How many of you already have an author website? Jane Friedman brought this up in her Electric Speed newsletter, which gave me the impetus to write about it to my MFA student, and I thought I’d add a little more here. Friedman linked to her article that encourages even unpublished authors to start a site and gives tips on what to include.
Jane Friedman wrote The Business of Being a Writer, and I got to meet her at AWP once in Tampa (briefly) when my student Katrina Byrd interned with her and blogged about AWP. Katrina even included me in one of her blog posts for Friedman. So now I’m famous, or I’ve had my 15 minutes of fame, anyway.
If you write and haven’t started an author website yet, now might be the time. If you have started one, now might be a good time to give it a fresh coat of paint, or at least give it another look to see if there’s anything you want to add or change. Friedman gives some great advice in an encouraging way, and she sets expectations low for new authors. It’s about getting started and getting used to presenting yourself publicly while no one is watching (or very few people are).
I was glad to see that she recommended the strategy I chose for my site several years ago of moving the author blog to a separate area of the site and making the site’s landing page a more static information page. I also liked her thoughts on keeping that first page limited to a brief introduction, inviting readers to dig deeper on pages like an “About” or “Bio” or “Books” page. And her overall tone suggests that an author page should reflect the writer’s personality — there isn’t one template the will be right for everyone, though following some best practices is wise.
One point she doesn’t make that I often hear is that it doesn’t hurt to snag your domain name before someone else does. If you don’t have your own yet, you might want to consider it. That might be your next step once you get your site up and running. WordPress and probably other site building services can help you with domain registry when you’re ready to do it, though some people would argue for purchasing your domain as the very first step. Owning a domain costs a little more, certainly more than WordPress’s free mode, but it can be worth it to establish your online identity before you commit to the design of your site. It would be a shame to have to change a lot about your site just because you couldn’t get the name you wanted.
Another thing this article did remind me about, though, is that even static pages need occasional updates. One mistake I see from a lot of authors is that they create an author site and 5hen let it languish with infrequent attention. I get it. It takes time and effort. I manage a few websites (my own and a few at my university), and sometimes there can be at least a corner or two that have developed a few cobwebs from lack of attention. It’s good to plan time periodically for a little spring cleaning, even if that’s just taking down old information and replacing it with something new.
Updates I’m planning for this site include and updated Author photo. I’m not planning to be like Dear Abby and keep the same photo for decades. I’m a real person, after all. And the major update will be the addition of my newest book, Tree Fall with Birdsong. I’m just waiting on the cover reveal so I can add that. I also need to add two recent anthologies to my books page: Southern Voices: Fifty Contemporary Poets and Attached to the Living World: A New Ecopoetry Anthology. I’ve blogged about both, and having a blog is a great way to keep the site current, even if I don’t post as regularly as I used to. But it’s important to gradually move news off the blog onto more static and permanent pages of the site as well.
Kendall Dunkelberg 