Get a Professional Writer’s Website

Being a writer sounds so exotic. It sounds like such a cool job. You can work from home and type away at your computer the whole day, emerging only for coffee and perhaps to take a shower. And if you work really hard, you’re bound to be succesful. Right? Gosh, all you’ve got to do is find a good agent and you’re away. Look at J.K. Rowling with her Harry Potter series. Isn’t that what she did?

But experienced writers understand the level of commitment that’s needed to be successful. Professional writing demands a skilled creativity with your words, and then a WHOLE bunch of marketing. More often than not, it’s a big part of a literary agreement. Then you end up spending more time promoting your work than writing new material.

As a professional writer, your daily routine probably includes:

• writing articles, books, journals, website content, ….
• improving your writing skills
• selling your articles to publishers
• selling your books to readers, or being heavily involved in the marketing thereof
• selling, selling, selling … that’s why they call it a “bestseller”?

This is where a professional website becomes almost as important to a professional writer as his/her word processor.

Your website is the best marketing tool that you’ll ever have! It sits there patiently, 24×7x365, telling the world about you and your fabulous writing.

Our Wordpress website is an awesome writer’s tool with great interactivity. Readers can add comments to articles of my choice.

Whenever it suits me, I can add articles with tags and categories so that my readers (and search engines) can find them easily.

There’s a photo gallery included, which is a great way to show off the accompanying photographs.

Potential clients can also easily get an idea of my writing style to see how suitable it is for their publication.

A professional website shows readers and publishers that you’re a successful professional writer.

• It can sell copies of your books, list published articles, show people who else believes in you and approves of your writing.
• It gives your readers an insight into their favourite author.
• It is a wonderful selling machine ready to jump into action.

Take a look at our special offer and contact us for your professional writing website.

Below are some tips that are pertinent to a writer’s website.

How many pages should your website have?

Professional websites have good write-ups and photographs, informative biographies, great references and have an easy way for publishers to contact you.

• They can also have buy-now buttons for your latest books.
• You could embed a video of your latest book-signing event…
• Our web design includes a great interactive blog feature (where readers can add comments) to keep people informed of what’s happening in your world.

How many pages you add in total is up to you, but the more you add, the more chance you have of being found on the Internet by search engines, publishers and readers.

We’ll start you off with 10 pages/posts, including your home page, biography, a contact page and a Journals page … and then perhaps 6 articles that you’ve written? … these kind of details we can discuss during the website consultation.

Do-It-Yourself Publishing

You’re probably fully aware of what an enormous undertaking it is to write a book. It’s an even bigger undertaking to get it published in the traditional way. Or to get it sold … most writers are (partly) responsible for marketing their book.

And if the book isn’t an instant hit, many authors are left with a surplus of unsold books. And a diminished bank account from returned royalties. Instead, a lot of authors are turning to self-publishing websites like Lulu.com and selling their books online through their own website, and others like Amazon.com.

“It costs an author nothing to make their masterpiece available for purchase online - unlike traditional vanity publishing, which can be an expensive undertaking. The author has complete control over title, content, length and price - charging whatever price they choose as long as it covers the printing cost of about $8 a copy.” ~ Lulu.com

Flash vs. Normal Websites?

Unless you’re a bestselling author like J.K. Rowling whose website is going to be found anyway, it’s not recommended that you have a flash-based website. They can look fabulous, but are very difficult for search engines to assess and include in their search results. TIP: if you get a chance, you HAVE to read J.K.’s biography … if that doesn’t inspire you to write, nothing will!

Flash-based websites are also (usually) more difficult for owners to manage themselves, so they’d need to rely on their webmaster to keep it up to date. We build websites on a content management system, and give our clients training, so that they can add/change books and posts when it suits them, without extra cost.

Take a look at our special offer and contact us for your professional writing website that sells your work while you’re writing!

“The free-lance writer is a man who is paid per piece or per word or perhaps.” 
~ Robert Benchley (some light-hearted entertainment)

“The professional writer is an amateur who never quit.”