{"id":3280,"date":"2009-09-10T00:00:28","date_gmt":"2009-09-10T04:00:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/shilohwalker.wordpress.com\/?p=3280"},"modified":"2009-09-10T00:00:28","modified_gmt":"2009-09-10T04:00:28","slug":"do-i-really-need-a-website","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shilohwalker.com\/website\/2009\/09\/do-i-really-need-a-website\/","title":{"rendered":"Do I really need a website?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I know this is a topic that&#8217;s been discussed before, by a number of different people.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m doing it again, because I was procrastinating and playing online, ended up on Ann Aguirre&#8217;s website, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.annaguirre.com\/archives\/2009\/09\/05\/author-websites\/\" target=\"_blank\">reading this post<\/a>.\u00a0 She&#8217;s discussing author websites.\u00a0 Since I needed something to blog about, I figure I might as well do this, too. \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n<p>So do authors really need a website?<\/p>\n<p>In my opinion, yes. Here is why: <strong>readers like them.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Readers are always looking for what&#8217;s coming next.\u00a0 We finish a book, we hit the web, try to find a website, because we want to know what&#8217;s coming next.\u00a0 Now if we really liked that book, and we find what&#8217;s coming next, many of us will go ahead and pre-order. Which is good-that&#8217;s a sale for the author.<\/p>\n<p>You don&#8217;t even have to spend a ton of money on a website. You can get them for free, and not those annoying &#8216;pop-up ad&#8217; free, either.\u00a0 My website, <a href=\"http:\/\/shilohwalker.com\">www.shilohwalker.com<\/a>, isn&#8217;t a free site, but this blog is.\u00a0 WordPress blogs are awesome.\u00a0 You can set them up like a website with different pages, and many of them.\u00a0 You can customize some with different background colors, you can even add your own header.\u00a0 See mine up top?<\/p>\n<p>The website doesn&#8217;t have to be fancy.\u00a0 It doesn&#8217;t need flashy graphics, it doesn&#8217;t need music, it doesn&#8217;t need to cost $2000, the Earth and the sun.\u00a0 That&#8217;s not what readers care about.\u00a0 Readers care about readability, they care about being able to find a website, they care about finding the info they need on a site and that&#8217;s about it.<\/p>\n<p>As long as you have the basic information on your website, most readers are gonna be happy.\u00a0 What are the basics?<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>An <strong>updated<\/strong> website<\/li>\n<li>a current list of your books.<\/li>\n<li>what&#8217;s coming\u00a0 soon?<\/li>\n<li>Some excerpts-me personally, if it&#8217;s a new-to-me author, I want an excerpt.<\/li>\n<li>Some sort of contact.\u00a0 I don&#8217;t care if it&#8217;s through a message board, a blog, an e-mail address, etc.\u00a0 I like being able to contact authors, especially if I&#8217;ve enjoyed their books.<\/li>\n<li>If you&#8217;ve got a series, series reading order is nice.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>What <em>don&#8217;t <\/em>you need?<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Music.\u00a0 I&#8217;ll be honest, unless I&#8217;m really really interested, if I hear music on a website, very often I leave it.<\/li>\n<li>Sparkly stuff.\u00a0 Save the sparkly graphics for myspace.\u00a0 They take attention away from the books and books are what you want the readers paying attention to, anyway.<\/li>\n<li>A black background with red or blue font on top of it.\u00a0 This is a recipe for a migraine.<\/li>\n<li>A red or blue background with black font on top of it.\u00a0 See above.<\/li>\n<li>The same goes for teal green\/jade\/magenta, etc. vivid colors on a black website?\u00a0 Not good.\u00a0 Why?\u00a0 See above.<\/li>\n<li>Day-Glo.\u00a0 Any sort of Day-Glo.\u00a0 But pink is the worst.\u00a0 This isn&#8217;t just a recipe for a migraine, it&#8217;s also a recipe for singed retinas. Unless the reader is really really interested, you may have lost them before you even get them.\u00a0 That&#8217;s bad.<\/li>\n<li>Pop-ups.\u00a0 These are annoying, and this is why WordPress blogs would work much better than a lot of the freebie sites.\u00a0 And they are just as easy.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>These, of course, are just my personal pet peeves.\u00a0 But in all seriousness, websites are useful tools for authors.\u00a0 You want a reader to be able to find your books while your name is still fresh in the brain.\u00a0 If they can&#8217;t find info on upcoming books, they may forget about them by the time you do have a new book.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I know this is a topic that&#8217;s been discussed before, by a number of different people. I&#8217;m doing it again, because I was procrastinating and<a href=\"https:\/\/www.shilohwalker.com\/website\/2009\/09\/do-i-really-need-a-website\/\" class=\"more-link\"><span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Do I really need a website?&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_10161045129738658_54762468447":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_bluesky_dont_syndicate":"","_bluesky_syndication_accounts":"","_bluesky_syndication_text":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[57],"tags":[92,572],"class_list":["post-3280","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-websites-promo","tag-author-websites","tag-writing"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Do I really need a website? - Shiloh Walker<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.shilohwalker.com\/website\/2009\/09\/do-i-really-need-a-website\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Do I really need a website? - Shiloh Walker\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I know this is a topic that&#8217;s been discussed before, by a number of different people. 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