Book marketing

The one place nobody can take.

A retailer can delist you. A platform can close your account. Your own site is the piece of the author platform that is yours, and it is where everything else should point.

Live sites

Live sites,
running right now.

Not screenshots. The real sites, live in this page — click one and scroll it. Every domain is registered in the author's own name, and every mailing list sits in their account rather than ours.

The Rooted Soul
The Rooted SoulAlan McDonaldVisit ↗
In My Happy Place
In My Happy PlaceVernon SmithVisit ↗
Little Hedgehog and the Moon
Little Hedgehog and the MoonCatherine RushtonVisit ↗
Helen for English
Helen for EnglishHelen MichaelVisit ↗
James O'DonnellOpens in a new tab
James O'DonnellAuthor siteVisit ↗
Paul Okonweze
Paul OkonwezeAuthor siteVisit ↗
Geoffrey Spinks
Geoffrey SpinksAuthor siteVisit ↗
Louise Wynne Jones
Louise Wynne JonesAuthor siteVisit ↗
Mark Short
Mark ShortChildren's fantasyVisit ↗
Bloodplay
BloodplayEra K NestaVisit ↗
Bert the Worm's Garden
Bert the Worm's GardenA playable garden board, built into the book's own siteVisit ↗
World Wheel
World WheelVijali Hamilton — scroll the map to travel the workVisit ↗
Melissa Boyer
Melissa BoyerScroll below to explore the pondVisit ↗
What is on it

Five things
an author site needs.

Most author websites fail by being a brochure. These are the parts that actually do work.

  • The book, obviously

    Cover, description, a sample, and every place it can be bought. One page per title, so each has its own address to send people to.

  • A mailing list that is connected

    Not a form that goes nowhere. A list you own, that you can write to on the day the next book lands. This is the highest-value thing on the site and the one most often skipped.

  • A press page

    Your biography, a high-resolution photograph, your cover files, and how to reach you. A journalist on a deadline will not email to ask for these.

  • Something to come back for

    A blog, a newsletter archive, a reading list. A site with nothing new on it is visited once.

  • Findable by your own name

    Structured properly, so that when somebody searches you after a podcast or a review, your site is what they land on rather than a retailer's page.

How it goes

From nothing
to live.

  1. 01

    We look at the book

    The design follows the cover. A site that looks like a different book than the one you wrote confuses the one person it was built to convince.

  2. 02

    You see it before it exists

    A design, agreed, before anybody writes code. Changes are cheap at that stage and expensive later.

  3. 03

    It gets built and connected

    Domain, hosting, mailing list, retailer links, analytics. Connected properly, not left as a to-do list for you.

  4. 04

    It is handed over

    The domain in your name, the logins yours, and a walkthrough of how to change anything you will want to change.

Why the domain
goes in your name.

This is worth being blunt about, because it is where authors get caught. A great many services will build you a website and register the domain to themselves. It looks like a detail on the invoice. It is not: it means the address people find you at belongs to somebody else, and if you ever leave, it leaves with them.

We register it to you. If you decide in two years that you would rather somebody else looked after the site, you take the domain, the content and the mailing list and go. That should be the standard everywhere and it is not.

What that means for your list

The mailing list is the same argument. A list held inside somebody else's account is not yours in any way that matters. Yours sits in an account in your name, exportable at any moment, so the people who liked your first book can be told about your second regardless of who you are working with by then.

And the honest limit

A website does not sell books on its own. It converts attention you already have — from a review, a podcast, a release, a search for your name — into a reader and an email address. That is a real job and it is worth doing well. It is not a substitute for anybody knowing the book exists.

An old notebook lying open on stone, both pages covered in close handwriting.

What our authors say

On platforms we do not own and cannot edit. Several of them are the people whose sites are running above.

See all our reviews on Trustpilot

Website
questions.

Yes. Domain in your name, logins yours, content yours. If you want to move it elsewhere later, nothing stops you.

Where do people find you now?

If the honest answer is a retailer page, that is the gap. Tell us about the book and we will show you what the site would do.

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