Do Indie Authors Need a Website?

Yes, eventually — but far less of one than most advice implies. A single page with your books, buy links, a short bio and a newsletter signup does almost everything a ten-page site does. What you actually need is an address you own, on a domain you control, that does not disappear when a social platform changes its rules or an account is suspended.

The longer version

The case for a website is not traffic. Very few author sites rank for anything meaningful, and readers rarely search for an author they have never heard of.

The case is ownership and permanence:

It is the one link that always works. Retailer pages change, social accounts get locked, platforms decline. Your domain does not
It is where the newsletter signup lives. The email list is the only audience you own, and it needs a home that is not rented
It is the address you give to other people. Podcasts, interviewers, journalists, bookstores, festival programmes and reviewers all ask for a link, and a personal domain reads differently from a retailer page
It is the canonical record. Your bio, headshot, book list, and press material — in one place, current, and yours to correct

What a minimum viable author site is

One page. Genuinely.

Your name, and what you write, in one line
Your books, with covers and buy links to every retailer you sell on
A newsletter signup, high on the page
A short bio and a usable photo
A contact method
A link to your press kit, if you have one

That is a working author site and it can be built in an afternoon. Hosting is free on a static host; a domain is about $12 a year.

What most authors build instead

Multi-page sites with a blog they abandon after four posts, a events page listing nothing since 2023, and a "coming soon" section for a book that came out last year.

A stale site is worse than a small one. Every page you add is a page that has to stay true. Add pages when you have something that genuinely needs one.

When you can defer it

Before your first book is finished, a website does nothing. If you are choosing between a website and a cover, buy the cover. If you are choosing between a website and starting the newsletter, start the newsletter — a signup form on any host will do until the site exists.

Do register the domain early, though. Domains for your name or pen name get taken, and they cost almost nothing to hold.

Common exceptions

Firewalled pen names need separate sites or clearly separated sections, with private domain registration so the WHOIS record does not link them.
Non-fiction authors selling services, speaking or consulting need considerably more — the site is a business asset, not a card.
Direct sales change the picture entirely and bring tax and consumer-law obligations.
A linktree-style page is not a substitute. It is another rented platform, which is the problem the website solves.

Sources

General practice; no platform requirement obliges authors to maintain a website.

Verified 9 August 2026.