Do authors need a website?

Yes, if you plan to sell more than one book. Your website is the one platform you own -- unlike social media, it cannot be throttled by an algorithm. At minimum, you need: homepage with your latest book, email signup, book pages with buy links, and an about page.

What should be on an author website?

Homepage featuring your latest or best-selling book, email list signup (with a reader magnet), individual book pages with covers, descriptions, and buy links, about page with author photo and bio, contact page, and blog (optional but helpful for SEO).

How much does an author website cost?

$50-$200/year for hosting and domain. Free with WordPress.com or Wix starter plans. $500-$2,000 for a custom WordPress design. Most authors can build a professional-looking site with a premium WordPress theme ($50-$100) and a few hours of setup.

What is the best platform for an author website?

WordPress.org (self-hosted) for maximum control and SEO. Squarespace for easy drag-and-drop with beautiful templates. Wix for quick setup. WordPress is best for long-term SEO and blogging; Squarespace is best for visual simplicity.

Should my author website have a blog?

A blog helps with SEO (driving organic traffic), establishes authority, and gives you content to share on social media. But only blog if you will maintain it. An abandoned blog with posts from 2019 looks worse than no blog at all.

15 author website examples and critique

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Quick Answer

The best author websites have a clear book-first homepage, email signup, and simple navigation — here are examples that get it right. (Updated May 2026.)

It’s really hard to describe how to make a great author website, so I made a video critiquing 15 real-life examples. These aren’t *perfect* author websites, but they are representative of the type of websites most authors have. If you watch the whole video, you’ll learn a lot about setting up a website for authors. However: None of it really matters if you aren’t getting traffic to your website. So content is usually more important than design or functionality. Content first. Also sales don’t usually come directly from an author’s website, they come from purchases on Kindle or iBooks, so the actual book page matters much more than the author website (which is why most authors don’t spend as much time on their website as they should, because they know it’s not primarily where sales come from). If sales dry up, getting traffic to your website with great content that attracts your readers is a wonderful strategy… but only if they stick around long enough to sign up or read some of your work, so you can develop a relationship with them and turn them into fans.

Featured authors

3:43 – Melle Amade (urban fantasy/paranormal romance) 7:48 – Watson Davis (scifi/sword and sorcery 11:26 – Nadine Travers (urban fantasy/paranormal romance) 16:13 – Katy Haye (steampunk fantasy) 19:57 – R. Q. Bell (historical romance) 30:46 – Douglas Clegg (thriller) 39:22 – Senserial Publishing (serialized fiction) 43:47 – Shaun L. Griffiths (fantasy/sword and sorcery) 48:58 – Cory Reynolds (epic YA) 58:35 – James Hockley (epic fantasy/sword and sorcery) 1.04:47 – Clare Jayne (historical romance) 1.08:39 – Luke R. Mitchell (science fiction and fantasy) 1.12:18 – Olivia Wildenstein (YA contemporary / urban fantasy) 1.19:18 – Jacque Stevens (fantasy) 1.27:45 – Katherine Lee Hayton (thrillers)

Where To Go Next

Is blogging worth it? Is blogging dead? — the 2026 reality.
Book launch plan: Step-by-step launch checklist.
Marketing system: Bestseller Blueprint.
Build online: The Creativindie manifesto on creative independence.

Derek Murphy

Derek Murphy has a PhD in Literature, is a USA Today and Wall Street Journal bestselling author, and has spent over a decade helping authors write, publish, and sell books through Creativindie. When he’s not critiquing manuscripts or building writing tools, he’s probably in a castle somewhere with cats.