I decided this week it was high time I look at the possibility of having a professional design my author page. I know just enough CSS and HTML to be dangerous. I know, cliche. But it’s true. I have always managed my own online presence. This “management” usually consists of finding a pre-built template I like, purchasing it for $40-80, and then tweaking it to my own needs. So far this has worked swimmingly. But as I mentioned, recently I thought I would stick my big toe in the (chilly, as it turns out) waters of the design professionals.
Now, mind you, I did not run out and try to hire the team that built Oprah’s website. Or HBO’s. In fact, I found a business that specializes in “author websites”. I looked at their product. Nice pages. What really sold me was one of their slogans. They claim to be in touch with the author’s limited budget. I took that to mean they would not be gouging me with their quote. What they obviously meant is that their “touch” refers to reaching into my pockets, groping me along the way, and not even offering to buy me dinner.
Look, I am all about people making a living. But two thousands dollars to put together a website? And I hesitate to call it a “site”. Amazon is a “site”. Mine would involve no e-commerce, no complex certificate management, no back-end databases.
Two thousand dollars?
And before you start commenting on what a deal that is, I think you should program your own website. I don’t need that much help. My site is okay. I mean, it’s functional. It has the information and links on it that I need. Even this blog–it’s a WordPress theme that cost in the neighborhood of $75. I realize it’s simple, direct, and doesn’t exactly give your eyes a quality massage with a happy ending. But it serves a utilitarian purpose, as does my author site.
Would I like it to be better? Yes. I would love to have someone assist me in working the color coordination to match that of my forthcoming book (a scheme I really dig). I would love a little more modularity. Some nice tabs, with attractive pages.
That’s all I asked for. What I got back is a quote that represents a 500-book print run. Oh, and this included no hosting services. $160 per month for that. Fortunately I don’t need that. I have my own host site (which I LOVE)—I can host a near indefinite number of domains there, with multiple gigabytes of traffic and storage, and it costs me less than half the aforementioned quote.
Which brings me to one of my biggest questions: aren’t we still in a recession? Are authors other than Michael Connelly, Dennis Lehane and the like actually paying thousands of dollars for a developer to build them an attractive website with basic (and I mean BASIC) functionality??
So speak up, authors. I would love to hear your experiences, costs, recommendations, horror stories, etc. about building your presence on the web (or, rather, having it built for you). Maybe I am off-base. Maybe two thousand dollars for a basic site is acceptable. Not for me. Unless that site also contains a magical neuro-algorithm to flash subliminal messages that cause visitors to buy my books, I think I will stick to the $75 basic site that serves the purpose of staging my bio, my books, and my links and go from there.
But as I said, I’d love to hear what you think. Obviously we have to spend money to make money. I get that. And no one appreciates a nice website more than me. It’s why I went looking in the first place.
(You probably noticed I didn’t mention the web development company’s name. This isn’t for legal reasons—well, maybe it is, in part—but I honestly have no desire to call them out individually. They seem like a reputable company, and I will refrain from casting reasonable doubt on their prices—high as they seem. I am simply shocked by the overall number, particularly if it represents an economic market price.)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The blank page is dead…long live the blank page.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Author known to use spontaneous satire, sarcasm, and unannounced injections of pith or witticisms which may not be suitable for humorless or otherwise jest-challenged individuals. (Witticisms not guaranteed to be witty, funny, comical, hilarious, clever, scintillating, whimsical, wise, endearing, keen, savvy, sagacious, penetrating, fanciful, or otherwise enjoyable. The Surgeon General has determined through laboratory testing that sarcasm can be dangerous, even in small amounts, and should not be ingested by those who are serious, somber, pensive, weighty, funereal, unsmiling, poker-faced, sober, or pregnant.)
I got very lucky with my site. A friend of mine builds sites for a living and knocked me up a design to give me an idea of what I wanted. I loved it and asked how much, and was very happy to pay him a large bottle of wiskey for making my site. He even showed me how to do the various bits I needed to keep it up to date and add new pages to it.
I think he charges as standard about £70-£100 per page (which compared to your quote it not a lot at all). I think if you shop around you can certainly get a much more affordable price. And it might be worth shouting out on twitter to see if there are any design student (or even if there is anyone you know personally who wants to get into website building), to see if they are willing to make you a site to give themselves practice and something to add to their reptoir.
Chelle
Thanks so much for the input, Chelle! Just what I was hoping to hear. Yes, it makes sense. I actually have worked with a lot of web developers in the “day job”…so the “bottle of whiskey” approach has its merits! I, too, can handle the bits (for the most part)…like you, I just need that professional edge in the design phase. I will most definitely keep looking. Great idea with hitting up the Twitterverse. I very likely shall. Again, your comment is MOST appreciated. Take care! ツ
My middle name is functionality so perhaps I have a tad of a bias, but in the final analysis, I am a writer. I love beauty and artistic expression, but where I go on a website is to the words. So screw the tinsel and the glitz and put your money toward a fine editor, a proofreader better than I had, and appropriate advertising. When the final bell clangs, it will be your book they remember.
Hi, Christina! One member of my favorite pair of authors! I agree. I had hoped (and will keep hoping) that there is a reasonable solution looming out there. But in the end, YES, the product (book) is what counts. Hope this finds you and that wonderful writer husband of yours doing well. CHEERS! ツ
Well, perhaps I’m a hopeless Neanderthal, but my “website” is just a WordPress.org blog with a standard template. No, it doesn’t knock your socks off, but I’ve seen a lot tackier; it has all the functionality I need or want, I can manage it myself, and it’s highly affordable.
As Christina so wisely suggested, we’re trying to sell books, not websites. (Unless, of course, our book is about web design.) Yes, it’s essential to have an online presence, but the point is to get the word out, not to wow people with the fancy vehicle with which we deliver it. For my money (and I am, admittedly, notoriously cheap), life and writing are difficult enough without stressing needlessly over our websites.
Feel free to disagree. I’ve been known to be wrong before. In fact, I may decide next week to redesign my blog and/or get a website. But for the moment, the foregoing expresses my firm opinion.
I designed my own website but, not knowing any HTML, I gave it to my Dad, who also didn’t know any HTML but is a telecommunications engineer and proceeded to teach himself enough HTML (with the help of the all-knowing Barry with whom he works) to build what I had designed. It cost me nothing but it DID take about 6 months to get up and running. That was probably a fair trade. I can manage small updates but I have to get Dad-as-webmaster to make more significant changes.
Simplicity in all things.
Rob, your site and blog look fine. They are clean and functional, and that is attractive in itself.
My blog is a free Blogger site with free gadgets and tools. My site is based on a template that came with the website design software I use.
Hosting costs me $136 or so a year. My domain is another $20 a year.
I agree that you’re much furhter ahead by using simple, effective design and services you can do yourself, and concentrating on writing.
The only Web service I could consider paying for is adding a direct selling system to my site, and from what I understand, you can get pretty cheap or free templates for that, as well.
Keep on writing!
We’re authors! Most of us don’t make any money. What’s wrong with these web folks?
Truthfully, you want to get your message out and have some Internet presence. It’s a necessity. But you don’t need all the bells and whistles. You should be able to get something functional for a quarter of that cost with a yearly hosting fee less than what the monthly quote is.
Keep asking questions and shopping. Get referrals. Perhaps check with a graphic artist.You’ll find someone that can build it for you.
I actually found a web designer on Twitter (I’ll send you a mention), that’s reasonable and does quite a few Author websites. Still, before I contacted her I decided to give it a try myself and after three days of horror and a ton of Youtube tutorials, I managed to do it myself. It’s stressful and frustrating, but ultimately I’m glad that I learned to do it myself. I’m happy with my end result, I’m sure you would be too.
That much and no ecommerce? eek. Does seem a lot. I simply wouldn’t pay that much for something that wasn’t really good and had e-commerce capability.
I’ve been noticing, authors are the new cash cow of the net. So many desperate writers – and though we’re poor, we can often scrape our life savings into little piles for people to take away from us. Even publishers and bookshops are starting their own vanity presses to get their cut of authors’ dollars – and they all offer websites at higher prices that you’d pay on the open net.
Author beware 🙂
I used WordPress and my son’s tech skills. I need to spend my time writing, not learning every media. I agree – we write to share our thoughts and sell our books. I am a beginning author, so I see no need to spend $ on a fancy website, just a functional one. Maybe when I have become more established I will upgrade, but for now it works. I am concentrating on my writing.
Our website is through Intuit…it’s a template but I did our color scheme to match our patriotic theme. We’ve gotten a few comments on it. It is basic and gets the job done. I wish it had the subliminal message thing to have people subconsciously wish to buy our books.
Then again, that would cost money that we don’t have.
If you haven’t visited, our website is: http://www.callsignwreckingcrew.com