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 eed a brand new website, or a redesign of your existing one? xuni.com creates, designs, and maintains author websites for those authors just starting out to those with 20+ books. I specialize in creative, well-organized, uncluttered sites. Want specific information on how the process works? This is where you find out.
I also offer limited online promotion of your books. You may have written a great book and have a beautiful website, but you need to get the word out! Online promotion is all about name exposure—getting your name all over the internet. Read more about this in the section on promotion. Want to find out about costs involved in having a website? How you decide what your website should look like? And another question I hear now and then: why do authors need a website, anyway? This is where you should find all the answers! And if you don't happen to find what you're looking for, feel free to email me. In fact, feel free to email me anyway. I'm happy to give you custom answers to your questions. Please see notes on emailing me at the bottom of this page.  
Just a note before I start... I could write this as a general FAQ for anyone interested in building an author website. But you can find that information in quite a few places around the web. Instead, I've written this from my point of view here at xuni.com. I assume you're interested, since you're here. You have questions? Here are my answers... What costs are involved in having a website? There are four main costs associated with having a website: domain, hosting, site development and maintenance. Domain: This is the "address" or "URL" of your site, such as xuni.com or in the case of many authors, yourname.com. You can buy it from many places around the web, such as godaddy.com or register.com. xuni.com can buy it for you at $10 a year, which is quite low. I suggest that you pay for at least two years, to make sure you don't lose it. This is a fee that must be paid either in advance or year by year. If yourname.com is taken, by the way, I usually suggest yournamebooks.com. And if you're thinking about using me? Please let me buy it for you... it makes the whole process much easier. Hosting: Your website needs to live somewhere, right? Well where you're hosted is where your site lives! You pay a monthly fee for a server to host you. I run my own server, for which I charge $15 a month (very reasonable for a managed server, I promise). Because I've found that I just waste too much time trying to make things work properly on other servers, part of working with me means that you need to be hosted on my server. Site development: You have a domain and you're ready to get started. Getting a website designed and built by me can range from a minimum of $1,800 to a lot higher, depending on the size and complexity of your site. I have done a few very large sites which according to a web development company I asked were worth a minimum of $10,000 to $12,000. I charged about a third of that. There are of course some designers who would have charged even less than that. But there are more important issues than price. Find out more about this below. Maintenance: Your site is complete and online. What further costs should you expect? That depends on whether you prefer a "static" site or one which changes regularly. Some authors have sites which only change when they have a new book out. Others have at least a home page which is updated regularly, which makes people come back to the site regularly to see what's new. Either way is fine—it's up to you. Every website company does it differently, I'm sure, but after I've launched your site, I charge for edits on an hourly basis, in about ten minute increments. I bill quarterly. Since you'll be hosted with me as well, that means that your editing and hosting fees are charged together four times a year. What should you look for in a web designer? To me, the most important issues are: design style, finding someone who shares your vision, and good customer service. Style... I specialize in designing sharp, well-organized, professional sites. If you want something really flashy and high-tech, I wouldn't be the right designer for you, as my style tends towards more straight-forward designs. If you want a quick cookie-cutter site, I wouldn't be the right designer for you, as I like to make the site fit the author. In fact, that's one of the best parts of my job—creating websites which fit the author's style and writing personality. Vision... There are quite a few good design firms out there who could build you a beautiful website. The difference in working with me is personal, one-on-one service. I work with you to create exactly what you want, and if you don't know what you want, I help you figure it out. Pleasing the client is my number one priority. That said, it is a balancing act between incorporating the clients' vision and my creative expertise. In order to do this right, I send out a very specific questionnaire to get the clients' input upfront ... and then I need to be let go to run with it. Customer service... I'm online all the time and am at my computer most of the day and usually well into the night. I respond to email and/or calls within 24 hours, usually within just a few. Need something done in a huge hurry? I can almost always oblige you. What can I say? I love my job. How do you decide what your site should look like? Think about what books you've written and what kind of information you would want to share with people. Check out other author sites for ideas. And then email me! [Please see notes on emailing me at the bottom of this page.] xuni.com has done so many author sites that I'm full of ideas of what kind of information works well and how to organize it all. The most important question to ask yourself is: what kind of image do I want to project? Mysterious? Elegant? Fun? Your website should be a reflection of you and your writing. That's why some of the homemade sites are worse than having none at all—they make the author look like they're not serious about their work. Why do you need a website anyway? So people can find out more about you and your books in the hope that it makes them buy more. It's as simple as that! If you put your URL on your book jacket, some people will undoubtedly look up your site to see what else you've written. Or if people see your book in a bookstore, they may go home and look up your site just to find out about your books first. That's why it's so important to have your URL be your name if possible. These days, a website is like a business card—it's expected, and is often someone's first impression of you. What about online promotion? Besides designing and maintaining author websites, I can also promote you and your book online. The more your name and the title of your books are seen online, the better. I have contacts at most of the mystery and book sites around the web, and can make sure you're listed on their sites, as well as get your book reviewed by many of them. In the reviews section of your site, I post the best line of the review and then have it jump (open on its own page) to the mystery website where the review is located. Reciprocal links help search engines find you, drive business to the many great mystery sites, as well as get your name out around the web. I also post information about you and your books on many of the various mystery newsgroups. Name recognition is what it's all about. What is the process of building a site?
What if you think no one will come to your site? First of all, a lot more people probably want to know about you than you think! If you've written a book and it's sold enough for you to still be a writer, there will definitely be people who want to know more—about when your next book is coming out, what it's about, etc. Once your website is up and running and you've promoted it to a certain extent (through online promotion, your URL on your book jacket, in your signature line of emails, etc.), you'll be amazed at how many visitors you get. Most servers (including mine) have site statistics programs which tell you more than you could ever care to know about how many visitors you get, where on the web they come from, what pages they visit the most, etc. Mailing lists / Newsletters Mailing lists are great ways to keep your readers informed of what's new. I have simple "sign up for the mailing list" forms on almost all my client sites. You collect names and then send out e-newsletters every now and then when something new is happening (a new book, a movie option, an upcoming book tour). It's a great way to stay in touch with your readers and keep them excited about your books. Usually you write it and then I build it to match the design of your site. It's professional, colorful, and never comes across as spam, since people have signed up for it in advance. Contests Contests (monthly or quarterly) are a great way to keep people coming back to your site. Questions can include multiple choice questions about characters/events in your books, fun searches around the internet for information which relates to your subject matter, or just questions with answers which can be found on your own website. Prizes can include autographed books or anything having to do with your books. Discussion Forums I run discussion forums (also called message boards) on some of my author sites. The best thing about them is that they give your readers a chance to interact with you. In fact if the author never comes on, I find that the forums are pretty dead in general. So I don't normally suggest having one unless you plan to be online and responsive semi-regularly. If you do have one, all messages come through the xuni.com email account so I can take care of any spammers (which is rare) or inappropriate talk, etc. Blogs Blogs have become so common that everyone thinks they need one. My opinion? If you have something fresh to say and the time to say it REGULARLY, go for it. If not, don't bother. I'll have more to say on this soon... Anything else you'd like to know? Feel free to email me. Please see notes on emailing me at the bottom of this page.  |
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