The Author Online: A Short Guide to Building Your Website, Whether You Do it Yourself (and you can!) or You Work With Pros - Paperback

by Annik LaFarge (Author)

You've written your book. Now create your website. This brief manual, written by a longtime publishing veteran who now builds websites for authors, is designed to help you conceive, plan, and create your own unique presence online. It's not a technical book but instead focuses on the large questions that all writers must wrestle with as they plan their website: Who do you want to be online? What do you want to do there? And where do you start? A central premise of The Author Online is that anyone who can write a book is capable of building his own website. New technology and open source innovations make it easy, affordable, and even fun - a creative act unto itself. But like writing a book, it requires thoughtful and careful planning. The Author Online is filled with ideas, advice, and real-world examples. It also includes results from the first and only comprehensive survey of author websites and invaluable insights into: * the features readers look for on their favorite author websites * whether or not to blog or Twitter, and how to approach both in an authentic, effective way * when and how to work with designers and/or programmers * how to create a content plan for your site * how to use analytic data as an editorial tool Visit the companion website, TheAuthorOnline.com, for more information including a constantly updated and detailed list of online resources and tools plus dozens of sample author websites.

Author Biography

Annik LaFarge spent twenty-five years as an executive in the book publishing business, working at Random House, Simon & Schuster, and Bloomsbury USA. She began her career as a publicist, and went on to become an associate publisher, senior editor, and publishing director. She was the founder and publisher of Random House Large Print, the first industry initiative to publish simultaneous large print editions of major releases, and was involved in the early efforts to create e-books and develop strategies for digital publishing. In the late 1990s, at the height of the dot com boom, she took a year away from publishing to join entrepreneur and journalist Steven Brill in the development and launch of Contentville.com, where she published an original series of e-books and oversaw the website's bookstore. In 2008 Annik left publishing to start her own company, Title TK Projects, which specializes in website project management, editorial work, and consulting on digital strategy. Recent author websites she has project-managed include MitchAlbom.com, FrenchWomenDontGetFat.com, MireilleGuiliano.com and TaraParkerPope.com. She also helped create the book section at wowOwow.com, oversaw the launch of the investment blog JubakPicks.com (a 2009 winner of the SABEW "Best in Business Award"), and the e-commerce site JustTheRightBook.com. A lifelong New Yorker, Annik lives just above the High Line in Chelsea, and is also author of the blog Livin' The Highline.