Author Website Design

a beautiful, professional website to serve as your online home

Your Online Presence in an Author Website Designed for You

If you’re a published author—or you intend to become one—it is essential you have an aesthetically pleasing, user-friendly and search-engine-optimized site author website for marketing yourself and your books or services.

An author website:

  • Reinforces your credibility as an author
  • Gives interested visitors and readers information about you and your work
  • Allows you to control your “brand” or narrative about what information you share and how it’s presented
  • Shows people you are interested in engaging with them.

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A properly designed author website- even a simple one- that is attractive and easy to navigate enables you to connect with readers on your terms, control how and what information you share, sell your books, keep people informed with a blog, and much more.

The author website design can be simple and low-cost or interactive and custom built, but most important is that you have one, so when people do an online search for your name, your website pops up and gives them the info they were looking for!

Website Design and Development

  • Design an attractive and user-friendly theme across a range of site hosts (WordPress, Wix, and Mailerlite)
  • Create individual pages and blog post page infrastructure
  • Integrate various media, plug-ins, e-commerce, and beyond
  • Provide continual support and maintenance


*Still not convinced you need an author website?
Read this article, “Think You Don’t Need an Author Website? Think Again.”

A Website for Every Author

Author Website Design Packages

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Basic Author Website Design Package
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Room for Growth Author Website Design Package
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Custom Author Website Design Package

Clean interface, some functionality, includes sales and email marketing features. Website, hosting, domain*, and email marketing are included. A great out-of-box solution!

  • Free version includes a Mailerlite-branded domain and hosting, email marketing, no blog
  • Paid version to Mailerlite includes option to use *custom domain (purchased separately), hosting, blog, email marketing, and sales ($10 USD/mo.)
    Tutorial for learning how to manage and maintain the site included.

$600 (1 payment total)

Interactive, best for SEO, easy to add pages, blog posts, and plugins. Excellent growth potential for entrepreneur/author

Additional charges to WordPress: $99 USD/year for theme and hosting. Domain is not included and must be purchased from outside provider.

Tutorial for learning how to manage and update site available as a 1-hour Add-on.

Referral to our trusted partner Inkling Design for ongoing updates and maintenance gladly provided.

$720 (2 payments of $360 each)

Interactive and elegant, a Wix site provides a beautiful interface, easy functionality for visitors, and is entirely customizable.

This all-in-one solution includes a custom domain, hosting, and in-house plugins. The easy-to-learn drag-and-drop design enables you to add as you grow.

Additional charges to Wix: Combo plan $16 USD/mo.* or Business Basic plan $26 USD/mo.* for online selling. *Based on annual rate

Tutorial for how to manage and update site included.

$1,370 (2 payments of $685 each)

With our author website design services, we will build you a 5-page website on one of three platforms, depending on your budget and desire for interactivity and functionality.

1. Basic Author Website Design Package

(platform Mailerlite): Set it and forget it with an attractive and functional “business card on the web”

a. Free option: 5-page site using templates. Comes with free domain, free hosting, and free email marketing (optional). No blog.

b. Low-cost option: 5-page site using templates. Comes with custom domain, hosting, email marketing (optional) and blog.

2. Room for Growth Author Website Design Package

(platform WordPress): for the author who wants to be able to learn and manage your own website and add functionality whenever you need as you grow your business.- 5-page site using customizable templates. Low annual fee includes WordPress “Elementor” theme and hosting. Domain extra.

3. Custom Author All-in-One Website Design Package

(platform Wix): get the brand design, layout, and custom environment unique to you and your “brand” as an author- 5-page custom designed website. Monthly fee includes Wix theme, hosting + custom domain.

Add-ons:

  • Brand consultation to meet with your designer and determine the look and feel of your site (colors, images, logo, etc.)
  • 1-hour tutorial for the Basic and the Room for Growth website packages to learn how to navigate and take over the management of your site so you can independently add pages, make changes, host a blog, or sell your books
  • Have website designer add pages or plugins for greater interactivity/functionality
  • Individual pages content writing or editing

 

Add-Ons

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Hourly Consultation
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5-Page Author Website Copywriting Package
  • Brand consultation to meet with your developer and create a brand guide (determine the look and feel of your site (colors, images, logo, etc.))
  • Platform account set-up/domain purchasing support
  • Tutorial to learn how to navigate and manage your site, so you can add pages, make changes, host a blog, or sell your books
  • Add pages or plugins for greater interactivity/functionality
  • Existing website renovation/editing
  • Individual pages content writing or content editing

$120/hr.

Not sure how to write compelling copy for your website or don’t have the time? Let us handle it for you!

Your website copywriter will interview you to get all the info they need, write the rough drafts for your Homepage, About, Contact and 2 interior pages of your choosing, revise them to your specifications (2 revisions included), settle the copy onto the website, then proofread it a last time to make sure it’s clean, clear and ready for your readers!

$1,220 (2 payments of $610 each)

Examples of Author Website Homepages

Custom:

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Room for Growth

green and purple graphics with woman singing into microphone

Basic

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See for Yourself …


Not sure which is right for your needs? Contact us any time to let us help!

Each author website design automatically comes with a Homepage, About page, and a Contact page plus 2 interior pages of your choice (blog, testimonials, sales, portfolio, CV, etc.) Additional pages may be added at our hourly rate.

 

Once you decide on which website service you’d like, we will send you a comprehensive questionnaire to learn more about you and how you would like to be represented on your site.

We will also guide you through creating and uploading a series of files such as your logo, images, your website page content, and links to other websites.

*If you don’t have these things and would like some brand guidance, we’re happy to help you with that (as an add-on).

You are welcome to two revisions:

  1. After your designer has created a first “draft” of your site, they will invite you to look at it with them in a 30-minute meeting, so you can make adjustments together.
  2. After revising it based on your feedback, they will share the URL of the site for you to make any last changes in writing.

Yes, our designers will be happy to introduce the “back end” of your site to you and explain how you can add or edit your content and pages. Tutorials are included in the package price of the Basic and Custom design; tutorial for the Room for Growth package is available as a separate add-on.

Don’t want to manage the tech yourself? No problem. You can also retain your designer on an hourly basis to help you with any updates, adjustments or things that are technically higher level that come up in the future!

We’re happy to write your content for you (Please see our Website Copywriting Package), write individual pages for you, or edit any content you write yourself (on an hourly basis) to make sure it’s clear, compelling, and correct.

Our Website Developers

headshot of Astrid Supcito-Low

Astrid Sucipto-Low

Astrid Sucipto-Low *Basic and Custom Author Website Design Packages & Self-Published Book Formatting

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Jessica de Bruyn

Jessica de Bruyn *Room for Growth WordPress Elementor Author Website Design Package.

Other ways we help writers

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Personalized Writing Coaching

Not only are we happy to be on hand for brainstorming, guidance, and insight when it comes to writing the content for your website, but we're here to help you with all the writing you do.

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Editing

Bring your rough drafts to us, and we'll shine them up and prepare them for your website (or any situation!)

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PUBLICATION SUPPORT

Got a book you'd like to publish? We're here to help with the many late-stage elements to make this leg of your journey as easy as possible.

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Courses & Programs

Get your blog practice up and running for your new site or start your (next) book in our online courses and 4-month mentored book-writing programs for novel, business | self-development, and memoir.