Plenty of writers sell books without owning a website. They also spend a lot of time pointing readers towards social profiles that decide, week by week, how many of those readers get to see anything at all. Your site is the one part of your platform you actually control. It does not need to be clever or expensive. It needs to load quickly, say clearly what you write, and make buying a book take two clicks. Here is how to build one from scratch, in the order you will actually need to do it.
Say your name out loud as though you were being introduced on a podcast. If it is hard to spell after hearing it once, your domain will be hard to find. Writers working under their own name should use it; writers using a pen name should buy the pen name instead, and keep the two worlds separate.
For a UK readership, a .co.uk address signals that you are local, and it is usually the cheaper option. If you have international ambitions, buy the .com too and point one at the other. Avoid hyphens, numbers and cute spellings. If your name is common, add a word: janebloggsauthor.co.uk is far better than a clever variant that nobody will guess. Register for several years, switch on auto-renew, and put the renewal date in your calendar. Then make sure your social handles match the domain as closely as you can.
There are two sensible routes. All-in-one platforms such as Squarespace or Wix cost a monthly fee and handle the technical side for you. Self-hosted WordPress gives you more control and more moving parts, including updates and backups. Choose according to whether you enjoy fiddling, not according to what a blog post told you was "professional".
Whichever you pick, check a few things before you pay:
If you plan to sell signed copies or ebooks directly, check that the platform handles digital downloads, and speak to an accountant about VAT and record-keeping before you take your first payment.
You do not need twenty pages. You need these six, done properly. A home page with one sentence about what you write, a picture of your latest cover and an email signup. A books page that gives each title its own section: cover, blurb, format, publication date, buying links and a sample chapter if you have one. An about page with a decent photograph and a short biography, written in whatever voice feels natural. A news or blog page, even if you only post twice a year. A contact page with a working email address or a form. And a media page with your bio at three different lengths, a high-resolution author photo and cover images that journalists and festival organisers can download without asking.
Write the book pages first. They are the ones that earn their keep.
Buying links belong high on the page, not buried under three paragraphs of praise. Offer more than one retailer, because UK readers are not loyal to a single shop. Waterstones, Amazon, Bookshop.org and Hive all reach different people, and your local independent bookshop may stock you if you ask.
Label buttons with the shop name rather than a vague "buy here". A smart link service can send readers to the retailer that suits their country, which matters if you sell to the US as well. Keep every link in one document so that when a shop changes its address, you can update it in minutes. Test them on a phone, on the day you announce a book, not the night before. A dead link during a launch week is expensive in a way that is difficult to measure.
Start collecting email addresses from the day the site goes live. Your list is the only audience nobody can take away from you. It also comes with rules.
The cleanest basis for sending marketing email under UK GDPR is consent. In practice that means an explicit opt-in, no pre-ticked boxes, a form that tells people what they will receive and roughly how often, a link to your privacy policy, and an easy unsubscribe in every message. A double opt-in, where readers confirm by clicking a link in a welcome email, gives you a clear record of when and how each person agreed. Keep those records: most email providers store them for you, but it is worth knowing where they live.
Two things to avoid. Do not add everyone who has ever bought a book to your marketing list, because a purchase is not consent, and do not buy or rent lists. Collecting a first name and an email address is enough; every extra field lowers the number of people who finish the form.
This is general guidance rather than legal advice. If you are handling a large list, transferring data outside the UK, or unsure about anything, check the Information Commissioner's Office guidance or ask a solicitor.
Roughly one in five visitors will benefit from a site that is easy to read and easy to operate. The fixes are unglamorous and quick. Use a body text size of at least 16 pixels with strong contrast against the background. Add alternative text to every cover image, describing the book rather than repeating the title. Keep headings in order, and never put important text inside an image, because screen readers cannot see it. Make sure links and buttons can be reached with the keyboard alone. Caption any video, and do not autoplay sound.
Speed matters just as much. Compress your images, resist installing every plugin that looks useful, and check how the site behaves on a phone before you check it on a laptop. If a page takes more than a few seconds to appear, readers leave.
A website is not a launch, it is a shopfront. Set aside half an hour a month to check the links, update the news page and look at what visitors are reading. Add a new book page each time you publish, and tidy the old ones as editions change. Do that, and the site quietly does its job while you get on with the writing.
Photo: Sora Shimazaki / Pexels
