Pages That Your Website Should Have When You're a Writer By Melinda Harris

Websites are an important place for readers to go find their favorite writers and see what they are doing. They give the readers information about the new works coming out and where to find other stories. Here are a few pages that most authors have on their websites:

Bio/About
Bios allow the readers to get to know the writer whose work they absolutely love. They do not have to be extensive like Stephen King’s is on his website, but they should let the readers know more about you than what they do from reading your books. Some ideas to include are where you are from, where you graduated, how many/what kinds of pets do you have, things you hate, and things that you love. You can be serious, funny, lengthy, or straight to the point when you write it. Basically it is up to you.


Books/Stories/Poems Published and Where
This is a complete list of where your work has been published. Usually writers and poets start by submitting many of their short stories or poems to literary journals/ reviews. This adds credibility when you submit stories. Well known authors usually only add their trade published books and this allows their readers to easily find their other work.

News
This usually pertains to work published and keeps the readers updated on when the next new book is coming out.

Blogs
Blogs are handy to draw readers to your website. If you need further convincing about creating a blog read: “Three Reasons Writers Might Want a Blog.”

Contact/Social Media
I cannot stress how important social media is to  marketing when you eventually publish your book. This is how your readers can contact you or how you can pull them in. However, if someone is looking at your website, you have already drawn them in. So social media, for the reader, is a way to be in touch with the writer and to be the first to know the next new thing from their writer.

If you do not have a website but want to know good platforms to build websites that are easy to use (and you don’t need to know how to code) Alexandra Lindenmuth has created a great pros and cons list to help choose the website builder for you in her blogpost: “The Best Website Builder For Your Blog”.

​