This post, from Thad McIllroy, originally appeared on his Future of Publishing blog on 9/19/09, and is reprinted here in its entirety with his permission.
A colleague of mine who is a noted Canadian historian, and a prolific writer, asked today what makes a great web site for an author. So I began an exploration:
Most publisher websites for authors are pathetic, placeholders with short bios and links to books. A case in point is Canada’s “most venerable” old publisher, McClelland & Stewart. I wrote:
M&S is pointless:
http://www.mcclelland.com/author/results.pperl?authorid=31934
With their partners in crime (Random House, Doubleday, etc.) they have created BookLounge.ca, which makes the first mistake of forcing you to register (I never did succeed in completing my registration).
I try without success to find any content from M.G. Vassanji (who was well-featured on M&S). Odd.
So I check out my old friend, Lucinda Vardey, and find that her listing is no better than if it appeared on the M&S site:
http://www.booklounge.ca/author/results.pperl?authorid=31912
Then I turn my search to well-known (i.e. bestselling) historians:
Niall Ferguson has what I would call an “adequate” website.
http://www.niallferguson.com/site/FERG/Templates/Home.aspx?pageid=1
There’s some substance to it, but many flaws. He doesn’t offer a blog per se, but rather a blog-like “thing” labeled “journalism”. The entries are often short and blog-like…it appears they were published elsewhere, but we can’t find out where.
There’s a listing of the two spring courses he taught at Harvard, but no listing of what he’s teaching this fall.
There are three videos offered with no indication of their content or length or why we might want to watch them.
You can sign up for a newsletter, but have no method to view a sample and no idea how frequently it might arrive.
NONE of his publications has a live link (including his books), so you have to expend extra effort to find out more about them.
Well, enough of Prof. Ferguson
* As an aside, I do not like E.L. Doctorow’s site: http://www.eldoctorow.com/ for essentially the same reasons. There’s a professional design and lots of content, but none of it is particularly engaging.
Jared Diamond does not appear to have a website.
Gary Wills does not appear to have an independent website
Bob Woodward has a surprisingly uninteresting website: http://bobwoodward.com/
Thomas L. Friedman, has a pretty good site because it’s packed with relevant, current stuff. There’s no interaction, per se, other than the usual “subscribe to my newsletter”.
But, for example, on the page for his latest book: http://www.thomaslfriedman.com/bookshelf/hot-flat-and-crowded-2
…you can download a sample, hear an audio preview and download a discussion guide. These are useful and show some generosity and thoughtfulness on the part of the author (or his publisher or publicists or whatever). Foolishly he offers no blog nor a way to contact him directly (although if you go to his page on the New York Times you can contact him directly there).
You’ll see he’s now on LinkedIn, which is the best professional social networking site (as vs. the child’s FaceBook). I recommend LinkedIn— basic membership is free. Plaxo is roughly 65% as good as LinkedIn and also free for basic service.
Malcolm Gladwell has a very simple site: http://www.gladwell.com/index.html
There’s always something to be said for simplicity. He also offers a genuine direct way to email him and a COMPLETE and accessible archive of all his great articles from the New Yorker. He’s generous with his excerpts from each book, and has a good Q&A for each. The blog is badly out of date. Not bad overall.
Back to the Yankees:
Doris Kearns Goodwin’s site rates about 5 out of 10. http://www.doriskearnsgoodwin.com/
The good is the personal stuff in the right-hand column on the home page. Also there’s a way to email her directly. The material available on her books is pathetic.
So here’s a Geist author with a beautifully-designed site:
http://www.sheilaheti.net/
Would this be “the right site” for you? Probably not. By the nature of your profession, more formal approaches are called for. But that doesn’t mean your site shouldn’t be fun also.
To me the keys to a great author web site are:
- The short answer is ENGAGEMENT: your site should make the reader feel that they’ve been inited into your living room for a chat.
- The same keys as apply to all great web sites: good design, clear navigation, lack of clutter, etc.
- A distinct personality to the site, which, god-willing, mirrors the personality of the author.
- More good stuff stuffed into the site than a child could pray for on Christmas.
- Backgrounders, audio-podcasts, videos from YouTube, discussion points. etc.
- Your blog should be hosted on you key site: your author site. Comments must be allowed, but moderated. The blog MUST be current.
- Generous links to other material you’ve produced that’s available online.
- Generous (AND APPROPRIATE) links to colleagues and other sites of interest. In return, they should agree to offer a link to your site.
- A direct way to email the author.
- Do not favor a single online bookseller as a source to get obtain books. Let your reader decide.
- Free previews of work-in-progress.
- Friendly personal info on you and your family and friends with lots of cute photos.
[Publetariat Editor’s note: let your comfort level, as well as the comfort levels of your family members and friends, be your guide here, but we do recommend at least including the same quantity and type of personal information one typically sees in the author bios printed on book jackets.]
- A “Resources” section for those who want to explore BEYOND your work.
- You must establish your authority. This can be done in subtle ways (which I think comes naturally to good authors), but also requires a link to “Reviews,” and wherever possible links to live online reviews.
So there it is…one of several viewpoints about the ideal author’s online site. To overlook the effort is to overlook your career.
September 21 update. Forgot ito include:
15. Don’t be shy about using ALL of the social networking tools available to you, at the very least Twitter, FaceBook, MySpace…
Thad McIllroy has authored or edited a dozen books on technology and marketing issues surrounding electronic publishing, color imaging, PDF, workflow, publishing automation, and the Internet. He’s also written some 200 articles and delivered innumerable seminars on a broad range of industry-related topics. He acted as Program Director at Seybold Seminars for five years, and in 1990 co-founded (with Miles Southworth) The Color Resource, a publishing and distribution company devoted to books and training materials on color design, imaging and prepress.
More recently he wrote the Composition, Design, and Graphics chapter (with contributions from Frank Romano) for the Columbia Guide to Digital Publishing (Columbia University Press, January, 2003). He’s a contributing editor to PrintAction magazine, a columnist for XMLPitstop.com, and a member of the Technical Association of the Graphic Arts, the Association for Computing Machinery and the Content Management Professionals. For three consecutive years he was named one of Canada’s 50 most influential people in graphic communications.