What was the last author website you visited? If you’re like me, you got super excited to visit, hurried over there, and found very little to keep your attention. At the top is 3 links: Home, about, and Books. When you read the about page, you read the same thing you can find on the Amazon author page.
Have you had this experience? I have. And it makes me so sad. Authors, especially indie authors, have so much more to offer than just “here’s my book, buy it please.” If you are an author, and you’re paying for an author website, you deserve to have tons of people reading your blog, and your readers deserve to have amazing content waiting for them when they come visit.
If you have an author website, and don’t know what to write about, stay tuned until the end of this post. I have an awesome checklist for you with blog ideas for author websites.
Until then, check out these reasons you should be blogging on your author website.
This post may contain affiliate links. I’ll receive a small commission through your purchase, and I’m so grateful!
A Blog gives you content to share, which increases your exposure on social media
Creating content on platforms like TikTok and Twitter doesn’t take much preparation. Well, TikTok might, but I don’t use it so have no idea. Twitter is very much in the moment, so unless you use Canva’s scheduling tool or a media management tool, most of the content going out is created in the moment.
But, if you’re like me, and you want to branch out into other marketing tools, such as Pinterest (You really should be on Pinterest. Post coming soon explaining why), then you need plenty of content to share. Having one post that you create 50 images for, to share on one platform, makes you look spammy. And you don’t want to look spammy. So, create those blog posts, and they will give you plenty of fodder for your marketing efforts.
Your readers deserve to know more about you
One of the things I love most about being part of the indie community is being able to call authors my friends. If you don’t offer a small bit of yourself for your readers, whether it’s a struggle or a triumph, you could be losing potential fans. This does NOT mean that you need to share every bit of your private life. I am not saying that at all. I love seeing my author friends on Twitter when I get to share in their excitement about selling a book, or commiserate with them when they’re having trouble with a section of their book. Even vacation pictures show off a little bit of themselves. I love all that stuff.
A Blog attracts new readers
While a blog is by no means a short term marketing effort, you are hogtying yourself by not offering information outside your books. For example, a reader loves reading book reviews, and loves finding new books. You just wrote a book review for your author friend’s book, and said reader finds it. At the end of the post, you mention, “Hey, by the way if you loved this book review, you might enjoy this book I wrote. It has a similar horror vibe to it.” Said reader thinks, “Oh, cool! Two books? Awesome!” and heads over to purchase your book. Bam, new reader!
If you don’t think that’s possible, I beg to differ. Happens all the time.
You get to showcase your favorite books
As an author, you have a unique perspective, so use it! Write those book reviews of the books you read to support your friends. Amazon is amazing, but posting on your blog as well, you’re giving your readers an amazing experience when they come visit your website. These book reviews also give you content to share on social media, which brings in even more readers, and increases views on your author website.
You can test new ideas in a blog post
Did you have this fantastic idea for a fantasy world, or a new storyline? Write a short story for a blog post and test it with your readers. Ask for feedback in the comments. When readers leave comments, it helps increase visibility to a blog or blog post and tells the internet gods that the content is worth the hype. This tells those same internet gods that you’re an expert in your field, and they are more likely to share your content, or bring it up in search results.
You can hone your skills as a writer
If you struggle with grammar, spelling or punctuation, having a blog is a really great place to start honing those writing skills you didn’t know you had. A blog post is SIGNIFICANTLY shorter than a book, so WAY easier to edit and proofread before publishing. As a result, you’ll start to train your eye to see certain things, and correct others automatically. This can only help you on your road to publishing a book.
Your Blog helps your readers trust you
I’ve bought more books in the past year from authors on Twitter than anywhere else. I have made friends with these authors, and I want to support them. The only problem with that is, it takes quite a few tweets at 280 characters to really make a dent in a conversation. Take one of those subjects from Twitter, and by turning it into a blog post, you’re able to get your opinion out in a more concise way.
You can offer advice and tips to your fellow authors
If you’ve been writing a while, you’ve likely come up with some amazing systems in place to make your writing process easier. The indie author community is anything but competitive, so sharing those tips will be valuable enough to your readers that they’ll keep coming back.
If your author website is self-hosted, you can monetize with ads, and make additional ad revenue
Who doesn’t like making extra money? Google adsense may not offer a ton in the way of ad revenue, but if you’re on a self-hosted blog, you can sign up with them and create passive ad revenue, which adds to your website income.
If you’re interested in getting a self-hosted blog, check out this deal from Bluehost. This affiliate link will give you a huge discount, and I’ll get a commission. Bluehost is the perfect “starter host,” because they’re amazingly easy to use, and their customer service is amazing. I haven’t had to use it often, but when I did they were extremely helpful.
So, what reasons would you give for blogging on your author website? Let me know in the comments below! And don’t forget to grab your checklist of blog ideas for your author website!
Until Next Time, Friends!
I love this! I have been toying with getting an author website, and you are making me want to go and get one now! Fab post!
Thank you! I think all authors should have one, even if it’s just on free wordpress. I get that authors don’t have much money, but a website is such an amazing marketing tool! Let me know when you get yours so I can come check it out!