Do You Need an Author Website?

Yes.

An interesting thing happened today. An author with more than 15 sci-fi fiction books was promoting his most recent one in a Facebook group I belong to.

I clicked on the title because I love sci-fi, it’s my personal favorite genre, and his book is listed under Kindle Unlimited, so I could pick it up for free.

But I couldn’t find which book was first in the series. I clicked on his author name, a fairly common name, and it only took me to an Amazon search for that name, which was too common to find only his books.

So, I went back to the #15 book page and started clicking on random other ones in the series in that “Customers who bought this item also bought” section below the book description.

None of them were marked with the book order or series number, though some of the descriptions mentioned previous volumes, like saying “(see book two)” if it referenced a major plot point of a previous book in the series.

I ended up Googling his book series and name, which didn’t help because of his too-common name, but I eventually found a list of his books on Goodreads by ONLY Googling the series name + books — which STILL did not have the order listed.

Ok. That’s a lot of work to do for an author and series I’d never heard of.

So, did I ever find which one went first? Yes. I went back into the Facebook group and asked him for his website and explained I couldn’t find the series order.

He responded with the entire series order PLUS the next three coming out in the series. Which was helpful — but only for me.

I then took the time to write him a message explaining that it made it very difficult and may deter readers from buying his books, and suggested 2 things:

• Putting the book number in the series in the title on Amazon, such as “Title (Book 15)” or “Title (Book 15 in the XYZ series)”
• Or having a listing of the book series order on an Amazon Author page or on his personal website (and having the website linked to his author page/bio).

He explained that he is not super tech-savvy and has no site or author page but belongs to a bunch of Facebook groups where he promotes his work.

Going into good-daughter mode (I’ve done this same thing for my parents), I wrote out step-by-step instructions on how to create an Amazon Author page (with links!) and also included the customer service phone number (their customer service will walk you through it, they’re great).

This situation highlights how important it is for people to be able to FIND YOU.

I am lucky because my name is unique. When you Google my name, I always come up: my books, site, blog, etc.

Most people have names they share with others. On top of the already-confusing issue I had of not being able to find which book came first, he shares his name with several historical figures, which made it very difficult to find him online.

No matter what work you do — writer, artist, graphic designer, musician — whatever you do, the most important thing is that people need to be able to find you and your work.

Do you need a website?

YES.

Yes, I believe you need a place to send people or for people to find when they search which has all of your information and services and examples of your work, where they can contact you, and where you can have important information.

Even if you don’t have a dedicated website, which you can make pretty painlessly and inexpensively if you use places like Wix, Squarespace, Wordpress, etc., you need SOMEWHERE for people to go. That could be your Medium blog, your art portfolio site, or somewhere else.

I literally had to search multiple places and then directly ask an author before I could know what book to start with.

Anyone with one iota less patience or willingness to look — or without a direct line of communication to the author — would probably have just STOPPED LOOKING after the third or so click.

There are so many books out there, you don’t want to make it MORE difficult for readers to find your books or start to read them.

Check out my brand new book Concept to Conclusion: How to Write a Book and learn everything you need to know to conceive of, outline, write, publish, and market a book!

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