Website

“Do I really need a website?”

Yes. It’s 2025.

Introduction

But you might be thinking ‘website’ means a blog, a store, a calendar of all the events you’re attending… It can be all of those things, and more - but it absolutely does not have to be.

If you’re just starting out, it’s a billboard. A place to say ‘Here I am, and here’s what I do’.

Yes, you can do all of that with a Linktree page, or a Twitter/X profile, or Facebook… But a website is yours. Whatever your views on social media (or the people who own the platforms), there will come a day when you’re no longer using one or more of them any more. Remember all those bands saying ‘check out our MySpace page’? No? Then you’re probably a lot younger than me.

But imagine this - your books come out with links in the back to follow you on some wonderful new social media platform… which dies within the year. Now you’ve got people either looking for you on a dead site or unable to find you at all. Or you point people to Amazon to buy the next book in the series, but eventually prefer people to buy the books elsewhere.

Your website is yours. That address (assuming you keep renewing it) will always work, always be up to date, and can send people off to whatever other platform you frequent.

But we need to start small. Stake that claim, reserve your little corner, and make it start working for you.

What goes there?

What’s going to go on it?

Whatever you want. If you have a dozen books out already, you might want a page for each one, or a section for the series. Perhaps a store would make sense, since you’re clearly in this pretty deep already. If you’ve not written anything yet, maybe just a bit of a biography about you, or a tease of the book you’re working on. A cover reveal, a countdown, a story about how you became a writer. Literally anything you like. Or just a link to all your social media. Want more TikTok fans? Link them over there.

I’m going to assume you’re new to all this, and have nothing in particular in mind. Here’s what I think a brand new author needs:

A memorable (or at least easy to spell) domain name. Maybe your magnum opus is the ‘Glarxenwyrd Trilogy’, but consider how someone you meet is ever going to find that.
A professional looking layout that works on all devices (desktop, phone, tablet).
Something to catch the eye.
A mailing list signup.
Links to find you wherever you are.

I’ve got a separate section on why you need a mailing list, but the short version is very similar to why you need a website. Social media wants you to pay to advertise to your fans. Facebook will show your latest post to maybe 4% of the people who clicked to follow, and then nag you to cough up if you want to reach the rest. They’re your fans, and someone’s holding them hostage. Start a newsletter.

If you’re an established author, the list is basically the same - except I’d add one item:

Links to buy your books

That can be just a simple Amazon link, a list of links to every store, or (I’d recommend) a universal link that lets readers pick and choose where they go.

Some assumptions

In this guide I’m assuming you don’t already have a website set up. If you do, well done! You can skip this one.

I also assume you don’t have a domain name yet. That’s what we commonly call a ‘URL’ or ‘Website Address’. I’ve got markhoodauthor.com; you’re going to want to pick one of your own.

And all the good ones are taken.

My final assumption is that you want to do this cheap (or rather, as cheaply as possible while still looking professional).

Terminology

There’s a lot of technical terms that get bandied around, and they can be confusing for a new author. I’ll try and break them down here, but you’ll understand better as we go through the process.

Domain name: Your URL, web address or site name. Usually ends in ‘.com’, it’s what you’ll tell people to visit.

Top Level Domain: the last part of your domain name. Usually .com, it can be a country-coded one like .co.uk, or a ‘novelty’ one like .ninja.

Registrar: The company that, well, registers that name for you. You buy it from them, and they point it at your website. (In reality it’s a bit more complex, with resellers, country code administrators and a whole stack of turtles all the way down, but for our purposes you pay a registrar, and they give you the name).

Hosting: Looking after the files that make up your website. This is the job of a ‘hosting company’. Depending on who you pick, they might simply give you some buttons to press to set everything up, or provide a basic computer in ‘the cloud’ which you set up yourself. (I’m going to recommend the easy options).

SSL or Certificate: What gives you the little padlock in the browser. All browsers now are moving towards warning visitors when a site isn’t secure, rather than notifying them that it is. You don’t want them implying you’re not trustworthy, so you need one of these. You shouldn’t be paying extra for it, it really ought to be included in your package.

Why not just WordPress?

You’ll see a lot of authors using WordPress, and might think that’s the easiest, or best, or recommended way to set up a site.

It’s pretty good. You can buy a domain from them, let them host it and manage the upgrades for you, and it’s so widely used that it’s estimated 25% of all websites run on it. Not just blogs, all websites.

But it’s as complex as it is powerful. You can customise it in a million different ways, install a thousand themes and almost as many plugins, all of which can make it a nightmare to manage. The more you add to it, the slower it runs, and people don’t like slow websites.

Our goal today is to set you up something simple, zero maintenance, and fast.

Hosting

This is where we’ll talk about hosting services.

TL;DR - Use Carrd.

There will be written instructions here shortly, but for now you can watch a video walking you through the process.