Quick Link: How To Write An ‘About’ Page That Works

Quick links, bringing you great articles on writing from all over the web.

When is the last time you checked your “about” page? Don’t worry I can’t say anything, it is on my very long list of updates I want to do to this site. Sigh. Sometimes it is very difficult to find time to do the things you want to do. But you seriously owe it to yourself to check out this post by Amanda Patterson over at Writers Write to make sure your “about” page is up to snuff!

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How To Write An ‘About’ Page That Works

by Amanda Patterson

How do you write an ‘About’ page that works? Ask yourself what people want to know when they click on your ‘About’ link.

People who visit your website want to know who you are, what you do, why they should believe you, how they can contact you, where you are, and when they need to show up.

The easiest way to cover the basics on this page is to use the five Ws and the one H. We cover this in detail in: Why You Need The Inverted Pyramid When You Write

So, let’s begin.

 

Read the full post on Writers Write!

Quick Link: What’s More Important: Author Websites or Social Media?

Quick links, bringing you great articles on writing from all over the web.

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What’s More Important: Author Websites or Social Media?

In 2013, I observed a conversation on Twitter where a publisher said they didn’t believe in author websites “for a lot of authors”—that social was a better place for authors to spend time from a marketing perspective.

It bothered me, and I ended up writing a blog post about it, exploring why a publisher might think this—rightly or wrongly.

Since then, I’ve taught countless conference sessions and webinars about author platform development, content strategy, marketing and promotion, and long-term best business practices. Hands down, the No. 1 thing I’m questioned about is social media—by the unpublished writers, advanced writers, and well-established career authors. I don’t mind fielding such questions, but I find social media the most difficult topic to teach effectively, and I’ll have a separate post about that tomorrow.

On the flip side, I rarely field questions about author websites, aside from technical ones about what service to use or other fiddly details related to domains, hosting, and WordPress sites. I believe this happens for a few reasons: Website design and development is a more technical area, plus few authors actively engage on their site with readers. It can be something of a “set it and forget it” thing. Who’s really looking at an author website that much anyway, especially one without a blog or active updates?

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Author Websites: Part Two – Hosts With The Most!

In Part One of Author Websites – The Domain Name Game! we talked about buying a domain. The next step is deciding what type of host to use that works for your particular situation. Below you find the different options with the pro and cons of each.

Robot with WWW sign. Website building or repair conceptSocial media pages
Examples – Facebook, Instagram
Pros – free and hey social media, that’s cool right?
Cons – harder to share with other social media, harder to customize, not as professional.

With so many different social media options out there, which one should you choose? Don’t waste your time on the latest and greatest hot new site or app. Your goal is to get people to notice and hopefully buy your book. New platforms take time to become mainstream or they fail and all your hard work is wasted.

Unless your book has a lot of pictures or is about photography you will probably want to stay off sites like Instagram or Pinterest as your main contact point. Twitter is a great tool for marketing but not really designed to be an author page. Which leaves Facebook.

While Facebook is trending for older users, it is still a force to be reckoned with. With over 1.55 billion users in fall of 2015, that is a lot of action. The ability to create a book or author page where you can post updates and interact with your fans makes this a winner.

The downside to having a social media page for your author site is it is much harder to control, and to share with other sites. This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have a Facebook site, Twitter account, or other social media as part of your marketing strategy. What most professional people have is a website/blog that acts as a center hub to promote out to social media. However, if you are a one-time author and low on funds, this is as easy and quick as they come.

Platform hosts
Examples – Blogger, WordPress.org
Pros – easy to set up, low cost, often free
Cons – doesn’t look as professional, your domain url will end with their platform name. For example instead of authorname.com you would have authorname.wordpress.com. Harder than a Facebook page to set up and maintain.

This is definitely a step up from having a social media page for an author site. You are able to create content and interact with people, while having a main hub to post to social media from. There are a bunch of free themes and plugins to help.

Side note on free themes and plugins. Beware, you get what you pay for. Often programmers who are starting out will give away items because they are not established in the marketplace yet. This means that the free stuff might not be well written, have security issues, and are rarely updated. There are exceptions to this, and a good way to tell is to see how many people have downloaded or used the item. People have to make money somehow and if they can’t, they disappear to do something that will make them money. Even paying .99 cents for theme brings the quality up massively. Your .99 cents plus a couple of thousand other people’s .99 cents adds up to a normal amount for a solid theme or plugin.

While this is a step up from a Facebook page, it can be more technical. If you are not comfortable with technology, then you might want to get help just to get set up. But if you are going to do that, then you might as well get your own site, as explained in the next example. Once your site is set up, then it is much easier to update. If you can use MS Word, then you can write a post.

Shared hosting
Examples – HostGator, Blue Mountain, etc.
Pros – your own domain, domain email, very professional
Cons – costs a little money depending on your preferences, and can be harder to setup

This is the most professional of the options. You have your own customized url, your own host that you control the look and feel of, and professional emails. This is also a little more difficult to set up so don’t hesitate to ask for help from your host provider or hire someone to help you. Most hosts have one step WordPress install features or will gladly install a WordPress site for you for free or a small fee.

Once you have WordPress installed it is very similar to the platform host setup, where you can use plugins and themes to customize your site. Please see the side note above on plugins.

The best way to pick a good host is to open your search engine, such as google, and type “top rated web hosting”. Go through the links on the first page of your search results. You will start to see some names show up again and again on the different rated lists. Write down the top three names you see the most, look at their sites and pick the one you like. Don’t pick a host based on their super bowl commercial. You will be setting yourself up for a world of hurt.

Costs vary on hosting, but most places will have a sale going on at the time of purchase. Lucky you! Don’t buy more than you need, a basic package is usually good enough for a starter site, and if you need to upgrade, your host will be happy to provide assistance.

Self Hosting
Examples – server in your garage, Amazon cloud
Pros – complete control
Cons – costs a lot more money and needs a lot more technical skills, especially dealing with security issues.

Unless you already have good tech skills, this option is more than most people will need and is beyond the scope of this article. Seriously, this is for the big boys who don’t need to read articles like this and have paid minions.

So there you have the different hosting types broken down so you can decide what is right for you. The next article in the series will be a step-by-step process to set up a customized Facebook page.

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If you liked this article, please share. If you have suggestions for further articles, articles you would like to submit to be posted on this site or just general comments, please contact me at paula@publetariat.com

Author Websites: Part One – The Domain Name Game!

Now that you have decided to create your own author website, the first step is figuring out what your domain name is going to be. Even if you plan on hiring someone to do most of the heavy lifting for you, it is good to understand the process.

According to Wikipedia, a domain name is “an identification string that defines a realm of administrative autonomy, authority or control within the Internet.” Yea. If that made sense to you, then congratulations, you don’t need this article. In plainer words, it is what people type in their browser to pull up your site.Robot with WWW sign. Website building or repair concept

As discussed in the post What is in a name? Everything if you are an author. Why you need your own author site, the best choice is to use your author name if you can. To find out if it is available, you can go to one of the many domain search engines on the web. I personally like namecheap.com. I am not getting paid in anyway to promote them, I just like them. Feel free to use whomever you want.

If your author name is not available, consider adding extra words to your name such as “author” or “books”. For example AuthorJoeName.com, or JoeNameBooks.com. If you are blessed with a heritage that leans towards long and unpronounceable last names, go ahead and shorten it to something that is easily type-able. Anastasios Papademetriou from high school, I am talking to you. You want to make it easy for people to find you.

The nice thing about these search tools is they will offer you suggestions if your desired domain name is already taken. Beware, they will often show you your domain name with other available domain extensions like .biz. Don’t waste your money. Really, when most people search they will be going by a .com name. If you buy the .club, .biz, or any of the other options, the .com is what people will find first. You will be spending your time trying to educate people about how the yourname.com is not you. The only exception would be if you are writing on behalf of a charitable organization, then the .org could be used or if you are writing x-rated material, then the .xxx is perfect for you.

So you found your domain name is available. That is awesome! While you are looking, go ahead and see if your book title is free too. You can always have more than one domain redirect to one site. So for example, you could have AuthorJoeName.com, JoeNameisreallylong.com, and Joenamebook.com all end up at the website AuthorJoeName.com. (I will go into this in later posts!)

So now you are ready to purchase! You can either purchase from the place where you did the search, or sometimes you can go through the web host. I will have more on that next week’s post – Author Websites:  Part Two – Hosts With The Most! A lot of web hosts will also allow you to purchase domain names, and even help you set things up.

A side word on “Whoisguard”.  Whoisguard is a service that blocks the public display of your domain registration information.  To register your domain, you need to provide personal information including your name and address, things you don’t want to be public. When you go to purchase your domain, you might be offered Whoisguard for a year free, or for purchase for a few bucks more. Do yourself a favor and get the Whoisguard.

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If you liked this article, please share. If you have suggestions for further articles, articles you would like to submit to be posted on this site or just general comments, please contact me at paula@publetariat.com

What is in a name? Everything if you are an author. Why you need your own author site.

Have you ever googled your own name? You should. It is interesting to see what comes up. If you are an author what shows up when a fan or agent searches for you is pretty important. If you write, you need an author site.

Why an author site instead of a book site? With the focus on you as an author, instead of the individual book, you have room to grow. Each book can have its own landing page or subdomain under your author site. Fans want to get to know the author behind their favorite books. Read on for the reasons why you need your own author site.Web Design Puzzle Shows Website Content And Creativity

  • Shows you are legit
    There are a thousand new books being created each day. To stand out, especially from the “do-it-yourself-quick” crowd, you want to present as a professional author. Having a good looking site with well written content sets you apart. Agents and fans often google peoples names. To be the first result that pops up in a Google search is reason enough to have you own author site.
  • Social Media Anchor point
    Social media is more powerful with a website, and an author website is more powerful with social media. It is a symbiotic relationship. Managing multiple social media outlets is much easier from a central website. In fact, there are plugins and options that will automatically post to social media for you, especially if you use WordPress or other content management systems.From your author site you can post to Facebook, tweet to Twitter, pin on Pinterest, or whatever your social media flavor is, while keeping a consistent message. Promoting from Facebook or Twitter to another platform is much harder. Which makes sense if you think about it. Each social media site was set up for a different niche.  Facebook allows images but is more chatty. Twitter is text less than 140 characters. Pinterest and Instagram are more image driven. So you might not get as much traffic on your site as on your social media outlets, but having a website will make your life easier and will drive traffic through the social media sites. Plus not everyone is on social media, so it is good to have a place for them as well.
  • Control
    An author’s site is their castle. You get to decide what goes on your site, and you are not restricted by Amazon or anyone else’s policies. In fact they will all have a place where you can put a link to your author site!There are so many cool options that you can provide on your own site. If you want to provide a free chapter you can. You can have press kits, media kits, official author bios, event listings, book club materials, testimonials, whatever you want. Sell your book off your own site and keep every precious penny!While this might seem overwhelming, having this freedom and control over your message is a beautiful thing. So guard it well and don’t fret. There are plenty of articles out there to help guide you. Start small and then grow.
  • Connections
    This is what it is all about really. You wrote down words with the hopes that they would connect with someone, hopefully with many someones. The someones are going to want to connect back to you. The author site is about you, and because you have control over your site, you can manage how your fans interact with you. Interactions vary from providing a simple bio where you fans can learn carefully scripted information about you, to interacting directly with your fans through comments or even forums.You can set up your site to collect emails. Emails are golden! Having someone decide that they like you enough to take the action of filling out a form and trusting you with their contact information is a wonderful thing. This is a very targeted audience, no matter how small. Make sure you treat people’s emails with the respect they deserve. Offer them extra treats for being so cool, like bonus chapters, or even to be a focus group for your next book!

Of course creating an author website is not the end, you will need to set aside time for updates and maintenance. Updated content keeps the search engines happy. While this sounds like a lot of work, a good author site will be a solid foundation for your overall market strategy and it can be a load of fun too.  In future articles, we will dive deeper in the process of creating an author website: how to create one, what you need on your author website, more on social media, and tools and tricks to help.

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If you liked this article, please share. If you have suggestions for further articles, articles you would like to submit, or just general comments, please contact me at paula@publetariat.com

Author Websites, Blogs, and Book Sales Pages

This post by Joel Friedlander originally appeared on his The Book Designer on 5/11/15.

Last week Stephanie Chandler invited me to do a presentation for the Nonfiction Writer’s Conference, an online event featuring lots of speakers on topics of interest to self-publishers and nonfiction authors.

The topic was “Essentials for Author Websites, Blogs and Book Sales Pages” and it was designed as a 40 minute teleconference presentation, so no visuals or slides like we would rely on in a webinar or live presentation.

(Stephanie also interviewed me last month for the Nonfiction Writer’s Association blog, and I got pretty personal in the interview. You can read it here: Expert Interview: Joel Friedlander)

For the last several years I’ve been giving talks, keynotes, and presentations to a variety of book industry groups and, to be honest, it’s one of the more enjoyable parts of my own platform building efforts.

But that’s a subject for another day.

Today I wanted to share with you the some of what went into this presentation, because thinking through your online strategy is never a bad idea. Because I use mind mapping to prepare many of my presentations, I’ll use the mind map for this event to illustrate the main points I wanted people to walk away with.

 

Read the full post on The Book Designer.

 

Why Is Typography So Important To Content Marketing?

This post by Erika Schneider originally appeared on the Outbrain blog on 9/16/14. Note that while it is aimed at small businesses, the information here is just as applicable to author websites and blogs, and even book cover design.

Content marketing has become one the primary ways of retaining customers, attracting new clients, and generating leads, sales, and profit for a company. While the content itself on a website is incredibly important, another crucial aspect of content marketing is typography. Typography isn’t often given a lot of consideration, but there is no doubt it plays a role in strengthening your brand, creating interest in your product, and highlighting your central message.

 

What is typography?

Typography is actually a pretty basic concept, and simply refers to the way that text is arranged on a page or document. Often times, typography is referred to as an art, as typography can be incredibly creative and innovative. Typography is great for enhancing a theme, adding personality, increasing emphasis of an idea or reinforcing a thought, demonstrating emotion, creating interest, and crafting aesthetic appeal.

While straightforward black-colored text such as this is appropriate for some forums, colorful and artistic text can be a great advertising tool. Notice how that sentence caught your attention and drew you in based on its font and color scheme alone? That’s the whole point of great typography.

 

Elements of Typography

You might think that typography is limited to font and color, but typography is actually much more than that. Here are the elements of typography that you should familiarize yourself with:

 

Read the full post on Outbrain.