In case you missed it, Monday I did a guest post at Romance University about seven things an author’s website must be. I drew three lucky websites from the comments that day and today RU has posted my critiques on their content, navigation, networking, promotion, design, and search engine presence.

There is a lot of information over there, including quick tips on what to put on your site, how to increase our search engine rankings, and how to promote (or prepare to promote) your books on your site. Check it out!

I used to do author website critiques here from time to time, and it’s been almost a year and a half since our last round. And because I seem to need a little extra motivation these days, I’ll do it as a challenge to myself: if I finish my rewrites by May 25, we’ll do a quick series of (aspiring) author website critiques here!

In the meantime, check out my series on aspiring author websites (also available in PDF)!

A little about me
I do actually know what I’m talking about. I worked in Internet marketing for five years, specializing in organic search engine marketing and industry news. Until I left to have baby #3, I was the editor of the prominent Internet marketing news blog Marketing Pilgrim, one of Advertising Age’s Top 10 Internet Marketing Blogs. I’ve spoken at (and otherwise attended) several industry conferences and might even be called an “expert.” But I’m way too modest for that .

What do you think? What kind of feedback would you want on your website?

Okay, so I’m sure I’m probably preaching to the choir here, but hey—it’s Christmas! What better time for preaching and choirs?

Back when I put a blog as the #7 thing an aspiring author’s website should have, several people questioned that in the comments (even though in the article I said there really just needed to be a place for news and updates).

Last week, the Romance Writers of America’s Fantasy, Futuristic and Paranormal chapter took the title question to task with guest blogger Taylor Lindstrom. She acknowledges that blogging can be a major draw on a writers’ creativity and often very limited time—but it can still be beneficial for any fiction writer.

She gives four good reasons that every fiction writer should have a blog.

One of the most important reasons she lists is that it gives you an author platform. Even if you don’t have a website, even if you don’t really know what you’re doing, even if you don’t get the Internet, at least trying shows that you’re willing to get out there and work for your career.

Is that necessary before you get published? Agent Kristen Nelson recently addressed this question on her blog:

an author [being published] today is definitely expected to be internet savvy, have a website, and have a sense of social media outlets and how promo is done electronically.

Naturally, however, you can find at least a few agents who don’t care whether you have a website or might even be turned off. But it seems like more and more agents put this in the plus category (if they’re already liking your query, of course ).

What do you think? Should fiction writers blog? How much should learn about book promotion before you submit or sell (and would you like to learn more )? (But seriously, would you?)

As promised (finally), I thought it’d be nice to see some examples of the good—author websites that work. So I’ll point out a few and why they work for me, and then I’ll turn the time over to you.

Note, too, that I’m not interested in how freaking awesome-bells-and-whistles a website is—I want to look at how well it works at conveying the author, promoting his or her books, and inviting us to read.

Annette Lyon

Okay, yeah, so Annette’s my friend and we have some pretty obscure stuff in common (dads who were missionaries in Finland [and thus even knowing what the Kalevala is], linguistic obsessions, etc.). But even if that weren’t the case, I’d still like her website.

She’s the author of six published books, the four most recent of which are historical romances. I think her site does a good job of portraying literature and historical in its design.

I like that her front page is descriptive enough to let us know who she is and what she writes without being overly wordy or long (what you see above is pretty much everything on the front page). The site navigation is highlighted (and yes, there is some Flash animation on that—a bell/whistle, to be sure, but not one that really changes the way her site works).

That navigation works really well, too—in only six page titles, you know exactly what to expect in each section and where to go if you’re there looking for something specific. (If you’re not looking for anything specific, she encourages you to read an excerpt from her latest novel.)

At her Publications page, she features her most recent book prominently, with links to individual pages for each of her published books—featuring reviews, excerpts, author’s notes and historical notes.

Finally, she has a great blog hosted at http://blog.annettelyon.com (as I always recommend ).

Kiersten White

Sadly, Kiersten and I are not so much friends as I try to convince her we are. However, we are the same age, married men from the same city, have the same number of children and have even worked in the same industries.

Hm. Another person I have a bunch in common with. This may be indicative of a trend.

Uh, anyway, Kiersten’s first book is due out in September. It’s YA paranormal, and I think her site hints at that visually. She also does a great job of conveying her personality and writing style in the text of her site.

As with Annette’s, the navigation is easy to follow: you can easily find what you’re looking for and know what to expect on each page. She has a little teaser preview of her forthcoming novel as well as a section for her frequently asked questions.

Most of all, I really like Kiersten’s site because she did it herself. As she explained in the comments to Seven Things an Aspiring Author Website Must Have,

[My website] is pretty basic, but I did it all myself through Yahoo! web hosting. I’m not at all tech-savvy and had no problem setting it all up and managing it. It’s only like fifteen dollars a year, and I don’t think it looks too bad.

So it’s possible to create a good-looking website that works all by yourself.

Nothing helps you learn more than analyzing a site yourself! Go find your favorite author’s website and see if it works for you—and why or why not. (And of course, share your findings in the comments!)

In yesterday’s website review, Kathleen mentioned how important it is to convey your genre with your website. It can be hard, depending on the genre. Even some published authors’ sites don’t do it well.

Quick: Can you tell me what genre these published authors write in? (I took the name off a couple and removed outright genre identifiers because that would be too easy, and that’s not what this is about—it’s about looking at the graphics on their site to see if they convey their genres. If you’ve read any of them or recognize their sites, try to judge only by what you see here.

Links and answers to be posted in the comments!

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Post your guesses in the comments! The person with the most answers right (without cheating) will win . . . something!