As the head of a content marketing business, as well as being a book coach and editor, I had to figure out how to develop three separate offers for three different target audiences. My team and I decided to develop three interlinked microsites with very clear calls to action on each site. We are very clear about how people can work with us, if that is what they would like to do.

Lesson #3 for your author website: If you have other business interests, be very clear as to how people can work with you as an author. Develop calls to action that will lead to a desired goal (“buy my books” or “hire me to speak.”)

You can spend an unlimited amount of money on your author presence but most authors and entrepreneurs need to watch their dollars pretty carefully. If you’d like to speak with one of our representatives about how we can support you to the economical creation of a new website, by all means, contact us at info@crossmancommunications.com!

A short note on the books I’ve written:
Shades of Teale, a novel, was published by Manor House Publishing in 2012, and it was followed in 2013 by Passages to Epiphany, a collection of short stories. The Write Way: Becoming a Successful Writer, is a writer’s companion about how to structure your writing, write with better style and use language to engage your audience more effectively; it was published in 2014. And Content Marketing Made Easy became a best seller in its category on Amazon following its publication in 2015.