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Author Website Inspiration - Who Has the Best/Prettiest/Coolest Site for You?

7K views 73 replies 22 participants last post by  RBC 
#1 ·
Howdy!

Doing research about author websites and looking for some inspiration and examples of well-executed ones. What author sites have you seen that look great? Or are very interesting? Etc?

Share cool ones, but let's not share our own.

RBC
 
#3 ·
I like Mark Coopers:

http://www.impulsebooks.co.uk/

Good color theme that's easy on the eyes, clear navigation, and it loads fast. When I redo mine, I'll tweak my existing design to flow a bit better similar to that.
 
#6 ·
Kathy Dee said:
^ A very cool site. Perhaps, if he sees this thread, Mark could tell us how he built it.
I like Mark's site too! It's built with Divi, a very cool WordPress theme. Easy as chips to knock a site together. For sign-ups, he's used a button that clicks through to a landing page that clicks through to a signup form. Mark, if you read this, I'd suggest embedding the form right from the get-go, fewer clicks for a visitor to go through. Nice flow and graphics!
 
#7 ·
Adair Hart said:
I like Mark Coopers:

http://www.impulsebooks.co.uk/

Good color theme that's easy on the eyes, clear navigation, and it loads fast. When I redo mine, I'll tweak my existing design to flow a bit better similar to that.
Yup! That's well done.

Always a fan of a nice big visual header to liven up the site and even better when it's promoting Reader Magnet. Smart.

Divi theme is pretty easy to use and very has lots of options.
 
#12 ·
antcurious said:
I like Mark's site too! It's built with Divi, a very cool WordPress theme. Easy as chips to knock a site together. For sign-ups, he's used a button that clicks through to a landing page that clicks through to a signup form. Mark, if you read this, I'd suggest embedding the form right from the get-go, fewer clicks for a visitor to go through. Nice flow and graphics!
I really like Mark's website.
My website is built with a basic WordPress theme.
How easy/difficult is Divi to work with? Scale of 1 to 10, with WordPress being about a 3? :D
Thanks.
 
#14 ·
Steve Margolis said:
I really like Mark's website.
My website is built with a basic WordPress theme.
How easy/difficult is Divi to work with? Scale of 1 to 10, with WordPress being about a 3? :D
Thanks.
Steve, if you're somewhat familiar with Wordpress, Divi itself is even easier. It is course a WP theme itself, just a page builder one. I create sites as part of my day job, and I can knock decent sites together in a few hours. In my opinion, it's the design/graphics and overall branding that sets them apart.
 
#16 ·
Steve Margolis said:
I really like Mark's website.
My website is built with a basic WordPress theme.
How easy/difficult is Divi to work with? Scale of 1 to 10, with WordPress being about a 3? :D
Thanks.
7-8 at least :)

It allows visual editing too so you can create that way too. It's updated very often. Huge huge community around it (plenty of FB groups for Divi users). Lots of tutorials and resources too.

There is a reason over 400 000 people use it(and in the price the plugins are included too which are usefull).
 
#17 ·
#18 ·
RRodriguez said:
I absolutely love Cassandra Clare's website: http://cassandraclare.com/

I admit, it was a pretty big inspiration when it came to designing my own. The artwork on the front page is a huge draw for me. I've yet to read any of her books, but I love visiting her website and it's definitely made me intrigued to pick up one of her novels.
It's quite slow to load but yeah, those are cool visuals! She's got great covers too!
 
#21 ·
I like that most of the sites work without having to make an exception for them on NoScript. (Elle Wright's fonts are all comic sans without making an exception. A bit of that on Tarryn Fisher's site, too.) This is pretty important for me. It's probably silly, but if I go to a website and it's just a blank page, especially if it isn't for someone I know, I just close the tab. I don't really want to go through the hoops to enable "Wix" or "parastorage" or something strange just to view the site. And if I do really, really want to see that site and I enable authorname.com and it then brings up a list of a dozen other scripts I'd have to enable to make it work, I'm out again. I don't expect every site to work perfectly without their scripts, but if it doesn't work at all, no way. All of these sites displayed just fine. That makes me happy.

Is Divi a free or paid theme?
 
#24 ·
mcahogarth said:
I wonder if some of these are using the WP "bookshelf" plugins? The ones that build book pages? Anyone have a favorite of those?

*scrounges up list*

Like these: https://the-digital-reader.com/2017/10/25/review-roundup-seven-wordpress-plugins-author-bookshelves/
I don't see too much need for those these days. It was great some time ago, when it was harder to customise Wordpress themes (less visual editing). This kind of plugin may have saved some time then for sure... but these days it's easy to use WP themes. Thus no need to shell out for a separate plugin.

The plugins don't create something super special or different looking (altho Novelist looks like a nice plugin and has some cool add-ons like integrating GoodReads stuff). It's not a necessary expense.
 
#25 ·
Hestia said:
I like Emily Winfield Martin's site. She is an artist and children's book author. Her blog is so whimsical and inspirational too, it makes me want to be as creative as she is!

http://www.emilywinfieldmartin.com
Way to minimalistic for me but works great with her style. Very well done online presence (with Etsy shop too). She must be crushing it!
 
#26 ·
ImaWriter said:
Interesting that most of the best ones listed here are either on Divi or the Genesis Framework. Something to think about!
Divi has good price, loads of features and huge community so it's just getting more popular. It fits lots of DIYers wants to easily work on design and updating site. That's one reason why designers often choose this theme - it is important to give your clients site that is not hard to update and which theme will not go obsolete.
 
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