Author website design
The one platform you actually own
Retail listings change, social platforms come and go, and algorithms decide who sees you. An author website is the only place online where you set the rules.
Why authors need one
Where people go when they search your name
Someone finishes your book and wants to know what else you have written. A festival organiser is deciding whether to invite you. A journalist needs a biography and a photograph by four o'clock.
All of them will search your name. What they find is either something you control, or a retail listing, a half-abandoned social profile and whatever else happens to rank.
An author website does not need to be elaborate. It needs to load quickly, work on a phone, tell people who you are, show them your books, link to where they can buy them, and give them a way to get in touch or hear about the next one.
What we build
The pages an author site actually needs
Deliberately compact. A site with five good pages beats one with fifteen you never update.
Home
Your latest book, who you are in one line, and a clear route to buy. Most visitors decide here.
Books
Every title with cover, description, format options and retail links. Series grouped in reading order.
About
Your biography at two lengths, a usable photograph, and the background that gives readers a reason to trust you.
Contact
A working form that reaches you, plus separate routes for media and event enquiries if you want them.
Media kit
Downloadable cover images, author photograph, biography and fact sheet, so journalists do not have to ask.
Newsletter signup
Optional, and only wired to a provider you already hold an account with. The one audience nobody can take from you.
Author branding
The site should look like your books
A reader who liked your cover should recognise the same hand on your website. That means carrying the typography, palette and tone across from the book design rather than choosing a template at random.
- Typography and colour drawn from your cover design
- Genre-appropriate tone: a thriller site should not look like a cookbook
- Consistent author photograph and biography across every platform
- Social profile images and banners sized to match
Where we have also designed your cover, this comes almost for free: the visual language already exists.
Built properly
Fast, findable and yours to keep
The technical decisions that determine whether the site is still working for you in three years.
Mobile first
Most readers arrive on a phone. The site is designed for that screen first and expanded upward, not shrunk down as an afterthought.
Fast loading
Compressed images, minimal scripts and no bloated page builders. A slow author site loses visitors before the cover has even rendered.
SEO foundations
Unique page titles and descriptions, sensible heading structure, descriptive image alt text and readable URLs. Nothing exotic, just done correctly.
Accessible
Proper semantic markup, keyboard navigation, sufficient contrast and meaningful alt text, which also happens to be what search engines read.
We do not install analytics, advertising pixels or third-party chat widgets by default. If you want visitor statistics we will discuss a privacy-respecting option and set it up deliberately, but nothing tracking your readers goes on your site without you asking for it.
Ownership
Registered in your name
Your domain, your hosting account, your content. We will set everything up and hand over the credentials, or work inside accounts you already hold.
- Domain registered to you, not to us
- Hosting in your own account
- All source files and images handed over
- No lock-in to a proprietary platform
- Another developer can pick it up at any time
- Optional handover session so you can edit it yourself
Questions
Author website questions, answered
Social accounts are rented, not owned. Reach depends on an algorithm, terms change without notice, and accounts occasionally disappear. A website is the one place where you decide what appears and nobody can switch it off. It is also what media and event organisers look for first.
Yes. We build so that adding a new book or updating your biography is straightforward, and we include a handover session walking you through it. If you would rather not touch it, we can handle updates for you instead.
Both go in your name. We can set them up on your behalf and hand over the credentials, or build into accounts you already control. Either way you are never dependent on us to keep the site online.
Yes, where you already have an account with a mailing provider or want one set up. We wire the signup form to it and make sure the confirmation flow works. We do not resell mailing services or build our own list from your readers.
Direct sales are possible but add real complexity: payments, tax, fulfilment and returns. For most independent authors, linking to retail listings is simpler and converts perfectly well. We will talk through whether direct selling genuinely suits your situation.
Usually three to six weeks from brief to launch, depending on how quickly your content (biography, book descriptions, author photograph) comes together. Content is almost always the thing that sets the timeline.
Yes. Series get their own page with books in reading order, which is what series readers are looking for, and each title keeps its own page for search purposes.
Continue
Services that build an author platform
Most authors combine two or three services. Tell us where your manuscript is and we will recommend only what it needs.
Get started
Tell us about your books and we will plan the site
How many titles you have, whether they form a series, and what you want the site to do. We will come back with a page plan and a quote.
- Page plan agreed before any design work
- Domain and hosting registered in your name
- No tracking scripts unless you request them
- All files handed over on completion
Prefer to talk it through? +61 2 8531 1369 · info@harbourbridgepress.com