The rules have changed.

It used to be that to break into the publishing business you not only needed talent, but you also had to know the right people, make the right connections, or sometimes, just be in the right place at the right time.

With the advent of blogging and social media, more and more authors are finding their way past the gatekeepers and finding their audiences—with or without publishers. With a bit of web savvy, moxie, and talent, today’s author has more power than ever to get their words into the hands of eager readers.

Yet, too many authors seem to be ignoring this relatively new path to publication.

Or worse, they are scaring away potential readers with awful websites.

You know that saying about not judging a book by its cover? While people may give some leeway to a book with a bad cover, not nearly as many people are as forgiving of a poor website.

Hideous wallpaper backgrounds, clashing colors, and frames with visible borders (ugh!) look about as contemporary as the fade in Kid ‘N Play’s hair styles. Whether the design is gaudy and stuck in the 90’s, its content impossible to navigate, or it is simply a static page (which is nothing but a glorified business card), too many writers are scaring away readers and relegating themselves to relative obscurity in today‘s digital world.

Considering how easy it is these days to publish content to a blog with a clean theme and a simple layout, there is no excuse for a bad website.

The Lessons We Can Learn From Good Author Sites

There are plenty of well-known authors with crisp, clean, and even gorgeous websites. Dennis Lehane and Stephen King both come to mind. However, many of the well known authors have websites designed by the best designers for publishers with deep pockets.

Yet you don’t need a fat advance to have a great website. Here are four examples of authors with sites, all with blogs attached, that are economical, while doing all the things an author’s site’s supposed to.

1. Give Your Readers What They Want

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Seth Harwood was one of the early adopters of the novel in podcast form. Along with fellow author Scott Sigler, Seth found early success through Podiobooks, by dividing his book and delivering it through a series of free podcasts.

This tactic eventually led Seth to a book deal for his crime novel Jack Wakes Up. Seth’s website is a great example of a layout that features everything a reader could want in an easy-to-find format.

Want to learn more about the author? Click.
Want to see details on any of his books? Click.
Want to listen to a choice of free audio downloads from any one of his books? Click and Save.
Want to buy the book in physical form?

Guess what?

Yup, a number of links to help a reader quickly purchase the book.

Something else I like about Seth’s site – he has photographs of his readers on the front page, using a simple widget linking to his Flickr account. Seth understands that being a successful author requires building a robust community. In addition to a clean layout and easily accessible information, Seth has built forums for his community, as well as a space devoted to fan art.

In short, Seth’s website is about as close to perfect in function as I’ve seen.

Follow Seth on Twitter

2. Engage Your Audience

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Scott Sigler IS the modern author. Sigler has helped to reinvigorate, if not reinvent, the world of publishing with the success of his first book, Earthcore, the world’s first podcast only novel. Much like our own Available Darkness, Scott released his book in serialized format, dividing the book into twenty episodes, then releasing it for free on podcast through Podiobooks and iTunes. He also has developed an active community with his forums and interacting with readers via social media.

Many authors have since followed the model, but Sigler’s early pioneering placed him at the vanguard of modern publishing.

His site is intuitive, with all his social media and podcast subscribe buttons located in the top right hand corner. They are neat and easy to read, with the tongue in cheek caption, Subscribe or die!

Like Seth, Scott understands that community is fundamental to an author’s growth and his site reflects that in every way.

Follow Scott on Twitter

3. Know Your Audience

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Artist, cartoonist, and writer Raina Telgemeier knows her audience well.

The artist of The Babysitter’s Club graphic novels has a website which is not only a big bag of eye candy, it succeeds in showcasing her impressive illustration talents, while also appealing directly to her target audience.

Raina regularly showcases her upcoming projects via blog posts. One of those projects is her soon-to-be published book, Smile.

The page devoted to Smile is a study in what makes a perfect landing page for a book. It’s warm and inviting, has published reviews along with all the relevant information, and links to help guide the reader on their way to a purchase. The use of color on this page, along with the beautiful book cover, makes me want to buy about four or five copies before I leave the page.

Raina’s site has style, personality and community with a clean, impressive layout.

Follow Raina on Twitter

4. Give it Away, Give it Away, Give it Away Now

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Three of the four authors we’re posting are notable in that they give their content away.

I’m sensing a theme.

Craphound.com is the home to Sci-fi writer, activist, journalist and blogger and Boing-Boing co-editor Cory Doctorow, who is practically synonymous with the model of giving your product away.

Doctorow believes the constraints of copyright belong firmly fixed in the previous century. And while many in the publishing industry balk at the idea of giving your product away and argue that there is no way to monetize “free,” Doctorow is proving them wrong. Time and time again.

Cory compares modern authors to the forerunners of rock n’ roll, saying that “the Internet makes the cheap, dirty and experimental possible.”

With several titles and legions of fans, Doctorow is the premier example of a modern author making full use of the “freemium” model.

Follow Cory on Twitter

By using WordPress and a premium theme such as Thesis or Frugal, an author can have their own website up and running for less than a hundred dollars. Of course, you could spend a bit more and have a professional layout that appropriately reflects the quality of your writing (hint hint – we do that).

The key to getting read is to build a community around you and your work.

Start a blog, get involved with social media, and get your book (or eBook or audio book) in front of as many eyes (and ears) as possible. Never has the world of publishing been so open to you.

So, what are some of your favorite authors’ websites?

What lessons have you learned from the good ones?

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Writing a book can be rough, seeing that book to print like a barefoot trip to the dentist over broken glass.

We’re in the dilated pupil of a publishing sea change. There are a lot of voices out there, many of them yelling. Knowing who to listen to, deserving not only your brevity of time, but your limited trust, is essential to maintaining your sharp focus and overall sanity.

Dave and I are getting to know more people in the publishing and self-publishing circles. These are some voices we feel are worth listening to.

Joanna Penn is an author, speaker and business consultant based in Australia, though, as she is quick to point out, she is in fact British. Joanna blogs at the Creative Penn with an interesting mix of interviews and posts which cover everything from writing tips to marketing and WordPress to podcasting. Like us, Joanna is intrigued by every step of the publishing process. Follow Joanna on Twitter.

Jonathan Fields is author of the WSJ bestseller, Career Renegade. Jonathan is always thoughtful and intelligent. Cool stuff falls from the dude when he walks. Jonathan recently launched, Tribal Author, a site designed to help modern authors navigate their way through the winding boulevards of a quickly changing landscape. He released the rather remarkable (and free!) guide for new authors called, The Truth About Book Marketing. Follow Jonathan on Twitter.

Booksquare has two taglines, and I can’t decide which I like more. Dissecting the publishing industry with love and skepticism or The whole truth and nothing but the truth, unless making it up is easier or funnier. Both are wonderfully charming and perfectly clear. Booksquare, for the most part, is Kassia Krozser, an opinionated, witty gal who loves to walk all trestles of the publishing industry. Kassia says, “Like a child who needs firm, corrective guidance, publishers and writers need Booksquare.” Follow Kassia on Twitter.

Christina Katz, also known as Writer Mama, helps mom writers get “Known Before the Book Deal” Christina takes her decade of experience writing and teaching, and creates successful strategies to help moms on their road to publication. Follow Christina on Twitter.

Kirk Biglione is the writer at Medialoper. Though Kirk analyzes the media in general, he has a specific focus on the transition from traditional to digital. Most of his content contemplates the impact the Internet on the entertainment industry at large. Follow Kirk on Twitter.

April Hamilton is self-publishing rights activist and founder of Publetariat. She is an author, blogger, and Technorati BlogCritic. She is a leading advocate and speaker for the indie author movement. Publetariat is a hub site, aggregating news and relevant posts from the self-publishing world, along with some original content. Follow April on Twitter.

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There are as many different types of authors as there are people. Every one of us is housing a different brain, each brewing its own particular brand of brilliance.

The type of author you are isn’t about the way you frame your words, or which genre you choose to write in. You might prefer to fill your pages with short sentences, or perhaps long winded poetry. Children’s books, horror novels, self-help or biographies, it doesn’t matter.

Style and genre have nothing to do with what we’re talking about today.

We could split one group of authors into two and then those two groups into four, forever and ever ad infinitum, but for the sake of simplicity, let’s say there are three types of author. We’ll call them the Squirrel, the Horse and the Lion.

Which type of author are you?

The Squirrel?

You want to make it, and someday you just might. You hit your daily word count, at least usually. You enjoy talking to other writers and gathering their feedback, though you are sometimes shy. When you do get feedback, you imagine incorporating it into your revised pages, often setting it aside for the day you’ll return to the story. Maybe you’ve done NanoWriMo once or twice, maybe you’ll do it again. You have one or more unfinished manuscripts in the bottom drawer of your desk, or more likely, on the hard drive of your desktop. You enjoy writing and some days you even love it. You know you are talented and that given time, you could develop your craft enough to maybe even get published. Though you would love to focus on your writing, you understand the many hurdles which prevent authors like you from ever seeing their name in print.

The Horse

You want to make it and believe you have what it takes to make it happen. Your writing is fluid and you hit your word count most days, sometimes with plenty of time or excess pages to spare. You love discussing the craft with other writers and always look forward to feedback. You’ve done NanoWriMo, mostly for the fun of the experience and the community. You’ve knocked out a couple of manuscripts already, but you know this next one will kill it for sure. You plan on querying a few agents as soon as it’s finished. You love writing and would like nothing more than to make a living wrapped in your passion. You realize that there are many roadblocks on the road to being an author, but you are willing to dig deep and do the hard work needed to see your books bound and in the hands of eager readers.

The Lion

You will make it someday and it will be BIG – no two ways about it. You already have everything it takes to make it happen. Writing for you is like breathing; writer’s block little more than an old wive’s tale. The craft is the air you breathe and you eagerly seek anything that promises to make you better. You’ve done NanoWriMo and you’ll do it again. It’s fun and easy. This is your year. You’ve written a few manuscripts, each one pulling your pages tighter, like batting practice before the big game. You are an author in your mind already, the only thing that will stop you from eventually getting to print is the side of the bus, or something else equally unexpected. Maybe you’ll query a few agents or send the pages straight to a publisher, you haven’t quite decided because it doesn’t really matter. You see both the hurdles and the boundaries of the publishing industry, but don’t care. You know that times have changed and there is now another option. You can use the new tools of social media and print on demand to get your work into the hands of your audience even faster, and with more profit for yourself. After all, you’re the one who’s been grooming an audience for the last year of your book’s production.

Things are now different, and by different I mean better. Published authors, for the most part, are published because they would have fallen neatly into the Lion category long before their first royalty check. They didn’t luck into it, they made it happen. Being a Lion used to be hard. It took everything you had and then some, not everyone can make that kind of commitment. Fortunately, someone shook the Etch-a-Sketch and said we could all start over.

It used to be, if you were a Squirrel, you were likely to stay a Squirrel forever. But modern tools mean modern possibilities, and modern possibility allows you to leave being a Squirrel behind like a bad smell. This doesn’t mean that seeing your work in print will be easy, but it does mean that with the right strategy, work ethic and perhaps a little help along the way, the doors are open to everyone.

Writing software makes it simple to maintain steady progress on your daily pages while keeping accurate track of your word counts. Networking with other writers and an emerging audience through Twitter and other forms of social media has never been easier, or more advantageous. Authors can build communities a year before their book comes out, and with the blog to book format, they can publish excerpts as they go along, constantly whetting the appetite of the same audience that will eventually buy the book. Authors can continuously improve the quality of the copy by gauging reader feedback, all while strengthening the author reader bond.

In the last year, David and I have moved from Squirrels to Horses to Lions, without ever looking back. We have several titles on their way to print, while at the same time assisting other authors, taking them to places they never thought they could go.

Being a Lion is easy enough, but you must know that the roar is already inside you.

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It took us a while to get here.

David and I started Collective Inkwell nearly a year ago, though without a clear direction or defined sense of purpose. Like two thrill-seekers without a map, yet thirsty for adventure, we set out with our packs, eager for the open road and curious to see where the new domain would take us.

We wanted to write, that much we knew even without a compass. Did I mention we forgot the compass? Well we did, and we were short on supplies as well. But that didn’t matter. We had dreams.

My favorite feature of the earliest Inkwell, and the only deeply rooted part of our plan, was the serialized story we ran with a fresh installment every Friday. Available Darkness wasn’t just a genre bending thriller which finished off each week with a surprising cliffhanger, it was an opportunity to write fiction with the best creative partner I’ve ever had, while taking a break from the SEO, web copy and general administration which occupied the majority of my hours.

Throughout the Inkwell’s life, Available Darkness has always been the constant.

It was mid-summer when we first realized the fundamental flaw with the Inkwell. What was it that truly made it special? We had Available Darkness, sure, but that story could and would be resting on its own domain. We had our personalities, but our main fan base, some of who had followed us from our primary sites, could get that by following Blogger Dad, Writer Dad or both. We offered writing advice and general thoughts on creativity, but so did a million other sites on the web, and many of them much better than us. I have a tendency to focus on theory or lingering thought, rather than the tangible lists with actionable items most people are looking for. Dave tends to be shy about discussing the many things which make him truly exceptional.

Besides, even at our best, we were discussing writing and creativity without a context. That’s like tossing our coats into the corner of the room, expecting them to hang in mid-air without a hook.

Yet the glue was strong, even when adhering to something uncertain. We continued to pour heart and soul into Available Darkness while allowing the rest of the site to run on auto-pilot while we searched for its true purpose. We continued to write every day, forever engaged in endless discussion, stoking our dreams and abundance of ideas.

Once Ghostwriter Dad started to do well, David and I had the opportunity to start the migration away from web copy and closer to our dreams by helping budding authors fine tune their books before sending them to publishers or off to print. At the same time, I finished off the manuscript for the children’s book I’d been working on, “Penny to a Million”

Dave designed the book cover, of course, along with the interior art. We worked on the page layout together, bought our ISBN numbers and registered the work with the Library of Congress. We then set a release date and sent the file to the printer.

Though this process was no different than what we would do for a client, doing it for ourselves left a 1.21 jiggawatt lightbulb lingering over our heads.

We finally knew what we wanted to do with our online lives and had the perfect direction for our Collective Inkwell. Everything we had shared with one another over the last year could help others. All we had to do was sit down and start to articulate.

Moving a book from the inner corridors of the mind to the rolling paper of a printing press is the most vehement dream of many an author. Yet the process is difficult, peppered with trial and error and an awful lot of loneliness. Had Dave and I not found the perfect silent partner in each other, we would likely still be resting heads on restless pillows, wondering if our dreams were really worth chasing. Instead, we have built a quickly growing independent publishing house together. We have a full roster of titles going to print for 2010, in addition to the many authors whose dreams we are helping to fulfill.

It may have taken the Inkwell a year to find itself, but it was for the best. Had David and I not spent the last year taking the time needed to discover what it means to have a perfect partner, we would not be nearly as equipped to be the silent partners standing quietly behind our clients.

We hope to share all we know with you.

Be your best writer and see your book to print. Subscribe to the Inkwell for free updates by RSS or Email.

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