Best Website Builder for Authors you should consider in 2021

• Mary Cuver

• 20 Aug 2021

These five FREE website builders make it surprisingly easy to create your own author’s website Click here to find the right website buider for you

Creating an author’s website helps in making new fans and sell more books. It makes an impression of a Professional author, and people admire your authority in your niche.

But what if your website is poorly designed or not up to the standard of a professional-looking author’s website?

People won’t accept the excuse that you aren’t aware of coding.

Luckily, there are plenty of website builder platforms that can let you create a professional-looking, fully functional website within a few hours without using any coding skills.

Let’s explore which website builders are best for authors and why should you choose one of them?

What are the must-have features in the Best Website builder for authors?

 

We have narrowed down a few of the top-class website builders for authors based on these must-have features.

Professionally designed templates for authors:

The site will represent you as a professional author. Therefore, your website should resemble the websites of a successful author, so go for a website builder that offers the most attractive designs and ready to use templates for authors.

Allow easy Customization options

Author website design templates should be easily customizable, so you could create your brand’s voice without taking any professional help. Most website builders offer drag and drop frontend editing options.

Integrate well with popular online Payment platforms

If you offer any membership plans to your subscribers or sell books, your website should be fully compatible with all of the online payment platforms like PayPal, Strip, or any other payment platform.

Expandable features for authors

The website builders for authors should come with expandable features so you could enhance your website with a blog section, readers reviews, Videos or an online shop for selling your books, ebooks, courses or membership subscriptions.

 

 

WordPress

WordPress is on top of the list when creating a website for authors because of its easily scalable options. WordPress allows you to create any author’s website and add custom made pages, sidebar, galleries. Creating pages and posts is like a breeze. Also, you can manage posts, comments and reviews. You can choose responsive themes from hundreds of options. There are tons of WordPress themes with author website design templates. Check here some of the best themes for authors.

Some of my favourite themes are Hallie, Crator, Typology, Narratium. You can have an idea of your website’s layout from here. Also, you can easily install these authors website templates with a single click. And then customize these layouts using different page builders like Elementor, Brizy or Beaver builder.

You’ll get two options with WordPress to setup your website.

• Use WordPress.com to set up a free website. But this is not the most recommended one because you can’t change the domain name. Also, you don’t have full control over customization.
• The next one is choosing a third-party hosting platform like Bluehost, Siteground or HostGator to host your WordPress site. This is the best option to set up your website and then customize it as per your needs.

Furthermore, if you like to collect the email addresses of your subscribers or readers for lead generation, then installing an Email Marketing plugin like MailChimp or AWeber can help you best.

Squarespace

 

Squarespace is another superior platform for authors packed with more than 26 professionally designed, well-organized templates. Each template is fully responsive and easily customizable to disseminate your unique identity. You can reorder the sections, add your portfolio, latest blog post sections, work history, and accomplishments to give your strong online presence.

The best thing is you can modify the homepage with images of your choice and fonts that reflect your brand’s identity. Other than the aesthetics of your homepage, some of the templates like Mercer allow you to feature your books or series of books and display a synopsis of each of your books. Also, you can display your book’s cover page linked to the book.

Luckily, you need not worry about acquiring web hosting services and all of the Squarespace plans come with fully managed cloud hosting services. So, you need not be tech-savvy to know all of the hosting features to integrate them fully. Also, Squarespace comes with self-integrated email marketing services like Mailchimp. Unfortunately, there’s no free version of Squarespace, and however, you can take a free trial of two weeks to check how it works.

Here is the pricing structure of Squarespace plans

Wix

Wix offers more author website design templates as compared to Squarespace. You can choose from an inclusive assortment of more than 500 authors’ website templates, whereas with Squarespace, you’ll have only 26 template options. Also, Wix comes with some free plans, while for Squarespace plans, you have to pay. The paid plans with Wix will give you ads-free service; also, you can hone your website in your desired way.

You’ll get one free domain name for your website for the first year, and it also offers free hosting. Although, you can upgrade your plan to pay one to get ads-free service. Also, you can select any of the author’s website templates from the Wix platform, but once you have selected your template, you cannot change it later on, or you’ll have to start from scratch to change your design. Another drawback of using Wix is that you can’t access the HTML or CSS of your site, which means you have limited control over your site’s customization.

Even though you have some limitations while using Wix, you’ll have plenty of options to select your author’s website design from more than 500 free templates, in which 16 templates are specifically designed for literary arts. Wix templates come with pre-built sections for the author’s bio, books reviews, press reviews, and upcoming event alerts that you can easily customize according to your preferences.

Here is the pricing plan of Wix, while the free Wix plan comes with 500MB storage and bandwidth. Also, if you want to sell printed books or digital books online, you’ll need to run your website on a paid plan.

Weebly

Weebly comes with more flexible options, and there are some very standout features. You can sell your books online at the cheapest rate as compared to any other website builder. Although Weebly offers fewer author website design templates, the selection is awesome with easy customization options. Unlike Wix, you can edit your templates anytime, with much flexibility. You’ll get 25+ elements to customize your site and drag and drop your elements on your desired location.

Some awesome features worth mentioning are;

• Weebly allows downloadable documents using scribed
• Publish your work on your blog
• Use contact forms to connect with your readers
• Allows you to do custom surveys to collect your viewer’s opinions

Tumbler

Tumbler is very famous among authors for its social networking capabilities. Tumbler used Tumbler to read other authors blogs and reblog their tumbler posts or get more readers from other tumbler author’s fan pages.

Tumbler is rather cheap than other website building platforms, and it’ll cost you anywhere between $20 to $60. Tumbler gives you free domain name and hosting services, so the only cost you’ll have will be for the theme you’ll be using on your website.

The only drawback of using Tumbler is that it’s not easily customizable, and if you like to collect email addresses, you can’t do it without using coding. Even though it allows using coding to customize its coding tools, yet are extremely buggy and not easy to operate.

 

Wrapping up

Still wondering what solution is best for you? Here are a few short suggestions: Wix is by far the finest option if you want the biggest number of author-specific templates. You can also use its excellent free apps, which include an Amazon integration. If you want to sell your books at the lowest possible cost, Weebly is the way to go. You can sell as many ebooks as you want.

With many website builders, the extra cost of upgrading will be justified. With your domain name, you’ll be considered more professionally as an author, and you’ll often have greater customization choices or add-on features. All of these site builders have reasonable starting pricing and at least a 14-day money-back guarantee, allowing you to explore a premium p