Promote Your Books and Blog: A Look at Author Websites

The comments poured in on our last two posts highlighting new books by WordPress.com authors. We’re happy to host such a prolific literary bunch! For those of you interested in using a website to promote your books, take a look at three authors on WordPress.com who do this well — each with very different designs and approaches:

H. G. Robert

We found H. G. Robert’s website from a comment he’d left on a previous post. I clicked on his link and was delighted to find a simple, clean, and effective homepage for his self-help book:

The black-and-white design is crisp and stylish, and with just a few elements to focus on, you can’t miss anything. A highlighted “Read more” button takes you to another clean, concise page with a book synopsis, excerpt, and reviews.

His menu at the top right includes just two links, to his bio and blog.

H. G. Robert uses the premium Portfolio theme, which offers a number of features; it’s interesting to see how users interpret themes to fit their needs, including stripping them down.

Stewart O’Nan

Award-winning author Stewart O’Nan, based in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, includes links to his writing and important information in his header:

Using the free Typo theme, Stewart includes a virtual shelf of his books right up top — it’s the primary element you see when you first visit his site.

He also has a custom menu for various modes of writing — from fiction and nonfiction to essays and book reviews — as well as audio and interviews. In this space, Stewart offers navigation to everything you need to know. While he uses a traditional blog format — with his recent posts listed first — his menu displays the right details to follow all of his work.

Pandaemonium

The website of author, lecturer, and BBC Radio broadcaster Kenan Malik is visual and dynamic. Pandaemonium, which uses the image-oriented Gridspace theme, is a great example of a non-photography-focused site on a photography theme.

Reminiscent of book covers, the front-page thumbnails draw you in — the grid layout is professional, allowing Kenan to showcase images that complement his work. (On Gridspace, you can also toggle between a grid and list view — look for the icons near the top right of the homepage.) He also has a custom menu to his About and Events pages, as well as a Books section that echoes the layout of his front page:

Here, the strong imagery and unified design create a cohesive website.

You can promote your books and writing in many ways. We hope these examples offer some inspiration to build your own website — or expand on your existing one.