Do Authors/Writers Really Need a Website?

Discover early to make a wise decision.

If you would ask anyone how you can look professional online, one (or both) of these two answers are very likely:

1. Be present on LinkedIn.
2. Have a website.

Indeed they are.

So why looking professional matter in the first place?

Let me be straight on point. There are many advantages of being professional online. First, if anyone wants to do business — that can range from freelancing to publishing, and everything in between—with you, they will definitely not be considering those memes you post on Twitter or selfies on Instagram. They are more likely to trust someone who looks more professional to them. Secondly, you can leverage your website for getting a job or an internship.

As we have already seen that LinkedIn profile and having a website are two most important tools that we can use to look professional. Let’s procrastinate discussing LinkedIn for now. It’s for another day.

Before I tell you all the rosy things about website and how you can use it to your advantage, let’s don’t miss its drawbacks.

Drawbacks of having a website:

• If you don’t know how to code—and because you’re a writer, I suppose you don’t know—you’ll have to pay a monthly sum that can range anywhere between $5 and $25 per month or more.
• Apart from being expensive you’ve to manage it like you do your other social media hadles. And if you’re not enjoying it, it’ll be pretty daunting.
• There are lot of technicalities. You have to purchase your own domain name (yourname in www.yourname.com), buy a hosting plan, pay for an SSL certificate and a lot more. If you aren’t familiar with these, it can be tough to get through.
• There’s no guarantee that you’ll ever be able to make any sale through your website let alone earning a sustainable income from it.

Advantages of having a website

• It gives you perfect place to groom your professional identity online which you can’t on most other places.
• You can do a lot with your website only if you’ve got some time to invest.
• We all know that algorithms of social media channels like Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter changes regularly. Because of this you’re always vulnerable to lose your engagements and/or not able to grow as par your potential. Having a website solves this problem.
• It opens some cool passive income sources: you can start your email newsletter, run ads on your website, write sponsored articles, etc.
• It can give you edge when you apply for your internships or job as your employer can verify all of your credentials at one place without any hassle.

So what should you do?

I think it’s a very good option for authors, especially indie-authors, to consider. But I think making it worthwhile takes time and patience. So if you’re focusing on playing long-term game you should definitely go and have a website. But if you feel like having a website would not make any difference in the domain you’re in, for whatever reasons, you should experiment with some other options and analyse their results in depth.

So let’s conclude.

You should be having a website:

• If you want to look professional.
• If you want to try your hands on writing blog posts and newsletters — which you have the option to monetize later—to build a passive income stream.
• If you can invest your time and have patience until you start getting results.

You probably shouldn’t be having a website:

• If you don’t have time to manage one more thing. You can focus on growing whatever platform you’re already on and if in future you feel like having a website, you can leverage your already built community.
• If you don’t think having a website can increase your book sales.
• If you don’t want to invest some money initially in a field you’re not sure would be worth it.

The pace at which people are flocking to the internet is truly phenomenal. Millions of new people enter this virtual world every year and this rate is not going to drop anytime soon. Anyone who can lead this crowd will definitely have a pot of gold waiting for them. You can take example of Elon Musk whose tweets affects entire crypto market. So you can build a loyal community anywhere and use it to your advantage. Building a website isn’t a necessity.