Contact The Writerly Type Studio

In short: Yes! An author website is your most powerful marketing tool, where you can highlight your books (and the unique writerly magic you bring to the world), grow your audience, and create your author brand.

I love Squarespace for its ease of use, great features, and security. While I’m always happy to help clients continue to update their websites, I also think it’s empowering to be able to make changes when you need them. Squarespace is intuitive enough that even if you don’t feel tech savvy, you can still make changes on your own without getting lost.

On your author website, you want to have a homepage that engages visitors (aka, your readers) with branding that feels like it connects to your story and the stories you tell. You want to showcase your latest book and guide readers to buy it and also find your backlist. Just as important as connecting readers to your books, you also want an About page or section with your bio that connects them to you, and then give them more ways to interact with you, like on social media, substack, a blog, etc. I also highly recommend an author newsletter. Lastly, you want a Contact section so they can get in touch. 

If you decide to work with me, we can have a branding brainstorm session to help refine your vision. And for every website I build, I give my clients a step-by-step workbook to gather all your content for your site. You can book a free consultation with me here.

For personal reasons, I try to keep generative AI use to a minimum in my business.

On the rare occasions that I use generative AI, I do not use it for design. Why let AI do the fun part?? I see it as a brainstorming tool, like for website copy (but in the end, I like to write my own to have it be in my personal voice).

Most online tools use AI to an extent, and Squarespace is no exception. Again, I do not use it for design, but I will utilize tools like autogenerating image descriptions for accessibility purposes, which I then edit for accuracy. If this is something you would prefer to have written 100% by a human, we can discuss that in your consultation with me and accommodate.

I also use Canva, which has AI editing tools, and I do not check stock images to see if they have been AI generated.

If you have questions about my AI use, I’d love to discuss it in your free consultation when we go over your project!

I have some of my favorite website designs highlighted on my portfolio page.

It depends. If you DIY your author website, you can save money but pay the price in time. Even if you use AI tools, there’s still a learning curve if you’re unfamiliar with building websites. However, you would only need to pay for a domain and the yearly subscription for the platform, which can be as little as a couple hundred dollars a year.

I try to offer a variety of levels of cost to accommodate multiple budgets. I give you a real human to work with, who can help support you and give you the time to focus on crafting your next book. Find out more about which design package would be best for you.

Absolutely. I mean, you can do what works for you and your business! And a DIY author website is better than no author website. Some things to consider before deciding if you DIY or hire someone:

1. What’s your budget? Not every author will have the budget to hire someone when they’re starting out. If that’s the case, I suggest taking time to research how to make a great author website, and study some of your favorite author websites.

2. Do you have the time to DIY your site? This is a big one. The ads for website platforms make it seem like with the AI improvements that a good website is five minutes away. That’s not always the case. Building a good website takes time, thought, and research. You’re learning the platform and design principles, writing your own website copy, finding images, etc., all while running your author business. 

3. How comfortable are you with tech? A platform like Squarespace makes it easier to DIY your site, and also there are still things that you’ll need to be savvy about. And again, even if you’re good with tech, you’ll want to take into account the learning curve.

Building your author website yourself is definitely easier than it ever used to be, but you may also decide that your time would be better spent writing and you’d like some help from a website designer like me. My timeline is one to three weeks, focusing on one project at a time, so you’re my sole focus when I’m building your author website. I want your website to do amazing things for you and your books.

Want to chat with me? Schedule a free 30-minute consultation.

Right now, I have three options:

The Debut

This author website design package is great for aspiring authors and published authors with up to three books. Starting from a template that I’ve designed for authors, I create a one-page author website in just one week. Learn more.

The Bestseller

This author website design package is great for authors who want a more robust, bespoke author website with multiple pages or e-commerce. My typical timeline for The Bestseller is three weeks. Learn more.

The Refresh

Already have an author website but it needs some work? Hire me for a day to go through your list of to-dos. 

Get more information about my services.

Take a look at my services page and determine which package you think might work best. Then fill out my contact form and we can have a free 30-minute consultation to determine if we’re a good fit.