Why create a website this early in the game—or at all—you ask?
Your book needs a calling card to announce its existence if you want people to find it. And in this era of increasingly online influence, that calling card is a website.
Branding helps set you apart just as much as your book does.
Your Calling Card
Incubation Press’ packages, like our book covers, have been designed to accommodate a variety of budgets and a variety of needs. After you check them out, keep reading to learn more about what you’ll want to think about when it comes to your author/book website.
As an author you need a website to help market your book. You may also need establish your personal brand. Creating a personal brand, starting with your website, helps readers relate and connect to you, which increases the likelihood that they’ll buy your book.
Website Packages
To make things easier and more budget-friendly, Incubation Press offers packages ranging from a simple landing page to a custom, branded website. Need some advice but don’t want to pull a package? Opt for our design- and editorial-team author consultation ($350/hour).
All packages are payable in advance. Work will be performed in a timely manner and will begin as soon as payment in full—and where appropriate all material from author—has been received. Up to two revisions of creative work are included in pricing. Additional revisions and design changes after the design has been accepted will be charged at $150/hour.
It takes 45 to 60 days to conceive and birth a website, 90 days if we’re also providing custom, brand identity. Once the full fee has been paid, you will receive the proposed website design within two weeks. After the design has been approved, development of the website will take another three to four weeks. Subject to schedules and availability, rush websites that do not include brand identity can be turned around in three weeks assuming we get immediate design approval and/or changes) and will be subject to a 100 percent additional rush charge. Subject, again, to schedules and availability, websites with brand identify needed in six weeks will be subject to a 50 percent additional rush charge.
Ernest Hemingway Plan – direct & unadorned – $700
Landing page house-designed template with colors and fonts based on your book cover
Call to action (buy the book and/or get first chapter free)
Social media icons
Email signup (does not include management – see Promotion)
Purchase button
Author to provide content – Linden is available to help either as a writing coach or copywriter
Author to provide domain name
Author to provide hosting (as an additional service, Incubation Press does provide hosting with ongoing website maintenance, including security patches and updates for $25/month)
John Steinbeck Plan – organic & incisive – $1,950
4- to 7-page author website based on house-designed template with colors and fonts based on your book cover – both the John Steinbeck & Stephen King plans use the templates shown in this package and the next.
Home page and interior page imagery provided by author – image(s) and image specs subject to Incubation Press approval
Call to action (buy the book and/or get first chapter free)
Purchase button
Social media icons
Email signup (does not include management – see Promotion)
Book page with cliffhanger excerpt along with reviews and endorsements if available
Author page [photo and copy provided by author – image(s) and image specs subject to Incubation Press approval]
Blog
Contact
Author to provide content – Linden is available to help either as a writing coach or copywriter
Author to provide domain name
Author to provide hosting (as an additional service, Incubation Press does provide hosting with ongoing website maintenance, including security patches and updates for $25/month)
Your About the Book page can also feature endorsements & reviews.
Stephen King Plan – dynamic & detailed – $2,450
Scrolling author template or 4- to 7-page author website based on house-designed template with colors and fonts based on your book cover – both the John Steinbeck & Stephen King plans use the templates shown in this package and the one above.
Home page and interior page images provided by Incubation Press ($500 allowance included in pricing)
Call to action (buy the book and/or get first chapter free)
Purchase button
Social media icons
Email signup (does not include management – see Promotion)
Book page with cliffhanger excerpt along with reviews and endorsements if available
Author photo provided by author – image(s) and image specs subject to Incubation Press approval
Blog
Contact
Author to provide content – Linden is available to help either as a writing coach or copywriter
Author to provide domain name
Author to provide hosting (as an additional service, Incubation Press does provide hosting with ongoing website maintenance, including security patches and updates for $25/month)
J.K. Rowling Plan – going big, bigger, biggest – $8,450
Brand identity created by designer (if not necessary, deduct $3,000 from price) – includes an author branding questionnaire
Custom scrolling author template or 4- to 7-page author website (based on brand identity if applicable)
Images provided by Incubation Press or by a professional photographer ($1,000 allowance included in pricing)
Call to action (buy the book and/or get first chapter free)
Purchase button
Social media icons
Email signup (does not include management – see Promotion)
Book page with cliffhanger excerpt along with reviews and endorsements if available
Author to provide content – Linden is available to help either as a writing coach or copywriter
Author to provide domain name
Author to provide hosting (as an additional service, Incubation Press does provide hosting with ongoing website maintenance, including security patches and updates for $25/month)
Additional Services:
Web copy and/or sales copy available at $150/hour – project rates are available in most cases
Domain name purchase
Hosting with ongoing website maintenance including security patches and updates
Author/Book Websites 101
A Successful Author and/or Book Website:
Fosters a relationship with the book’s potential audience
Draws in readers with a book excerpt
Encourages visitors to give you their email address (usually in exchange for a freebie—perhaps a whole chapter instead of the short excerpt on your site), so you can sell to them in the future
Technicalities
These days, WordPress (the gold standard when it comes to websites) offers plenty of inexpensive templates that you can use to design your own site. Just remember that you want the website to:
Reflect your personal brand as well as that of your book(s)
Be easy to navigate
Effectively sell you and your book through imagery as well as copy
Direct people to your social media platforms through icons that appear on each page
The navigation we suggest:
Home page – about the book(s) & reviews
About the author page
A page for each book – includes cliffhanger excerpts that leaves readers hanging. To find out how the rest of the chapter turns out, visitors provide their email address so the chapter (and your future marketing emails) can be sent to them.
Blog
Contact
Optional pages include:
Media kit/press page
Testimonials/reviews
The Next Step…
Once you’ve got your website in hand, it’s time to get back to your book. Even if you’ve finished writing, you’re not done. Even the best writers make sure they have their books line edited and copy edited. So your next move:
