As an author and web designer, I often get asked what the most important things to put on an author website are. So, in this post, I’m going to cover the four key things that I believe every good author website needs.

Book Cover Image and Blurb

This first one should go without saying, but if you have an author website, please make sure to include your book cover and a short blurb. These should ideally go on the homepage right at the top (or at least near the top). I’d also recommend putting a ‘Buy Now’ link next to, or under the cover image.

If you’re wondering where to get cover images, you should be able to get these from your publisher (if you are a self-published author, ask your designer to send you any images they’ve created.)

You can use either a JPEG or a PNG file. I recommend asking for a PNG file and then duplicating it and resizing it to be under 1 MB. Between 600-800 KB is a good size to aim for. The reason I recommend PNG files is because they don’t have backgrounds. So, if you’ve got a website background that doesn’t match the one of the cover, it may look a bit funny if you use a JPEG.

It’s important to name your cover image correctly for SEO indexing and accessibility purposes. I usually use something like: cover-book-title.png. If you’ve got two or more images for the same book (different countries often release different covers), you can name them according to territory (cover-book-title-us, cover-book-title-uk etc.)

As far as book blurbs go, you can easily use the one from your back cover, or some of the copy used to describe your book on retail and bookshop sites.

Media Kit

The next thing every author website needs is a media kit. Media kits are important because it’s a place where reviewers, publicists, hosts - anyone really - can get your author photos and bio.

Although the term ‘media kit’ can sound a bit intimidating, it doesn’t have to be fancy! My media kit is simply a page on my Squarespace site, with a selection of photos and a short and long bio. If you can, I’d advise you to have a PNG file of your photo available because then it’s easy to remove backgrounds (something a lot of social media managers and publicists have to do when they’re creating graphics for events!)

If you don’t want to build a dedicated media kit page, you can link to a folder on Google Drive where people can download your photo and bio. You’ll just have to make sure the right permissions are enabled for sharing.

You could also build out a more robust media kit page, but most authors I know don’t have time to do this. So, an author photo and bio is fine.

Once you have your media kit, remember to share it with your publicists.

‘Buy Now’ or ‘Pre-order’ Links Page

The third thing that I think every author website needs is a page with links to pre-order or purchase your book. The reason I like having this on a dedicated page is because it’s easy to send one link to someone who asks where they can buy your book and then let them choose the retailer that’s convenient for them. You may also have people from different countries asking you for links to buy your book. If you organize your page so that it has different sections for different countries, that can potentially lead to more sales.

When we’re buying things - especially online - we like to take the path of least resistance. If someone has to wait to hear back about where to buy something, there’s a risk they won’t purchase in the end. And while I don’t like to think of the books we spend months (years, even!) writing as products for sale, at the end of the day, they are, and readers are our customers.

I put all my ‘buy now’ links on the page about my novel. You’ll see here that I have the image at the top with a blurb next to it. Below that I’ve listed a bunch of different countries and created buttons with links to popular retailers for each.

If you don’t want to use buttons, you don’t need to. A text list of shops with hyperlinks is fine. The point is, you’re trying to reduce the friction when it comes to finding and purchasing your book.

Contact Page

Last on my list of must haves for an author website is a contact page. This page should ideally list:

• Your agent’s contact info (name and email is fine)

• Your publicist’s contact info (as above, name and email is fine)

I don’t think you need to include contact information for yourself but I do recommend it. It’s not just to hear from readers, it’s also so that potential interviewers and collaborators can get in touch with you. I’ve been invited to speak on podcasts and pretty much everyone reached out to me via my contact form on my website. I think social media is a bit hit and miss with this stuff because not everyone has Instagram or TikTok.

In terms of what to use, you could list your email address or create a form. I use a form for privacy reasons and they’re really simple to just drop in and customize.

You may also want to include social media accounts on your Contact Page and call out the ones that you’re regularly active on.

Bonus: Author Newsletter Sign-up Form

As a bonus, if you can manage it, having a form where visitors can sign up for your author newsletter is a great idea. Look, I am the number 1 culprit for not having used my email list yet, but having spent ten years in marketing, I can tell you without a doubt that the highest converting channel is email. Time and time again, it boasts the highest ROI.

While I do recommend using a service like ConvertKit or beehiiv for your newsletter, those require some investment from a learning and money POV. If you don’t want to do that, you can use the built-in options that a lot of website builders come with (Squarespace does have email functionality and I’m sure Wix and Wordpress also have options). I’ll go into more detail about email in the future, but for now I simply wanted to list it as a nice to have.

To sum up, it’s easy to get overwhelmed when considering all the bells and whistles you could add to your website. By focusing on the essentials (book image and blurb, media kit, ‘Buy Now’ links page, and a contact page), you’ll be positioning yourself for increased chances at building community and translating that into sales and success.

Liked this? You may also find these posts helpful:

• Do you really need an author website?

• How I got my literary agent