Support for Indie Authors discussion

I've never made a website before, and I don't know what makes for a decent author website, but I thought I would try anyway. If anyone has any suggestions on how to make it better I would appreciate it. Thanks :)

http://hollycjones.com

Looks like a good basic setup.

I think, Holly, that maybe we should all gives you our websites as examples and you can see if any of them gives you ideas. Mine is http://www.morrisegraham.com

Hi Holly,

I'm looking at it on my phone, which is likely different than the desktop version. It's easy to navigate and set up for you to keep building on it as an author. One thing I will say that jumps out at me are the gaps in your justified text. You can tweak that to get rid of those extra spaces between words. It's only on your book page. Everywhere else is neat and clean. Some may expect to see those gaps on web pages, so it may not bother everyone. Since it's only in that area around your book thumbnail and clean everywhere else, I'd say it's not that big a deal.

Holly wrote: "I've never made a website before, and I don't know what makes for a decent author website, but I thought I would try anyway. If anyone has any suggestions on how to make it better I would appreciat..."

I personally am unable to read through bold text. Perhaps you could consider making the font on the body of the website pages regular text and leave bold fonts for only headings and titles. Also include line spacing if possible to improve readability of the content. I looked at your site using a laptop.

Just my two pennies. All the best.

Thank you everyone for all of your advice and encouragement.

Riley: Thank you :)

Morris: I've actually seen your website before. I recognize the book cover. Do you have an Amazon link to the ebook version?

Quoleena: Thank you for the critique. I'll mull that over.

Chikamso: I started with regular text, but my Mom couldn't read it, so I made it bigger for older people with poor eyesight. I do understand though; I think it's kind of ugly, too. Hopefully I can find a font that's a nice middle ground.

Holly,

Woo hoo on setting up your website. I think your screen motif coordinates beautifully with your book.

Morris,

I liked how you have your book and pertinent links up front.

It's a great website Holly! I for one love the colours and the theme! Maybe you could add a blog there for your readers; quite a few authors do that.

But yeah, for a first time it's awesome!

It's good that you've gone for a nice, sensible design that makes it obvious where people can find information. People visit websites to find out stuff they want to know, not to be wowed by fancy designs!

I'll not comment on the colours (I prefer dark on light), but I agree about having your main text as not bold. Bold text just becomes too hard on the eyes - if you (or your mum!) find that the non-bold is too difficult to read, then increase the font size or change to a different font. Some people find the sans-serif fonts easier on the eyes than serif fonts.

You might also try a dark-on-light theme to see if that's easier to read.

You might want to consider making your book list or news page your homepage - "about the author" is usually something that gets hidden elsewhere because when people hit your website, they want to see what's new or what books you have. People only tend to be interested in the author's background once they're already interested in the books. Plus, the "about the author" stuff doesn't change very often!

Adding a blog is a good idea, but only if you are the kind of person who can/will add to it on a reasonably regular basis. A blog that hasn't been updated in six months is more of a disadvantage than no blog at all.

If you have a Twitter/Facebook account/page, add links to those as well - make it easy for people to find you!

You also seem to have a blank field in your "Book List" page. Consider getting rid of it if you can, because a dark grey rectangle with nothing in it looks a bit strange.

Another thing you might want to think about is adding a list of "My favourite authors" - I don't know whether it's a common thing, but it's a subtle way of aligning your books with established authors ("See, I like these authors, and I like my books, so if you like those authors too, you'll probably like my book...")

Links - your Amazon link only points to the American store. Since you also have your book listed on the UK store, you might want to add a link to that as well.

My website is at: www.tkelliott.com - it's a continual work in progress, so any comments on that welcome too!

I liked it. A nice, easy to navigate format. I do prefer a bit more subdued color palette but that's just me.

Here's my website - http://wordboy1.wix.com/wordboyswords - it's also a work in progress so any feedback would be appreciated

I'd suggest putting your book list up as a landing page, and putting the introductory stuff into an 'about' section :) other than that, it looks pretty good!

Holly wrote: "I've never made a website before, and I don't know what makes for a decent author website, but I thought I would try anyway. If anyone has any suggestions on how to make it better I would appreciat..."

I took a basic/simple template to design my website then tweaked it here and there. Have a look.

http://www.gttrickle.com

Wow, I have received so many good suggestions from you guys! I did get rid of the bold text and switch up the home page to include the book list. I'll have to look into other things that were suggested like a blog or extra links for different Amazon stores. That being said, thank you everyone for your support and great ideas :)

I love the background colors. Very mysterious yet inviting.
Well done!
India

India: Thank you! It's a corner from a book cover I made as an experiment but never used. I'm glad it doesn't look too out of place. Thanks :)

Looks like a great start! I'd say add an author photo. :)

Sarah: I've thought about that, but I think I'd want to take a specific picture for that. Nothing I have on hand looks very professional (the lighting in my house stinks). Thank you for weighing in :)

Here are a couple things:

The HOME page should be about you, the author. With Author photo(s).

The Menu should contain BIBLIOGRAPHY and your books listed there.

The Background Image is huge, loads slow, and I only see a small corner of it.

The Pages are slow to load.

YMMV

Martin wrote: "Here are a couple things:

The HOME page should be about you, the author. With Author photo(s).

The Menu should contain BIBLIOGRAPHY and your books listed there
The Background Image is huge, loa..."

I don't think the home page has to be about the author. I have an author page for that. I use the home page for the stuff I want to share/promote upfront.

Also, if you don't want the formality of "Bibliography," you can simply say, Books or something simple like that if you want.

There doesn't have to be hard and fast rules for an author website beyond looking good, intuitive navigation, and representative of the author and his/her work.

Clearly this is about the author.

Here is the URL: http://hollycjones.com

Title on the Page: Holly C. Jones

It needs a bio and photo on the front page.

Martin wrote: "Clearly this is about the author.

Here is the URL: http://hollycjones.com

Title on the Page: Holly C. Jones

It needs a bio and photo on the front page."

Yes, an author website tends to be about the author and the author's books and such.

Why does it need a bio and photo on the front page? While it is clearly your preference to do so for your website, there's more than one way to skin a cat. Nothing needs to go on the home/front page except for what the individual author wants to put on it.

I think it's nice. As more content is added it will fill out. I read the bio and that is a nice bio. I usually prefer menus horizontally, but that's just me.

I had no problem loading anything. I would definitely use "Books" as opposed to "Bibliography" (which reminds me more of reference/research).

Off to a good start!

I like the template. It's clean and easy to navigate. I'm not a huge fan of the background image because it's pixelated. I think it would be a good image if it wasn't distorted.

Also, if you could tint the background image to match the greens in your book, that would be even more aesthetically pleasing... but probably not necessary. :)

Overall, I do like what you have, though!

M.L.: I prefer horizontal menus as well. I tried several templates before I settled on this one, and by then I was too frazzled to worry that the menu wasn't exactly where I wanted it.

Thanks to everyone for all your advice :)

Pretty good. The background image repeats in an odd way on very high-res screens (1920x1080) but apart from that no real problems.

Here's my website http://www.segilolasalami.co.uk/

Most people don't come in through the home page but rather my blog posts, so it doesn't matter what you put in the home page.

Holly, for starts, your website needs a tab icon. If you look at my website it is SS

Your website also needs a name to go with the tab icon. www. is not great. Mine is Segilola Salami.

To put this into context, when you look at a tab with Goodreads, you immediately notice the GRs g logo then the name Goodreads

For the simple reason that the home page is the home, you should have a separate tab on the left that says booklist. If someone lands on your page via a page other than your home page, they may not immediately know that details of your books would be there.

Consider adding a calendar or events page, especially if you do any offline events

Would your news and updates be better as a blog?

Segilola: I've actually thought about changing news and updates to a blog. I'm still trying to work out the details in my head. As far as the tab icon, I hate to admit this, but I honestly don't know what you're talking about. I'm not very savvy when it comes to how websites work, which is one reason why I asked for help. Maybe you could explain it to me? Thanks :)

T. K. Elliott wrote: "It's good that you've gone for a nice, sensible design that makes it obvious where people can find information. People visit websites to find out stuff they want to know, not to be wowed by fancy d..."

T. K. - I like the clean look of your website, very informative, too.

Holly wrote: "Segilola: I've actually thought about changing news and updates to a blog. I'm still trying to work out the details in my head. As far as the tab icon, I hate to admit this, but I honestly don't kn..."

when you open a browser as a new tab/window, just above where you type in the URL you will see the tab icon and name

Segilola: Oh, I get it now. I didn't even think of doing that. I'll have to look into it and see if I can do it. Thanks :)

It's clean and simple. Viewing on my desktop, the background image is quite low resolution, however.

I use Weebly for mine. Makes everything super easy.
www.mjsauthor.com

Holly wrote: "I've never made a website before, and I don't know what makes for a decent author website, but I thought I would try anyway. If anyone has any suggestions on how to make it better I would appreciat..."

One thing I would suggest is that, as time goes on and you get more books to put up, you might want to consider revamping the home page to be for your latest book and all about it as well as your latest update and having a separate page for your book list as the picture is larger than an ordinary listing with your full blurb on it too. You can transfer the latest book to the other page's listing when you put up your next book on the home page for everyone to see then.

But it's a great site, though! Well done! :)

E.A.: Great tip. I'll keep that in mind :)

Hi Holly,
Great start. What service are you doing for the design? There are many really clean easy drag and drop options for web design that are mobile responsive designs.
My site www.thebookcontest.com was created on Weebly. My husband's www.joeclifford.com was a word press site. Both are really easy to work with.
Making sure it works from mobile phones is critical these days (I think 70% of my traffic is mobile but that is higher than other sites I've worked on).
I'd recommend adding more photos. A nice headshot is critical. If you can't afford one try one of those studios like JC Penney and tell them you need a tight headshot with a plain background.
One final tip is the use a service like AddThis to set up automatic sharing options. It makes it much easier for people to help you get the word out.
Hope that is helpful :)

thebookcontest wrote: "Hi Holly,
Great start. What service are you doing for the design? There are many really clean easy drag and drop options for web design that are mobile responsive designs.
My site www.thebookconte..."

thebookcontest: Joe's site looks great. Nice mixture of graphics and text.