This Little Writer Had a Website…
by Joan Upton Hall

… Another little writer had none. Did she need it? Consider the other part of that familiar nursery rhyme. The first little piggy went to market while the other went nowhere-not good if she's a writer hoping to promote her work.
A website is a press kit on steroids. It reaches readers and the people who make your work accessible to readers. Every potential media reviewer, book store manager, assignment editor, and program chair looking for a speaker can check your website and schedule a date. You can publicize your website on business cards, letters, your e-mail signature and in person. That way, you do far more than merely reminding people of your name and address. A business card becomes your portfolio in the pocket of an agent or editor.
The more you write, the more you will establish a readership that comes to expect certain things from you. Your name becomes your trademark. That's why writers who work in different genres usually do so under pseudonyms. Nora Roberts has a faithful following of romance readers, but under the name J.D. Robb, she entertains a different audience with her futuristic mysteries. Just as her audiences can't remember all the titles, your readers may not remember all yours either, but they can find them by your name.
Advertising is no ego trip; it's smart business. People are much more likely to remember your name to find the website than some clever title-even the title of your book. You will add other books and services eventually. The same holds true for finding authors' book lists at online bookstores. Say you want to buy Tony Hillerman's latest book through Amazon.com, and you don't know the title. Typing the author's name into the search box pulls up all his books in one place. What's more, Amazon places a handy shopping cart right there, ready to head for its virtual checkout in cyberspace.
My webmaster carried this concept over to the books page of my website. If visitors click the "Amazon.com" button (actually the HTML link to my name on Amazon), my titles come up together, saving potential customers time and effort.
Warning: Web visitors aren't a patient lot. According to the authors of Guerrilla Marketing (Jay Conrad Levinson, Rick Frishman, Michael Larsen; Writers Digest Books), "AOL has found that you have ten seconds to capture the attention of net surfers and forty seconds to keep it before they're off to the next stop…. Wasting your visitors' time is a crime punishable by the click of a mouse."
A user-friendly personal website, paired with Amazon.com, can level the marketing field for new writers. But websites aren't only for strivers. Some of the biggest name authors have their own websites too, and they go all out to keep fans returning.
At the time of this writing, Janet Evanovitch was holding a word-search contest involving names that appear in one of her books, the prize being a "Plum Crazy" hat, so-called for her series heroine Stephanie Plum. Stephen King promised to make you a character in one of his novels if you outbid others in "Auction Cause," a First Amendment Project. Jodi Thomas's fan club offered a newsletter bearing "exclusive information" about Thomas's characters and upcoming novels "for members only" (while inviting you to become one).
You can summon any of these authors to your screen simply by googling their names, that is, typing their names into the Google search engine.

You Google, don't you?

You won't find the verb "to google" in a dictionary, but everybody's doing it nowadays. Writers more advanced in the game than I am advise that googling your name is an index for "finding out if you're anybody yet." Although I had published two books, I had no website the first time I tried it, and all I got was a laugh. What came up when I typed in "Joan Upton Hall," was somebody else by that name, an "Upton College offering a Joan of Arc symposium," and Google's question, "Do you mean Uptown Hall?"
That's when I decided to follow the advice of the sages and get a website, so I could at least appear to exist as a writer. Recently when I tried googling my name, I expected only my website and the little side notations about my books available online. To my amazement, links also came up from a couple of online newsletters carrying articles about my being a speaker for them. Most exciting were links to various e-zines, reviewing my newly released novel, Arturo el Rey, even a 'zine in the U.K.
The web knows no boundaries and no limited business hours. Google results are ever changing, so remember to print out any temporary online article you get while it lasts and keep it as a clip.
As gratifying as these articles are, and as much as they add to your credibility for visitors looking for the kind of services you offer, they fail to inform readers how to reach you. Once again, your home page can come to the rescue with easy-to-find contact information. (But think twice about listing your home address.)
Ideally, the first thing googlers who type in your trademark will find is a link to your home page. Unfortunately, not all existing websites turn up this way. Why? I got mixed answers from the experts on whether this is because the author's name and site name don't exactly match or whether it needs to be HTML (hypertext markup language) encoded. If your website doesn't show up high of the list of results, ask an expert to find and correct the problem.
Once your site attracts visitors, be sure to make it worth their time, and dream up ways you can entice them to visit again. You can't afford that time-wasting violation "…punishable by the click of a mouse."

Creating a Website

Creating and maintaining a website will cost you either time or money. I applaud the tech-savvy people who can make their own great websites. Some authors get so good at it, they hire out their services and specialize in author websites. Tech-challenged people like me, however, make better use of their time writing instead of struggling to master a skill they will use only on this one project.
Computer consultant Hal Kooistra advises, "Look at some of the possibilities by doing a Google search for 'web hosting ratings.' Prices range from the sublime (under $10/month) to the ridiculous (a few hundred dollars per month). Tools for designing web pages are quite plentiful, but they have a learning curve that can be steep, especially if you want to do anything sophisticated that would entail learning the language of web page development, HTML." (Kooistra's website: www.macworks-pcworks.com)
Various servers let you build a web-based home page, but some users find these slow and hard to change. My webmaster, Linda Holloway, reminds us that nothing is free. These sites are plagued with pop ups and advertising banners. Will your viewers care enough to wade through such a swamp? Maybe you should invest in your own domain name (the name of your website).
Holloway explains domain (a name for the pages and information that make up your website) with an analogy. "Imagine your house as your website. In order to have people visit you, you have to give them an address, and every room is a page with another address. Your web page name is what people see as the address, but the real thing, which people don't see, is made up of numbers," (if you use HTML).
New innovations in software, such as Dotster.com and SiteBuilder, make it possible for individuals to create their own websites without having to learn HTML. Children's book writer, Linda Lipscomb, created quite an attractive site using Dotster, and she says, "I was amazed at the ease-of-use software templates for site design, and as a marketing professional, cost has always been an important factor in my decisions." (view her results at: www.lindalipscomb.biz)
You may be adept enough to figure all this out for yourself. I was glad to hire a webmaster, who has proven to be skillful, efficient, and reasonably-priced. If you want to investigate this route, identify a site you like and contact the webmaster. His or her e-mail address is likely to be posted at the bottom of the home page, such as Linda Holloway's link on my site. Then simply ask that webmaster about his or her rates, method of operation, etc.
However you decide to create your website, it is a must-have for today's writers serious about advancing beyond hand-selling each copy of their books. Shakespeare's metaphor that the world is your oyster was never more true than it is today-if you open it with your own website. Otherwise, you might find yourself left like the last little piggy who cried all the way home.

SIDEBAR: Planning an Author Website

o Hobby sites may entertain their visitors with visual and auditory treats, but a writer's website is a business tool. If it takes too long to load or works only for the latest computers and software, most people either won't be able to access it or won't spend the time waiting for it to fill their screen.
o If you have books, make them easy to order. Provide a link visitors can click to buy online through Amazon.com, other online stores, or your publisher. If they have to order from you by mail, offer some exclusive perk to make it worth the extra trouble.
o Give potential buyers a chance to sample your writing onsite, and to read reviews/testimonials, but don't clutter the page with all of this. Instead provide links that can take people to the details they choose.
o If you offer public speaking or other services, list topics and testimonials.
o Provide a calendar of events where you will make appearances in case your fans want to meet you in the flesh.
o Update the site regularly. Outdated information is a waste of your money and the visitor's time.
o Shop other authors' websites to see what features you want to add to your own. Try the tools and links they offer to see if they're user-friendly.
o If you build it "they" might come, but unless it's interesting, up to date, and offers something they want, they'll never come back.