WOTW at Work: Writers
Cookbooks, novels, news articles, YA fiction, and all the genres in between — WOTW creates well-edited Squarespace sites to help promote, sell and share your brilliantly written words.
Back in the day, being a writer was simple. All you needed was a pen, a typewriter, and an editor who believed in you and put your work out there. But today, being a writer is much more involved. You need a personal brand, social media accounts, a promotional strategy, and most importantly, a stellar website. Because a writer can pen the most beautiful prose, the most informative piece, the most incredible recipe ever created. But if you don’t put it your work or your name out there, how can anyone read it and subsequently recognize your brilliance?
Here are a few ways a WOTW site can help writers with their careers.
Sales.
Let’s get down to brass tacks: You want to sell books. We can quickly and expediently direct visitors to your preferred sales outlet, so they can purchase your book in just a click or two. That’s not just when the book is out, either. We can amp up the excitement by making pre-orders easy and exciting.
Check out chef Rick Martinez’s site, which includes a button to purchase his cookbook, which stays in the navigation bar at the top of the page when you scroll down and around the page. Plus, his purchase page is lively and engaging AND takes you to purchase his book at Bookshop.org, which supports local bookstores. Chef Chris Cosentino’s site has an online store, where you can purchase his cookbooks all in one place.
Audience.
Having a place for readers to connect with your work helps build a solid audience — all of whom will be clamoring for your next book. With Squarespace, you can collect emails and build a mailing list, then share excerpts and content with your fans to help build excitement and stay connected. And, with well-placed social media buttons, you can also convert readers into followers, too. On the website of Jessica Knoll — an author, producer and screenwriter — her Instagram and Tik Tok icons are prominently located at the top left, making it almost impossible to not give her a follow.
Strategy.
A WOTW Squarespace site can be used to get your next project secured. Using private pages, you can pitch via your site to publishers, managers and other outlets in a seamless, professional way. With a Squarespace site, you can also dig into your analytics, seeing what blog posts readers liked the most, or what generated the most hits for you. Using that intel, you can have a keen eye into what your readers might be most interested in for your next project.
Brand.
Having a website helps create a visual brand, instantly communicating to both people who know you and don’t know you exactly who you are and what you write. Jenny Han’s site uses playful colors, fun fonts and a personality-filled photo to instantly convey her status as a best-selling YA author. Logan Ury, a behavioral scientist turned dating coach, uses embedded quizzes to showcase her approach to dating and romantic connections. Rick Martinez’s bright colors, styled font and gorgeous video and photography translate his cookbook to a computer or phone screen.
Work Hub.
From short stories to articles to podcast or TV appearances, writers have clips. A Squarespace site can serve as a hub for your collection of work. On the audience side, visitors can search via universal filters to find exactly what they want to read or hear. On the writer site, a clip page helps you stay organized and keeps all of your work in one easily accessible place. Logan Ury showcases the notable outlets where she’s been featured in a bold, unmissable banner right below the home page photo.
WOTW loves to work with writers to create the site that most accurately represents their work and personalities, bringing words to a larger audience and most importantly, helping to sell books!
