So, you’re an author who wants to set up a website so that you can communicate with your legions of adoring fans, schill for your product, and all that other good stuff. You are, however, not simply a commercial animal, so you want to reflect that you are fully in touch with your art. A website is the go, but you don’t want it to be just any old website, it has to be special, the Heironymous Bosch of websites.

Well, a respectful suggestion. Get over yourself just a little. A website is a communications tool. Use it. Be clear, be concise and be obvious. Make sure your site has obvious sections, set out clearly. Again, for what it’s worth, I think you could probably have the following sections on your site:

1. News
2. Biography
3. Bibliography
4. Appearances
5. Contact information

A couple other things. The news section should be the most prominent section on the site. Not necessarily on the home page, or the home page itself, but the first link in your navigation. The other stuff is less important. I’d also add a 300dpi photo of yourself to the biography section that can be downloaded for press and other purposes. Consider doing it for at least your most recent book too. This means people don’t have to contact you to ask, and you don’t have to spend time mailing them out. Be optimistic. Someone might actually want to write about you, and this would help. Have some contact information. It could be your publisher, your agent, or even you direct, if that’s what you want. But, the point here is to be somewhat accessible. If you don’t want that, then don’t have a website. I’d also see if you can run your news page as an .rss feed. Someone might want it, and it’s all good, honest PR.

There are probably other things I could add. You know, make sure that every page you have links back to your home page, don’t have a journal that doesn’t link to your main site and so on and so forth, but that’s enough for now. End of rant… Oh, and don’t get me started about publisher’s sites.