Do I Need An Author Website
Or is Substack enough…?
So, I’ve had my own domain name and website for aeons. Literally. Well, 20 years anyway. It seems like forever. I was an earlier adopter as my husband was, at the time, a web developer. It’s been revamped a few times over the years and I’ve written plenty on it. I showcase a few pieces of early writing and have the obligatory bio. The funny thing is, despite having several publications to my name and my name in several publications, I’ve never got around to updating it with that information, which for an author website, is an epic fail.
It’s not monetised in any way and I have to pay a monthly fee as well as an annual domain renewal, which would be fine if it got a lot of traffic, I guess. The sad fact is it sits neglected, unloved and, for the most part unvisited. That’s mostly my fault and partly some technical issues with a previous Wordpress site.
The question I’m posing here, looking for some dialogue on, is whether I should keep this running or not. Could I simply switch to using substack. Do I need a separate blog? Should I have an author website? Do publishers expect that? Will it hamper my chances of exposure without one?
I’m mulling it over. I have until February to decide, so anyone who has experience of using Substack who doesn’t also have a website, please chip in. Throwing it out into the Substack ether.
Any and all opinions are welcome.
I have a website and a Substack--but I use them differently. Substack is my blog, and my website is more of a static, professional presence. http://www.allysonshaw.com is hosted on Wordpress, which used to be terrific and is now a bloated monster to use. Substack is much easier to update. My website is search engine optimised and I can showcase information about my books and any press as well as housing a press kit, etc. I have started to mirror that on Substack. If Substack becomes more search engine optimised I might spend more time doing that but I won't give up my website, though if I win the lottery I might pay someone to redesign it and get off Wordpress! I know you asked if anyone only uses Substack but I've been thinking a lot about the different jobs my online presences do, and where I spend my time and thought I would chime in!