McAnally's (The Community Pub) > Author Craft

When to start an author website?

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The Deposed King:

--- Quote from: Quantus on March 04, 2013, 04:58:08 PM ---So I guess the question becomes are you looking to stick with the Self-Publishing Model, or are you trying to use it to attract traditional Publishers?  If you are looking to attract a Publisher, be prepared to abandon any and all of this once you get a contract.

--- End quote ---


Lilona Andrews and Jim Butcher are both published authors, there is also the Hurog site for Patricia Briggs and the Mercy Thompson were-wolf series.  I'd say look at what they do on the published author front as it regards websites and content and such.



The Deposed King

Wordmaker:
My publisher coached me on how to build my online platform. Get a website up. You can buy a domain if you want. I use a free Blogger site and it's serving me well. The main thing you want that website for is online visibility. Pick topics to blog about (and Tweet about) besides your book. Generally speaking, people are turned off by authors posting constant "buy my book!" messages. Talk about the writing process. Give updates on your progress towards your release. But also pick some personal topics to discuss. Comment on the writing industry. Post book recommendations. Blog about topics related to your book.

In my experience, I've gotten more followers and had more people buy my book because we've connected over something entirely separate to my writing.

One thing to keep in mind is that if you're self-publishing with a view to making a name for yourself and attracting a publisher, the odds are extremely slim that they will take on anything you've already published on your own, unless it's already selling very well. You would still likely have to send queries for new work you've completed that you don't intend to self-publish.

Whatever you do with your website, make sure it's published in your name. What I mean is, name your blog after yourself, or buy your own name as a domain, rather than coming up with a catchy website title or buying the domain of your book's title. You're creating a brand, and that brand is you. You want people to associate your name with your work.

Shecky:

--- Quote from: the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh on March 04, 2013, 04:50:05 PM ---If you're thinking in terms of traditional publishing, the advice I've had is; don't do anything until you've sold something, or you look indistinguishable from any other wannabe.  And even then, don't do anything that treads on the toes of your publisher's marketing people; this being what they do for a living, odds are they are better at it than you.

--- End quote ---

There's a huge gap between what the publisher does and the author's personal presence. Many readers appear to like at least the appearance of a personal touch, the thought that you could actually "speak" to the author. Personal websites/blogs/social-media presence (or, more to the point, POSTING on them) go very far towards that and are not something a publisher's marketing department could do. Nor should they; it's not their job. Being yourself, putting yourself out there, that's yours.

As a reader, I can say with certainty that there are a number of authors I would never have picked up without that personal presence, no matter the publisher's marketing work. In fact, publisher-initiated marketing is usually on a non-reader-oriented scale, anyway; getting your book to distribution points and suchlike is the way they contribute most.

Wordmaker:
Also, in my experience, publishers are usually very open to authors trying out all kinds of promotion methods. The only thing likely to need to be cleared with them is anything that may touch on areas covered by your contract.

For example, my publisher holds all rights to publish Locked Within and has first refusal on any works based on it. So I would have to clear it with them to post an excerpt on my website or release free short stories like Jim has done for Dresden.

arianne:
I recently found the blog of a self-published author who had sold maybe a couple hundred copies of her novel. She was posting things about "how to write a bestselling novel" and "how REAL writers write" and it just turned me off. Good advice is always good advice, but selling 200 books does not make anyone a bestselling writer by anyone's standards and they shouldn't say they are.

It's things like that that make me very wary of posting writing related stuff on a blog. I don't want to come off sounding very arrogant (especially as I haven't published anything yet).

I would like to see my stuff published by a traditional publisher, but I think it usually takes about six months to a year to find an agent/publisher (and I'm being optimistic here :)) and then maybe another year to actually see the book in stores after all the paperwork is signed (and still being optimistic here.... :)) I don't know if my work would still be "current" after that long.

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