Your author website fills two important functions in your career. These are (imho) general principles and while I know of authors who are breaking both of them, they hold true for the average writer.
Author Websites Aren’t Sales Systems
Author websites aren’t book selling machines. Seriously, there’s a lot of work and potential hassle to set up a system to sell your own books. Not only is the selling part technologically “interesting” but you’ll also be your own support system when a reader can’t get the ebook into their reader or can’t find the download on their computer (seriously, been there and helped with that.)
From a business standpoint, I think authors have to focus on the important thing – the words. That’s where the money is – more words.
When we get sidetracked into “maximizing” profits or doing tech stuff or social media recommended by gurus, our productivity goes down. And those recommendations are the “sexy” stuff rather than the slogging for days and weeks to write a book you can be proud of.
ps. But, it you think you’ll make more money and want to do this, BookFunnel has what I think is the simplest system I’ve seen.
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What Purpose Does An Author Website Serve?
I believe they are anchors to display your humanity and competence.
To achieve those two objectives, you can:
- post some examples of your work and
- write posts about things that matter to your reader and to yourself.
To the extent your author blog does these two thing, you as an author can be satisfied.
But Never Forget
It’s easy to be sucked into the black hole of technology (raises hand with guilty look on face) and think you’re moving forward when you’re really treading water.
Write, I tell myself every morning. Just write