I don't know how many times
I've seen this question asked on this loop or that. There are
varying opinions on the matter, but as a published author, I can
speak to the fact that I had a website BEFORE I was published.
So why should an unpublished author have a website before
getting "the Call" or "the eMail?"
If you're serious about
publication, having a website is a critical component of
preparing yourself for getting agent and publisher attention.
Why?
-
Get the work out of the
way BEFORE you publish. You'll have enough to do when you
sell, whether in ePub or print form. A good website takes
time to develop, and the more information you put out there
the better. Come up with something other sites don't have
(this is hard, but is possible). If you treat it as a free
service, it will draw folks in. Write articles about things
you know a lot about, offer up a specialized link page.
Focus on something you're an expert in and develop that on
your website to drive visitors.
-
Many agents will visit
your website to see how savvy you are about marketing
yourself and your books. My agent visited mine when she was
considering representation. (I freaked when she told me
that, because I'd not updated the site in over a month.
-
Branding these days is
very important. Putting yourself out there is critical to
getting people interested in you. Whether it's readers or
agents or editors.
-
It takes time for
spiderbots to pick up your pages and put them in all the
different directories that people use on the Internet. Yes,
Google is the #1 site to go to, but I rarely use it. Instead
I Dogpile because it's a meta search engine and pulls from
various sites like Google, Yahoo, etc. There are a lot of
people who do this, so getting your site and pages out there
to where you're even on the radar scope will take time.
-
I'm also going to
emphatically state that one should never go cheap on a
website. It's relatively easy to get someone to design you a
website for a minimial cost. A lot of people build their
own, but few people do it well so that it looks sleek and
trim. I built my own, and I'm still not pleased with the
overall look, and I'm trained in marketing/advertising
and public relations. The more professional, sleeker looking
the site is, the better the perception of you as a
professional. And yes I know the costs of a website, but
when spread out over four-five years, the cost is pennies
per day.
Annual Costs
Website hosting
- I spend $55 a year (you can
get hosting cheaper, but I'm paying for up-time and help desk
response time.
Total Choice Hosting has a 99% up-time, which means I've
only had my website actually down one time in the past four
years (as of 10/06). I also get quick turnaround on issues that
I have.
Domain
name -
I spend about $60 a year for
the four domain names I own (my pen and real name with different
extensions like net, org, com, etc.) and privacy coverage for
each of those. DO NOT skimp on privacy. If you do, your
real name, address and other personal info is out there in the
web directory for anyone to find. Not only is identity theft a
major issue these days, so are the wackos who find people on the
net then hunt them down.
Since I've built my own
website, there are no other costs, except my time adding a new
page or changing a menu.
To Build
or Not to Build -
What's
your time worth? Building and maintaining a site as extensive as
mine is time consuming. That's a cost. The question is, are you
proficient enough in web design to build and maintain the
website quickly and efficiently? It's a time consuming task,
that comes with a cost. You lose writing time. It's a question
of what your time is worth.
One important point to
consider when deciding to build one's own site versus paying
someone to build an inexpensive site is the quality and
appearance of the site. We want people to take our work
seriously, but if we don't package ourselves well, how can they?
Think of your website as that professional business suit you
wear to a job interview for that dream job. If you wouldn't go
to that interview in a pair of ripped blue jeans, why would you
put up a website that looks like a patchwork quilt.
There are a lot of people
who create their own sites. I've seen some good ones, and I've
seen some that made me cringe. If you're going to build your
own, make certain you study web design before just slapping
something up on the web. Forget the fade ins, fade outs, the
midi files, the fancy cursors that leave little hearts trailing
behind your mouse. They're not only cheesy, but they're annoying
for visitors. Make your design as sleek as possible. Easy on the
eye, and MOST IMPORTANT remember that the majority of people
accessing the Internet are still doing it via dialup. Yes, I
know that sounds unbelievable, but I had enough complaints about
my website taking so long to download. I fixed it by reducing
the number of graphics, making sure my graphic sizes were small
for quick download, and I got rid of the annoying music files.
Web
Designers -
Design costs vary, but before you
automatically say no to someone else building your site, check
out the pricing. Then break it down by what it would cost you on
average for a month and per day. I'm willing to bet that it's
minimal compared to the amount of writing time you'll lose
because you're trying to rebuild a site you accidentally screwed
up trying to improve it. I KNOW, I'VE BEEN THERE! Even if all
you have are four or five pages to your site initially, it's
something you can have the designer add to at a later date.
I can highly recommend
Glass Slipper Designs as a resource for creating reasonably
priced headers if you want to build your own site and/or
websites. Jo does great work and is very good to work with. I
also use her for my banner ads as well. I'm one of her biggest
fans!
The most important thing to
remember is that your website is a reflection of you as a
writer. It's the image you're presenting to the public, to
agents and to publishers. It says how seriously you take
yourself as a writer. Professionalism is everything in this
business, make sure you're on the cutting edge.
