Creating an Author Website

I have always envied the websites of other writers, but I was too busy and not tech-savvy enough to create one on my own. Along came the pandemic and a media-savvy designer, and we began the journey of creating my author website together.

First, Ariel, my designer, researched to find an appropriate platform for my needs. She chose Wix.com for its ease of use, low cost, and the wide variety of customization options. Wix allowed us to customize everything from visual design elements to user interface additions.

Once we picked the basic layout, I had to rummage through lots of disorganized files to find photos, publications, bios, blurbs from my books, and other material I thought I might want to include on the site. Ariel was very patient with the onslaught of materials. She made decisions about which highlights to feature on the homepage versus what content to include on the other, more detailed pages.

After a quick scroll-through its contents, the homepage is meant to yield a brief yet informative overview of my writing career thus far. Each section of the homepage then leads to a more comprehensive summary of my experiences in that area, be it the journals I’ve been published in or the panels I’ve moderated. Ariel said she chose my particular layout to ensure that any visitor to the website leaves with a well-rounded view of who I am, regardless of whether they have five minutes or thirty minutes to explore it.

Throughout the process, Ariel would show me each part she had created, and I would say “great” or “tweak it” or I’d decline it altogether. She made decisions about how to represent different aspects of my career, and we ended up with several main categories: my writing, writing-related events, press, my academic career, and my personal life. Each of those categories features one or more pages of information, links to works of mine that can be accessed online, quotes from blurbs, and, in some cases, photos.
And for a fun personal touch, we worked together to create a page dedicated to a photo collage of my family. She also decided to insert a video of one of my readings which can be seen below.

It was altogether a rewarding process.

If you are inclined to go on the website creation journey yourself, you can contact Ariel at arielleahdesign@gmail.com. And if you’d like to see my finished product yourself, click here.

Do you have any experience creating an Author Website? Share them below!

More articles by Harriet Shenkman can be found here.

A Professor Emerita at City University of New York, Harriet Shenkman has won the Women’s National Book Association 2013 Writing Contest in Poetry and the Women Who Write 2013 International Poetry and Short Prose Contest. Her poetry has appeared in Jewish Currents Anthology, Evening Street Review, Third Wednesday, Jewish Magazine, Jewish Quarterly, VerseWrights, When Women Awaken, Oyez Review, Westchester Review, Calliope Anthology, BoomerCafe.com, The Transition Network, and The Pink Panther Magazine. Her two poetry chapbooks Teetering and The Present Abandoned were published by Finishing Line Press. She has studied with Laura Kasischke, David Rigsbee and Jennifer Franklin. She was born in Brooklyn and lives in New York City.