Author Website 101

Walt Whitman knows his best side

More than one Brevity guest blogger has woken up to an email from me saying, “Your blog is up this morning, I grabbed an author photo from your website and made up a quick bio from what I could find, let me know if the bio isn’t quite right.”

In my other life, managing events, I’ve heard complaints from variety performers: “The newspaper picked a photo off my website of me wearing glasses—I never wear my glasses when I’m performing!” Or, “They put my real name instead of Wacky Wilma!”

Well, Wacky Wilma, your legal name was on your website, under the bespectacled photo of you.

Editors, reporters, and the administrative assistants whose job it is to compile press releases, programs and brochures don’t have time to search for your favorite photo, or to carefully cut your bio from six paragraphs to 50 words using only your most-prestigious publications.

The number-one way to avoid displeasure or delay in the information you want representing you in the world? Make that the easiest information to find.

One way to make it easy to find is to make an author website. You do not need to be famous or important to have your own website. You do not even need to be published. Your website functions as your business card:

• Provides a way to contact you
• Shows who you are and what you do
• Provides information, including a photo, that a publication or organization can use to accompany or promote your work
• Links to any publications
• If you use social media, links to your profiles
• If you have anything for sale, makes it EASY to give you money

An author website doesn’t have to be expensive. Yes, you can spend four figures on a designer, logo, your own domain, hosting, etc, etc. Or you can put up a WordPress site for free in an afternoon. (Here’s a rundown and reviews on some of the most popular build-your-own website services.)

The key elements of your website:

An author photo you love that is at least 500KB. It’s easy to shrink a photo that’s too large, but very difficult to blow up a small photo without it looking pixelated or grainy. 500KB-2MB is a good size range for a quick-loading website with usable photos.

Make your headshot reasonably current—if we see you at a conference, we should be able to recognize you without a time machine. Author photos these days tend to be casual and with a “real” background rather than a photographic backdrop. That means a good selfie often works just fine. Here’s a Brevity blog of tips for getting a good author photo. Put on a solid-colored top, stand next to a window with natural daylight, and take 50 selfies. After the first ten, it will stop feeling silly. Somewhere in there will be one photo you like. Hate all photos of you? Try Melissa Ballard’s author photo style.

No photos you don’t love. Allison’s Law: if you have ONE photo you don’t like on your website, that will be the photo everyone picks.

An easy to copy-paste bio. Allison’s Second Law: if the editor cuts down your bio, they will leave out your favorite credit. Put a short, 1-3 sentence bio on your front page, and a longer bio on the “About” page.

Links to any social media/newsletter/etc. Put your casual ways to keep in touch, because how often are you really going to update that website? And triple-check that any “Contact” form submissions arrive in your inbox.

Where to buy or read your work. Link to posted essays and articles, and any books you have for sale (anthologies count!). This is also a great time to save PDFs of any online publications, because one day their website will go out of business and your link won’t work.

If you are still working on publishing credits, include links to:

• Books by writer friends
• Literary organizations you support
• Books that have informed your work, or that you enjoyed
• Resources for writers and readers

Even if a website isn’t on your list right now, websearch “[your name] + writer” and see what comes up. Anything you’d like to track down and remove? When I search myself, the top five photos are all professional shots I’d be happy to see printed. My middle initial avoids confusing me with the actor or the Miss West Virginia with the fake sex tapes. Sure, some photos that aren’t me come up—pics I’ve posted on Twitter, or that also appear on a webpage I’m featured on, but it’s pretty clear I’m not the guy holding the headless chicken.

Finally, don’t stress too much. Do your best to make the information you want available, easily, but know that people will still get it wrong. One of my favorite newspaper front pages was me, eating fire, with my stage name in a faux tattoo Sharpie-d on my arm: “ISABELLA.”  The caption directly beneath says, “Isobel eating fire.”

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Allison K Williams is Brevity‘s Social Media Editor. Her new comedy playscript for video chat, The Next Horseman, is now available in paperback and ebook.