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Hayley @ ProWritingAid: Hello, everybody! Welcome to our final session of Thursday evening. It is so good to see all of you here again today. Thank you to those of you who are joining us from previous sessions earlier as well. Just to make sure that everything is working. If you can see and hear me. Can you drop your name into the chat as well as what you are having for dinner tonight? If you've already had it, I'm in the Uk, so I have already

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Hayley @ ProWritingAid: had it. But if you have not, what are you thinking about for dinner, or what have you had for dinner?

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Hayley @ ProWritingAid: Salad with salmon from Cornwall.

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Hayley @ ProWritingAid: Sausage. Buddy. Good

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Hayley @ ProWritingAid: semich! Nice Alexis!

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Hayley @ ProWritingAid: Oh, going out for a partner's birthday dinner, going to have wings! I had a curry which was delightful. It was really good, and my dog is out there still, begging for more curry, so maybe he'll come in once he's finished begging. Sherry had pizza. Oh, it's breakfast in New Zealand. So you're you've time travelled ahead of us, Aaron, hopefully. Tomorrow is a good day for for all of us.

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Hayley @ ProWritingAid: Sonia is having chicken and rice eggs in Belgium

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Hayley @ ProWritingAid: oven baked burgers. Amazing! Well, welcome, everybody! It's so good to see all of you, and so good to see so many familiar faces from my session earlier as well as from throughout the week. I will introduce our speaker in just a second. But just in case. This is your 1st session. Today I'm going to run through our housekeeping. So all of the replays from the sessions this week will be accessed available on the

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Hayley @ ProWritingAid: Sci-fi writers. Week hub. Those will be there until the 20, th and then they will live in the community. So you're welcome to check out this session or any of the others after that point

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Hayley @ ProWritingAid: today is our last day of free sessions for everybody. Tomorrow's sessions are limited to premium and premium plus users only. So if you have any paid pro writing aid plan, and you can upgrade by tomorrow morning in order to receive access. If you have not received your session or your access for tomorrow's sessions by about midday Uk. Time feel free to send us an email at hello@prowritingaid.com, and we'll make sure to sort that for you.

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Hayley @ ProWritingAid: and if you have not upgraded, we are offering 15% off, providing aid premium yearly or premium pro yearly. You can use the code, Sfww. 2,024 to access that discount.

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Hayley @ ProWritingAid: If you'd like to keep the conversation going about sci-fi, please feel free to join our community. There are more conversations happening during this week and then ongoing after this event. It also will just help you stay up to date with when we host our next event, as we've mentioned throughout the week, our horror fest is happening in October, so you'll be the 1st to know if you join the community.

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Hayley @ ProWritingAid: Now a couple of reminders for this session. If you have questions for Stuart, please use the Q&A box. It's in the middle of your kind of control screen, putting your Q. And as in there will help us make sure that we don't miss any when it comes time to Q, and as towards the other session, and then you can feel free to use the chat to discuss things with other viewers. But questions please try to leave those in the Q. And a button.

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Hayley @ ProWritingAid: Okay, with all of that being said, I think we're just about ready to begin. So I am thrilled to welcome Stuart Grant, who is the highest rated author web designer on Readzy, a High End marketplace for authors. Stuart also runs a very successful web design agency, digital authors, toolkit specifically for authors, and with over 10 years of experience in the publishing industry. He knows what makes a successful author website. He designs studying world

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Hayley @ ProWritingAid: websites that help to sell books and grow mailing lists. Stuart is based in Norfolk and his dad to a very sassy 6 year old, a crazy dog and an even crazier wife. I'm going to put a couple of Stuart's links into the chat both now and then throughout the session. If you would like to keep up with Stuart. But, Stuart, welcome! We are so happy to have you.

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Stuart Grant: Thanks! That was a lovely introduction. And yeah, really great to be here, too. I'm in the Uk. As well at the moment.

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Stuart Grant: and I had sausage and mash for tea, which I made and typically made it for my daughter. She said it was her favourite dinner, and then she pushed it away and wouldn't eat any of it. Any of you with kids will know that feeling. But anyway, yes, here I am. I met Hayley at Sps live in London, and she did a fantastic session actually on pro writing aid. So if you want some tips definitely worth checking that one out but yeah, here I am.

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Stuart Grant: Been working with

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Stuart Grant: James Blatch, the Self Publishing Show. Various other people and and companies for the last 10 years. But yes, absolutely. Laser focused on helping authors with their content. Online.

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Hayley @ ProWritingAid: Alright. Well, I will turn it over to you.

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Stuart Grant: Ok, great. Well, let's hope the technology works we've got.

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Hayley @ ProWritingAid: Yes.

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Stuart Grant: It worked in our team.

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Hayley @ ProWritingAid: So we'll see. See how it goes in real life.

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Stuart Grant: Hoping that everything goes to plan. There's a bit of video. So hopefully, you can see my screen and everything should be good to go I'm just gonna into.

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Stuart Grant: I'll just get rid of that one

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Stuart Grant: as gorgeous as I am. I don't want to sit and look at myself right? So

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Stuart Grant: so thank you 1st of all as well, obviously to pro writing age for inviting me to do this session. Really exciting. I've been a pro writing aid user for many years and love what they're doing and all the stuff that's going on. So it was a real honor to be asked. So thank you. And we're going to be talking today about taking your author website from okay to wow, most of you probably got a website. If you haven't, we'll be talking about why you should, or what you could do with one if you want to start one.

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Stuart Grant: So who am I? Just? I've already kind of talked about this, but I've worked with authors for over a decade. We've made over 300 author websites, so there's pretty much nothing we haven't seen or worked with. I run a digital agency focused on helping authors on. As as Haley kindly said, I'm very proud of this. The highest rated web designer on. Read C. I'm a huge sci-fi fan. Don't tell everyone else, because I always tell them that they're my favorite. But really you are.

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Stuart Grant: So I'm really looking forward to talking about Science fiction in the context of what I do. So 2 things I love. I love party rings, which are a small iced biscuit. If you can't get those in your country or locale, and I have lots of hats. So this one's looking a bit worse for wear. I don't know if you can still see me or not. But

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Stuart Grant: yes, I probably need a new one anyway. Also look in the in the slides for the odd Science Fiction quote. I've dropped a couple in there, so there is no try. I think we all know who that one is but

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Stuart Grant: I'll let you pick them out as we go through.

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Stuart Grant: So what do you need a site for? I suppose that's the fundamental question you're all here to find out what you do with it. But why do you need one in the 1st place? Well, the the kind of basics are that you want it to collect emails. That's the kind of gold standard for for having a website. You also want to collect those emails that you can announce when you released other books, or whatever you're doing, keep that audience warm, keep them entertained and engaged.

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Stuart Grant: You need a portal for readers to find you. You need somewhere that they can go if they want more information about you. I don't know about you, but I get a little bit obsessive about things like this. So I'm like, once I love something. I want to know everything about it. So if someone falls in love with you as a re, you know as a reader and an author. Then they're gonna look for you. You need a website to be, tell them about you.

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Stuart Grant: You might want it for selling, direct.

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Stuart Grant: selling direct. Sorry. You know. That's gonna be something that we talk about again in a second. So I just had a warning come up that my microphone switched off. So I don't know if that's still okay, I'm assuming.

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Hayley @ ProWritingAid: Good. Yeah. Okay.

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Stuart Grant: Okay, great. So also, the website becomes your home. It's your house, your rules. So you know, when you upload your stuff to any of the platforms. Amazon. Let's take as an example. You've got certain things. You can put up certain things you can't. You've got a specific design. You have to fit into, whereas your website, you can do what the hell you like. There's no set kind of plan around how it has to be. So, you know, knock yourself out with making your website your space, your place. However, you want it to look.

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Stuart Grant: So we're going to talk a little bit about selling direct, just because that is one of the things that's become a very kind of

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Stuart Grant: kind of a common thing people are talking about. Currently, you know the power of the website. Make it. Wow, because you're selling direct through it. Suddenly, the powers in your hands to sell these books and and content.

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Stuart Grant: Also, we're going to look at some design elements that are going to bring your site to life

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Stuart Grant: if you want to see them or use them, and then we'll also talk about promoting your site. So you've got this wonderful site. But how do you actually get people to visit? So I'll give you some really good takeaway ideas today that hopefully will will enable you to drive traffic to your site.

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Stuart Grant: So selling direct if you don't know ready. Obviously, it just means essentially that you are selling books from your site. In essence they buy from you the author direct. You make more money than selling through Amazon, or other stores and companies like book vault and Lulu, look after all the printing and the posting of your products.

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Stuart Grant: It is much better than the old days of a garage full of books, when people used to literally buy, you know, 50 books and hope that somebody bought them, and then they'd be up to the post office posting them out. You know, when anyone did these days you don't have to do any of that. You can let somebody else look after all the heavy lifting.

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Stuart Grant: Why sell direct from your website? Why is this such a powerful tool for you? Well, if we just look at some made up figures here. Well, they're made up in the sense that this is not a real book. So it's a 9 99 book. If you sell using wix or woocommerce or shopify. You're looking at out of 9 99 a profit, and these are, you know, approximations, you know, by a long stretch, but 6 pounds 7

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Stuart Grant: if you sell it through the great British bookshop, which is Book Vault's own bookshop. We're looking at 5 pounds 27 profit. If you sell through Amazon. You're looking at 2 pounds 57. So there's a clear kind of reason there. Why, you might be encouraging yourself to sell through your website, because obviously, you're gonna make a little bit more profit. Obviously, it's not quite as cut and dry as that. And there are things to consider alongside that.

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Stuart Grant: But that's the basic kind of

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Stuart Grant: situation when it comes to selling direct

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Stuart Grant: the benefits of selling direct through your website is obviously you get a better relationship with your readers. You get the information of the people that bought from you. You get their email address, which obviously you don't do when they purchase from any other platform. So that's a massive kind of thing that you are getting, that you can't get anywhere else. It adds to your mailing list. It means you can contact them. When you do, bring out your next book or whatever.

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Stuart Grant: and you can develop that relationship as an author to the reader, you've got full control, as we mentioned earlier, over the marketing, the design, the branding. You can present that shop any way you like, you know.

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Stuart Grant: You can add whatever colors. You can put things where you want them. You can lay out whatever way you think works for you, and of course you've got the opportunity to sell things like special editions, which might be a lot more difficult through other platforms, you know, with people like book vault, you can now, do, you know, foil

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Stuart Grant: covers and end spraying, and all kinds of weird and wonderful things. Which are creating some absolutely beautiful books. So that's really important. If you're in that kind of

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Stuart Grant: world where you think your readers are going to be intrigued or interested in special editions. The best way to do that is through your website.

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Stuart Grant: But why might you not? Now? It's been, as I said, talked about for a couple of years. It's been a really hot topic, and everyone's been kind of saying, Oh, you must sell direct, you must sell direct, but there is a flip side to it, and the reasons that I want to bring. This is because I've seen a few authors who just heard that they should set it all up, then realise that actually, there are reasons why they shouldn't. And these are some of the reasons why you might not want to sell direct.

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Stuart Grant: 1st of all, you need an e-commerce platform, so something like shopify or Wix, or something like that that is generally more expensive if you are using the e-commerce functionality. So, for example, on shopify, it's 25 pounds a month as a minimum cost for their platform. So before you sell any books or do anything else, you've got to pay 25 bucks a month. So you know, that is a serious consideration. Obviously, that goes up depending on what you want in terms of functionality as well.

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Stuart Grant: You have to generate all the traffic yourself. Now, people often forget this bit that you know. Amazon has a steady flow of billions of people just

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Stuart Grant: scattering around on the site, and they just happen over your book and buy it brilliant. But if you're on your own website, you have to generate that traffic yourself, you have to learn ways of getting people there on your own. There's no one going to help you. You have to do that. So obviously, you have to learn more about ads and advertising all those kind of things which you probably don't have to do quite so much of if you're sat on a big store that's already got traffic coming to it.

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Stuart Grant: There's a much steeper learning curve, I think, for selling direct. You've got to learn all about. You know how it actually works. You've got to learn the software book vault Lulu. Whatever you've got to learn how to upload your books, all of that kind of stuff, you know. That's extra time. So you know suddenly that big profit that we saw for selling direct gets slowly chipped into as you start to take all this stuff. If you equate time with money as well. Then it obviously just kind of gets less and less

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Stuart Grant: trust. I think this is a major problem as well for for some people that some customers can be a bit nervous about buying from smaller stores, so you know, quite happy to buy from Amazon. My wife certainly is. We get something delivered pretty much every 2 h. But you know other people are not so keen on buying from smaller author websites. They don't know them necessarily. Okay, they might have read a book, but they don't know that you're gonna look after their credit card details or whatever. So that's a major stunt, stumbling block for some people

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Stuart Grant: cost to the customer is often higher, because the postage needs to be added on. So if the books 9 99, the postage might be another $6. Okay, so that straight away could put a customer off. So this is another reason why you might not want to sell on. I'm not saying you should do either. I'm just kind of trying to give a balanced view. There's been a lot of kind of why you should. Why, you should. But you know, as I've seen some of my customers start to kind of come to the Why not

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Stuart Grant: also selling through your own website all your books. There's no way you can get the best seller tag. And that's something that a lot of authors really love to have. So you know if you if you are chasing that best seller Tag, the only place to really get that is on Amazon. Obviously. So you know all those sales that you're making on your website, all well and good. But they're not going to credit you with any kind of best seller tag. So you're just selling books. You're not accumulating kind of ranking, or even

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Stuart Grant: reviews, you know. That's again, another issue with selling direct. You're not getting those organic verified reviews, you know, a lot of authors grab their reviews from Amazon and bring them onto their website because it's very difficult to get reviews from your own website because it means you've got to chase them. And obviously, that also involves you doing a lot of the customer kind of

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Stuart Grant: response. You know, you've got to become a customer service expert. Really, when they have issues with the downloads, or they have issues with the the quality of the product. It's all on you. Whereas obviously selling with a store like Amazon. They look after all that, too.

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Stuart Grant: So just something to consider. If you're in the market for selling direct, think about whether it's really worth your time or your money. It might well be I think it's great for people that have a huge audience who are, you know, desperate to buy stuff from you. But for those people that potentially are starting out. My advice generally is.

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Stuart Grant: stick it on Amazon. Learn your craft, and then, when you've grown your audience consider selling direct.

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Stuart Grant: So your design. What should it be about? Well, critically, your design should be all about the reader. You know everything that you do really, as an author, sure your starting point should be the reader. So we've talked a lot in, you know, over the years about how genres should be represented on book covers, so that readers instantly know what the book is. So the running man, for example, in the thriller genre. I mean.

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Stuart Grant: that is on every thriller book. Going, isn't it? You know we've all seen that a million times, but that's because it works, and we know that it's instantly recognisable. Readers can pick it up and know pretty much what they're gonna get. So the same is true of the website. I think that when somebody lands on your website they should instantly get the idea of what the book is about, or your or your series, or whatever, and kind of recognise that within a second or 2, so they are

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Stuart Grant: welcome to it. They understand it, and that they're kind of familiar with what they're going to be purchasing from you.

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Stuart Grant: I also believe it should be an engaging and relevant experience that tells them instantly what to expect, but also a bit about you a bit about the subject a bit about the book, you know. It should be kind of very familiar, and I think with Science fiction, you've got a really easy job in this respect, because, you know, there are certain tropes that we all just instantly recognize as science fiction. It's very E

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Stuart Grant: or somebody that you know, the the thing is science fiction. And I think you know, from that point of view it's much more difficult for some other genres, whereas science fiction is just simple. We know what it is. We understand it. It's very much in our culture. Everybody's heard of the big sci-fi films, you know it. It's out there. So it's easier for you to think about it in design terms.

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Stuart Grant: So one of the things I encourage people to think about with their design is video movement and animation. So if you look at people like apple for example, okay, they use a lot of video movement animation effects, and you know I can pretty much guarantee that apple have done a lot of research into what actually sells phones or ear pods, or whatever.

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Stuart Grant: And I would assume that their research has proved that using video movement and animation actually brings the user. And this consumer into the product gives them more of a kind of experience around the product, and they're then more likely to buy. So you know, using apple as a kind of example, obviously, they're way up here. We're not in that kind of zone, but in terms of the marketing principles. I do truly believe that there is something to be learned.

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Stuart Grant: So why use video. Well, it's immersive, it's engaging. And it should fill the screen with a sense of your genre. Your website, like I said, should be like your book covers all about the genre. Okay.

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Stuart Grant: you know, I mean, maybe the days of just a white background with a few book covers slapped on the on the white background. Maybe they're gone. I think our readers expect more. Now we're in a tick tock generation. We're in a stories, you know, long form, kind of video. And we are so now, familiar with video, it's just become part of our experience. So I don't think any read is going to be surprised they might actually be intrigued

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Stuart Grant: animation. So animation is where things move essentially, and you can draw the eye of the reader. If you want readers to look at something, make it move. That's why we use animation. It does draw the eye so instantly, you know, you can see something becomes more interesting because it's just done something.

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Stuart Grant: So I've got some examples here. I'm actually going to play a video hopefully, you'll be able to see it. This is just some examples.

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Stuart Grant: what I'm talking about to give you real world kind of experience of these.

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Stuart Grant: Here. We've got this guy writing about

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Stuart Grant: sold you there.

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Stuart Grant: The movement.

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Stuart Grant: Now we've got spinning planets. These are all sci-fi websites that hopefully, you're going to see as interesting. We've got spinning

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Stuart Grant: off there burn bites kind of bite.

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Stuart Grant: Besides my

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Stuart Grant: books. So we've got some nice movement there. We've got some animation

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Stuart Grant: food being. We're kind

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Stuart Grant: to see them as they move

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Stuart Grant: Page or his books. Page. So again, it doesn't have to be just about the

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Stuart Grant: any part of your website. And it just draws the reader in

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Stuart Grant: straight away we see

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Stuart Grant: planet

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Stuart Grant: rise and sunrise when it plays out

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Stuart Grant: nice kind of effects there, with things kind of

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Stuart Grant: through each other.

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Stuart Grant: turning into each other.

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Stuart Grant: face taken from the book.

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Stuart Grant: Actually, again. This is a great tip, you know. If you

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Stuart Grant: beautiful pieces of art

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Stuart Grant: paid lots of money for

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Stuart Grant: used them on your

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Stuart Grant: your website as the backdrop. You know, there are lots of tools out there now to remove.

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Stuart Grant: So you could remove all the text and just

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Stuart Grant: features. And back

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Stuart Grant: on your website

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Stuart Grant: droid going past.

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Stuart Grant: so immersive

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Stuart Grant: tells me.

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Stuart Grant: Website

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Stuart Grant: last one is

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Stuart Grant: spread out of the matrix, I guess

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Stuart Grant: also had on the

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Stuart Grant: took that as a kind of

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Stuart Grant: inspiration for the rest of the

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Stuart Grant: this is one that we've just been making recently on a template. And again.

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Stuart Grant: kind of instant

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Stuart Grant: these folk

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Stuart Grant: high. 5.

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Stuart Grant: Okay, so that's kind of what I was talking about in terms of video motion and animation.

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Stuart Grant: But this is your universe, right? Talking in sci-fi language. And I'm really a big advocate for AR and animated covers. So we've all heard about AI. I'm talking about AR, which is augmented reality. Okay? And you'll get a little experiment in me. You will need your your phones for this as well. If you want to play along, so have those ready to go. But think about putting different versions and interesting formats on your book covers

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Stuart Grant: things like AR or animation. You know, your audience are likely to be really interested in all this techie stuff. They love the science fiction of it. They love the kind of back end sort of behind the scenes stuff.

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Stuart Grant: you know. They're they're generally, and I'm speaking very vaguely here. But sci-fi fans are generally into tech, you know, and fun stuff that they're amazed by so and special effects. Obviously, because that's what the films are generally made of as well.

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Stuart Grant: So, for example, here's a couple of animated covers, you know, they don't have to be hugely complex just overlays just to bring the book cover to life. You know, this is just something that you can say, hey, guys, have you checked out my animated book covers, you know, what do you think? It's just a reason to draw people back to your website? And it just means that when people are wrong.

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Stuart Grant: So they go. Oh, wow! I wonder how on earth you did that amazing! You know, stars flying in, you know you could have smoke whatever you want. We've obviously got the story on the left there about a woman drowning. So we've got some bubbles going up. Rage of the gin is all about a fire or a war. So we've got the ashes

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Stuart Grant: and the last one there. Destiny Dawning is a fantasy novel, as you can probably tell so just added a little bit of magic and kind of movement just to bring it to life rather than just this static image which we're all kind of used to used to seeing. Why not lift it with some of this

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Stuart Grant: next up augmented reality? Now I'm a big fan of this. It really blows my mind that this can be done, and how how I think this is actually gonna start to revolutionize the world we live in.

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Stuart Grant: because I don't know if you've even gone on to Amazon these days, but you can, you know, purchase a product. But 1st of all, you can look at it in your room so you can scan around the room, and it will actually put the the the item in your room so you can see it. There's all sorts of things that we're using augmented reality for now. And I think

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Stuart Grant: readers and authors are one of the things that could see this happen, and I'll give you an example of what happens. So what I want you to do is take your phone, scan the QR code. And again, we're becoming so more familiar with QR. Codes than we ever were. They're on every packet of food. They're on the news. They're on the weather, they're on adverts. They're on the Telly. They're everywhere. So what I suggest you do is just scan that code.

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Stuart Grant: With your camera app on your phone. That should ask you if you want to view the next stage and then just hover over the book cover and you should see the magic happen.

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Stuart Grant: So you should see a mocked up book. Trailer that appears magically over the book cover. Okay? So hopefully, that's working for you.

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Stuart Grant: it might take a second or 2. It's it does need Internet connection. So if you haven't got one, I'm presuming you do because you're here. But you know, that is, that's 1 of the things you do need for it. But imagine this world where readers can walk around a bookshop

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Stuart Grant: and they will see your book cover. They scan it. And there's a video of you saying, Hey, you know I'd love you to read my book, whatever, or I hope you enjoy my book, and I'd love you to sign up to my mailing list you can find me at. You know I'm a great author.com. So you know, the book actually then becomes a living thing. It can talk to the reader. It can be done on any static image you can. You can kind of overlay

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Stuart Grant: videos, images, pictures, photos. So even inside the book, maybe a page of text. Maybe. Let's say you're talking about Paris, or something like that. It could show a gallery of Parisian sites just to give the reader an experience of where you're talking about and what's going on. So I think this is a really exciting kind of development and technology that I'm really kind of keen to explore.

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Stuart Grant: and some of our authors have been playing with this as well. So this is an example of where you might put yourself into the book, if you like, or onto the book. So again, if you scan this one, you should be able to see. Unfortunately, it's another video of me. I'm so sorry, but there is. It was just to to show you how you could put yourself onto your book. Say a welcome to your readers, and invite them to sign up to your mailing list. So, rather than just having that at the book

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Stuart Grant: at the back or the front, you can actually put it on the cover or the back, or wherever you want it, to be, over any static kind of image inside the book on on the book, or wherever

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Stuart Grant: so hopefully, you saw that if you didn't.

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Stuart Grant: and there's a little video next of you don't have to watch that all. Now it's about a minute long. I think that little introduction. But here's what should happen if you didn't see it. So this is my phone. 11 o'clock this morning when I was desperately thinking, I actually probably need to give you an example. So here's the my phone. So I scan the AR code or the QR code. Rather, I click the stories AR. It says, do you want to see this? I then move it over to the image.

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Stuart Grant: There is something people don't know about isolation. And off guys the book. It can drive you alone

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Stuart Grant: in a station on the brink.

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Stuart Grant: the edge

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Stuart Grant: where every breath could be his last.

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Stuart Grant: The edge a sci-fi thriller

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Stuart Grant: available. Now

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Stuart Grant: the edge by Author Nathan Harrington, takes you on a harrowing journey through the vast unforgiving expanse of space a lone astronaut encased in his spacesuit floating through the void. So that's the kind of thing you can do. I just knocked that up in a program called In Video. I just put in, I won a book trailer and it's called this by this person. It was completely made up. But you know that knocked out a video the right size.

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Stuart Grant: I can tell it the length and everything. You know. AI is incredible for that sort of thing. Obviously you can get them made by other people into a higher standard. That was just a demonstration. But you know this. I don't even think I've thought of all of the applications for this technology. And I think that particularly for sci-fi, this is something that readers will love just because it's techy and fun and a bit kind of computery, or whatever. And I'm not being disrespectful to sci-fi fans because I am one. So that's me.

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Stuart Grant: So

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Stuart Grant: what can you do to your website to bring people to the website. Okay.

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Stuart Grant: there's lots of things you can do.

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Stuart Grant: So here's some ideas. These are really good kind of takeaways hopefully. So you've created your website. You've added some kind of interesting things to it. Whether that's you know the the animation or the movement or the video. You've, you know, got trailers, whatever you've thought of. But what else could you add to the website and then use those things to send people to it. In other words, using social media, for example, to say, Hey, have you checked out my website and seen the latest addition of

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Stuart Grant: whatever. So an idea might be a spotify playlist. So they're free to create. You could just copy and paste the code, stick it on your website and say, this is what I was listening to when I was writing the book, or this is the

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Stuart Grant: music that the character heard when they arrived in that destination, you know, in the book, or whatever you know, anything you can think of around those spotify playlists. Why not create a few and put them on your website and then tell your audience, hey? I've just put this together.

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Stuart Grant: This is something I think a lot of authors even forget is resources for book clubs, whether it's just a list of questions or a bit of background, or anything that book clubs might be encouraged to use when they actually read your book together. It's a reason for them then to do that, of course. So have a look around. See what kind of things go on in book clubs. If you don't know and think about how you could offer some really simple, just like Pdfs, or

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Stuart Grant: word docs, or whatever resources for book clubs. That's another reason why that whole book club will then go to your website and download those resources. So again, driving more traffic to your website.

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Stuart Grant: So media on anything like this, for example, if you ever done a podcast or been in the newspaper or Telly, or whatever you know, have that on the website and say, Hey, guys, you ever seen me interviewed on the Telly, you know, last weekend, or whatever. Here it is on my website with a link back to your website. Great more traffic. So you know, while they're there, then they might pick up some more of this stuff. So you know, that's the that's the I that's the dream that you send them there to see something, and they start. Then, looking at everything else all right.

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Stuart Grant: So behind the scenes, content, you know, the DVD industry made billions

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Stuart Grant: of pounds in the last. Well, more than decade, probably 2 decades selling behind the scenes content, which proves again that there is a demand for it. You know, people love seeing what happens behind the scenes. So do some behind the scenes. Stuff on your website. Take photos of where you work. Take. I don't know. Photos of the view out of your window. Talk about how you wrote the book. Talk about why you wrote

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Stuart Grant: book. Talk about this kind of films that influenced you. All right, I'm sure some of you are having a bit of fun, you know, seeing these quotes and thinking, I know resistance is few times from Star Trek. So you know that kind of thing, just thinking a little bit wise, a little bit clever about how you can engage people, how you can pull them in.

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Stuart Grant: even even sending those you know as a to your mailing list, and say, You know, what? What, where are they from some quotes, or whatever

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Stuart Grant: also think about character, profiles and artworks. You know, people love thinking about what the characters look like, you know. I mean, I read tons of Lee, child, for example, and I love, you know, kind of imagining Jack Reacher and thinking what he actually looks like, and you know some

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Stuart Grant: fans, I'm sure, have done drawings and all the rest of it. So if you have anything like that, stick all of that onto your website to drive traffic.

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Stuart Grant: and it's so much easier these days as well. And being able to create that kind of stuff using AI, you know, you just go there and say, I need a handsome sci-fi hero in a futuristic spacesuit, looking out across the universe, or whatever. And bash there it is, you know. Do you think this looks like my hero or not? Okay, and that will just generate some some conversation hopefully with your readers.

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Stuart Grant: So another thing you could add to your website. To drive traffic is to read a sample. So you know, when you go to Amazon you get the little button underneath the book that says, read a preview or read a sample or something, you can actually embed that on your website. So a little kind of unknown secret I have checked with Amazon. It's fine to use, because what happens is when they click that read a preview on your website. It actually opens

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Stuart Grant: the reader preview. You see on Amazon, which includes the buy. Now button. It includes the 1015%, whatever it is you put in to your reader sample, and it will open in your kind of browser and kind of behind or in front of your website. So again, another reason to put something different on your website, it's actually very easy to do. You just literally grab the link and stick it in as a link. So when they click on it, it opens. This read a sample

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Stuart Grant: audio samples again under the Amazon books. When you have an audio sample, there's a little play button which you can listen to like 10 or 15, or even a minute, I think. Actually, this one of the book of the audio book being read. You can also grab those that one is a little bit more complicated, but it is possible. And again, I've checked with audible it's absolutely fine to to take those samples and put them on your website.

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Stuart Grant: So you know again, another reason why they're browsing on the website. Oh, I'll just have a listen to the sample. It's all very well saying, Oh, you know my, my books on audio. But why not have the sample on your website so they can actually listen again? It just makes that experience more engaging, more interesting. There's buttons to press, there's things to do. There's things to listen to, you know. It just makes it an ex.

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Stuart Grant: So I did exactly what I described earlier. Today I went to adobe Firefly, which is a free AI

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Stuart Grant: program. I can hear people switching off those that are anti AI. But I'm just using this as demonstration and and a bit of fun really, and just put in there. Give me a character from a sci-fi novel who's a hero in a outfit? Bosh! There it is so amazing, you know, with a couple of sentences, other things you could put on your website? Exclusive short stories or deleted scenes.

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Stuart Grant: You know how many of you have written books and had a scene that you think, shall I should I? It's good. But why not put it on your website and say, should I have included this or this is something I wrote that I wasn't sure about well, actually fallen back in love with it, and I think it should be included. And here it is. So you know, some of that wastage doesn't need to be wasted. It could be kind of repurposed or recycled on your website, and you could write some short stories just about the like.

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Stuart Grant: The day before somebody did something, or whatever some prequel stuff

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Stuart Grant: maybe think about creating a quiz. You know about the the story or the books

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Stuart Grant: interactive maps. That's more kind of in the fantasy area. But you know, if you've got a universe.

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Stuart Grant: why not create a map where there are the planets? And you know the destinations of all the places that people travel in your books. So again, that's something that people will love because it's visual, it becomes real. It becomes kind of almost, you know, real in the sense that people believe it's there. Fan, art gallery. So again, if people are drawing your characters or doing it or invite them to. And then any good ones you could actually put on your website

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Stuart Grant: video content. And we've already talked about how important and kind of current and video content is, why not record yourself reading the 1st chapter? You know, this is such simple, free stuff. That you could easily do in in half an hour, you know. Just put a a phone up and just say, Hey, run off. Just thought I'd read you the 1st chapter, as I think it should be heard, or whatever. Just read it out.

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Stuart Grant: and then put it on your website or get somebody to interview you, get a friend, or a neighbor, or a family member, or whatever, just to sit opposite you with a phone in in there and get them to ask you some questions or so you can give them the questions. But you know there's all kinds of little bits and pieces that you can add to your website, which makes it more engaging and more interesting book trailers. Obviously, I've just shown you one I just knocked up in in video.

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Stuart Grant: But you know, there are other softwares that you can use to actually create proper ones like book book something. They're all book, book, something, book, vault, no book brush. That's the one. So you know, book brush is a fantastic resource for creating all sorts of content. And it does book trailers so definitely worth having a look at that. But obviously there's lots of freelancers and people out there that make book trailers as well. So why not create one? You can use it on your social media

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Stuart Grant: media. You can use it on your website

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Stuart Grant: wherever

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Stuart Grant: one of my favorite authors is Jd Kirk, and one of the things that I. He's hilarious. It's Scottish thriller. Writing. It's quite offensive. So if you're a little bit soft hearted, then do not read these books, the particularly the Robert Hoon thrillers. There's lots of swearing, but it's incredibly funny. And one of the things he's got on his website, which I absolutely love is the insult generator. So all you do is press the

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Stuart Grant: button, and it comes up at the bottom. There with a A you are! And then something horrendous. I could not actually do this live on here, because there would have been somebody offended. So you know, stuff that comes out. It took me about 10 min to actually get something which was relatively

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Stuart Grant: soft, shall we say? Or not? Quite as a harsh. So you know. But a great idea, you know this is a fantastic thing. As a reader I was drawn to, you know, I saw it on his website. I thought, that is brilliant. That's perfect. That's exactly what the character Bob Hoon would say. I love it. You know it brings that character to life. It brings me to the website. I'm not saying, you necessarily create exactly this, but something like it for your world.

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Stuart Grant: So promoting your website, as I said earlier, particularly if you're selling direct, this is critical. But anyway, you need to promote your website, even if you're selling on other platforms because you want them to sign up to your your mailing list, etc. So bookmarks, old school, but still work

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Stuart Grant: and so cheap, you know. You could get a thousand bookmarks for next to nothing through canva or vista print, or wherever you know, and take them to places. Give them to people that don't want them. Leave them on the train, you know. Walk up to people in in book bus queues. Wherever think about where you can get these, go to some networking events. Do stuff where you can give out these bookmarks.

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Stuart Grant: I I heard a great story about an author who got load of book Miles printed, and then went into bookstores and slid them into their own books and other people's. So hey? I didn't tell you other authors. Okay, this is an incredible resource. Right? You're in a conference right now where you can talk to other authors in your space.

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Stuart Grant: Excuse the pun, but why not use those people to help you promote you, and then you promote them. So the idea would be, you know, get together with a couple of other authors and say, Look, I'm gonna put a list of your books on my website, all right. And I'm gonna say, you know that you write a similar thing to me, and that I recommend that people go off and write that. Read your books

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Stuart Grant: if you'll do the same for me. Okay, great. So suddenly, you get another page on your website which has got lots of links out to other authors who write a similar thing to you and vice versa, they will promote you. It's free. There's no kind of complicated software, you literally just stick the link on your website. And if you know anything about search engine optimization, Google likes what's called backlinks, which is where a

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Stuart Grant: another domain refers. You cause. It thinks, then, that maybe there is some value to your website, because somebody with authority has referred you. Okay. So if you can get referred by, you know, a big newspaper or something you're gonna be. That's a great one to have but start small, get some other authors together, get 3 or 4 of them and say, Look, let's do a page each of other authors, or whatever you want to call it, and list their books, put some images on

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Stuart Grant: there, do a nice job, and then direct your readers to that page while they're there. They might well click something else on your site.

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Stuart Grant: So that is basically what it says. Their recommendations from their website to yours and vice versa. Have you thought about putting the actual web address in the image of your Facebook page. So I see loads of authors who've got Facebook pages or whatever. And they've got the image at the top of their Facebook, and there's no mention of their website whatsoever. So it's the 1st thing that people see, and it just has a picture of the book or whatever, and no mention of the website. You know that web address should be on everything that you produce, so that people are drawn to click it or go there

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Stuart Grant: am I doing for time? Let me just check. I can't sit here. Okay, we've got about another 5 min, I think, and then we'll open the floor for any questions, so hopefully, there are some coming in, and he's gonna help me get through those. But I'll just have a quick drink while I just finish up

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Stuart Grant: also think about I'm sorry if you could hear me swallowing there, that's horrible. And also think about putting your web address in places like the profile picture on your social media. So every picture on social media have your web, address, business cards again, old school. But why not have have a again. They're next to nothing to print.

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Stuart Grant: and then just leave them around. You never know who you're gonna bump into, you know. Oh, I'm an author. Oh, are you? What do you write? Oh, have a card? Okay, have them in your back pocket, you know, for those flights where you get started. Talk to somebody, whoever wherever just start sticking those things out there so that you get some traction. The loudest voice is the one that's gonna get heard. So if you don't say anything, no one's gonna hear you right, and no one's gonna visit your side. So you've got to start promoting yourself

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Stuart Grant: as if you were your own publishing house. But then, again, they don't do much promoting either. So even if you're signed often, you have to do a lot of this, anyway. So promoting your website and your front and back cover, not just in the backside and the front side of your book as in inside. But what about on the front and back cover now? Most people wouldn't want it on the front. But what about having it on the back? You've got Isbn numbers and all kinds of other stuff. Why not have the Web address?

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Stuart Grant: There's absolutely no reason why you can't. It's a piece of real estate that most authors don't even think to use. Okay, inside the book, we talk a lot about the front or sorry back matter. But why not have it in the front matter. Okay, there's absolutely again no reason why you can't introduce yourself on that very 1st page and say, Hey, I hope you enjoy this book. I've written it. Blah! Blah! Whatever you're gonna say about it. And if you want note to know more about me, you can sign up to my website here. You know that you might get them to sign up before they realize they hate the book.

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Stuart Grant: If it's at the back, then obviously they might hate it and not want to sign up, so get them at the start of the book. There's no reason why you can't have it there in your audio books again with acx and audible, and it's absolutely fine to have at the end, after that bit where it says, you know, this is audible, or whatever you can actually then have a little tail off. I think it's after that bit. But anyway, it has to be detached from the actual book. That's the only Caveat.

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Stuart Grant: and it would say, You know, Hi, thanks for listening to my book. You can follow this author if it's the narrator you know, at I'm a great author.com again. I listen to audio books like it's going out of fashion. I'm a total audio book addict, and I've only ever heard 2 authors put their web address at the end of their books.

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Stuart Grant: Bonkers. It's so easy to do, totally free, totally legit. You should be encouraging those readers to sign up in every way you can

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Stuart Grant: on your email, you know, whenever you send an email to anyone, do you have it at the bottom? Even if you're sending it to the electricity company, it doesn't matter. Stick your website address on it because they might be a reader. They might be someone that wants to join. They might be someone that's a big fan of sci-fi. If they're not, doesn't matter, they'll just ignore it

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Stuart Grant: once a week on social media, you should always find a reason to post your web address on social media. I've just given you probably 10 reasons or more. So you know, you could create 10 weeks of posts directing people to your website and then put that web address

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Stuart Grant: making sure as well, you've got the link to your web in your bio. Okay? So underneath your little bio or insta, you can put your web address on Twitter. All of those platforms should absolutely have your web address attached. They actually rank really well as well. So if people Google your name, there's a good chance, it will pull up your insta account or your Twitter account, in which case, then, the user will then click through to visit your website.

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Stuart Grant: I've said social media posts. That's fairly obvious, really. But again, it just amazes me. How simple that is! And yet people forget it or don't do it.

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Stuart Grant: These are some profiles that you can add to your website to or add a profile to so places like book. Bob library, everything. Amazon author, central smash words. What pads cura is that? How you say I'm not sure, Cora writers cafe and everywhere you can. So just think about finding places where you can create a profile that has a web link. Again that helps with SEO. It helps with all those backlinks, and it just means that everywhere people go, people could find you.

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Stuart Grant: And just to finish up, this is I've been talking a lot about sci-fi. This is in case of anyone here.

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Stuart Grant: Other examples of

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Stuart Grant: websites that are using animation movement

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Stuart Grant: kind of just drawing you into the experience and kind of making you think about what this is

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Stuart Grant: you want to do. There is press. The reason this one

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Stuart Grant: have a drink

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Stuart Grant: plays out.

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Stuart Grant: Okay, so that was just another couple of examples. And I didn't want to use anybody else's. And I don't think that's fair. If I haven't got permission and all that kind of stuff. So yes, they are things. It's not all about self promotion, but just giving you some examples of how I feel author websites can be, and the kind of effect they can have on a reader by being an experience. So yeah.

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Stuart Grant: I've had a drink. I'm good to go with a QA. If there is one. So I turned my. I just wanted to say as well, thanks to pro for writing aid again for having me here's some contact stuff, but I'll I'll stop my sharing and guess that Haley's coming back on.

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Hayley @ ProWritingAid: Yes, yep, we've got a number of questions. We'll try to get through as many as we can for the top of the hour. Oh, right. So the 1st one says, what would you recommend for multilingual websites?

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Stuart Grant: Goodness. Okay, so it depends what you're working on as a platform. Most platforms have some kind of functionality around being able to translate the the text on a website. So Wordpress probably has a plugin that will do that for you. I only use Wix. So I know that you can

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Stuart Grant: translate the website using a a little software thing that comes with Wix. So depends what platform you're on. Some of them do have this. Some of them don't. I think we're moving into a world where that sort of thing is going to become more and more kind of obvious. And and there, because, you know, AI is going to be starting to do that for you. And obviously, you can translate any website using Google anyway.

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Hayley @ ProWritingAid: Awesome does selling direct only apply to independent or self publishing? Or can you do direct sales and special editions with publishers too?

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Stuart Grant: Well, it depends, in terms of publisher, what they what they want you to do. Some publishers will say they only want to sell through one journal, or whatever. The only caveat with selling direct, actually with Amazon is that if you're in Ku kindle unlimited, then you can't sell your ebook anywhere else.

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Stuart Grant: But you can sell your paperback or hard back anywhere, so there's not really any restrictions. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure there's not any restrictions on what you can sell where? If you're, you know. If you're signed to a publish, they might have some feelings about how and where you sell stuff. But as far as I'm aware, you can pretty much sell what you want from your website. Be that mugs, T-shirts, books, merchandise. You know anything.

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Hayley @ ProWritingAid: Amazing. What would you recommend for a website for somebody who's not yet published? An early career author or a mid career author.

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Stuart Grant: So yeah, I get asked this actually, quite a lot. You know.

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Stuart Grant: Google takes quite a long time to learn a website actually exists. So it's actually better to get your website up as quickly as possible. Well, not as quickly as possible, but don't leave it to the last thing. So some authors say, I don't want to turn it on until I launch my book. It's like, that's way, too late. Because then it takes ages for actually Google to realize it's even there. So you won't get served as a search result until it has done that.

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Stuart Grant: So I think that's the question. So yeah, I mean, just basically as as early as possible. My starting point for all of this stuff is the book cover.

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Stuart Grant: So that's the 1st thing you should do is make that book real. Don't even worry about the actual manuscript. It's all about the book cover for me. So the 1st thing I get from an author is the book cover. Then we try and pull in the brand, the colors, the font, and everything else to kind of make that a consistent experience for the reader. So they get to know your brand on their website or sorry on your website.

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Hayley @ ProWritingAid: Amazing. How much should be budgeted for a website.

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Stuart Grant: How long is a piece of string? I mean, it depends, you know. I mean the

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Stuart Grant: the the scary thing I get sometimes is oh, you know my cousin's next door. Neighbour's a web designer, and they made it for 50 bucks, you know. And I'm like, Yeah, I can see that. You know it depends who you want to pay for what you know there are, you know. There's places like Fiverr up work. I'm sure you'll find you know, people at all different levels, you know, readsi is not necessarily the cheapest place to go, because it's a High end. Marketplace

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Stuart Grant: tends to be a little bit more expensive. Our starting price is around about 9 50 bucks for a 1 book website. So you know, we're not cheap. But then we know we are.

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Stuart Grant: You know, we come with a lot of experience. We come. We don't just deliver a website. It's far more than that with us, for example. But you know, I think you're looking at a starting price, really, if you want anything properly decent, about 500 600 bucks, probably.

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Stuart Grant: and like anything that you're doing. You are a business you need to invest. You've got to outlay something to start this start, this journey.

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Hayley @ ProWritingAid: Yeah, that's a great point.

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Hayley @ ProWritingAid: the next question is, doesn't using a spotify playlist, breach copyright.

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Stuart Grant: Whose copyright I'm not quite sure I understand why it would. I mean spotify. Playlists are designed to be shared. I'm sure that they have wrapped up the legal side of that with no problem.

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Stuart Grant: I guess if so.

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Hayley @ ProWritingAid: If you can. Yeah, if you can. What I again I didn't. I would always consult a lawyer, but I would say that if you're utilizing a spotify, Plugin, you're still directing the streams to spotify. So they're still getting the money and the

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Hayley @ ProWritingAid: the rights and all of that. So they would be paying the artists and kind of handling all of that. So obviously, if you were utilizing like an illegal stream of music or something like that then that might get you into trouble. But if you're plugging, spotify in or sharing, opening up and sharing a spotify website, it's something really common, like very, very big name. Authors do that all the time. They'll share like their inspiration. So I can't imagine there's an issue with it. But again, if you're really nervous. I've always talked to a lawyer and and see. But yeah, that's fine.

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Hayley @ ProWritingAid: Do you have any templates for author sites or sites that you recommend that we see.

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Stuart Grant: Well again, without being self promoting we we are currently, you know, our business is currently about to launch templates for authors. But I don't actually have any right now. I've I've shown you quite a few kind of ideas.

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Stuart Grant: But yes, I think there are probably a few out there that you can look at in terms of inspiration. If you Google, even things like the top 10 author websites, there's quite a few blog posts out there, I think, even reads you have done one and somebody else. I I think I've seen them previously, so you know, you can get inspiration from lots of places.

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Hayley @ ProWritingAid: Amazing. Next question is, I like animations, but isn't creating those fairly expensive.

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Stuart Grant: Again. It depends on the tool you use. So everything you saw there was free. Okay, everything comes bundled with Wix. At least, I can really only talk about Wix in terms of how it all works. I mean, you know, with Wordpress. You often have to pay for the plugins, and they have to be updated and all the rest of it. But certainly what we do, everything is free there other than the video stuff

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Stuart Grant: that a lot of that stuff comes from a 3rd party. Stock video, supplier. And I do play a yearly license to them. But you know you wouldn't have to do that. If you're only building one, you could just get the one video. So.

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Hayley @ ProWritingAid: Right? D asks, how do you put your web address in your Facebook page? I can only put it in an image.

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Stuart Grant: I just mean as part of the image. So you know, as the header. There, you've got your picture, or whatever you you know. Maybe you've created it in in canva or whatever, but at the bottom, you know, somewhere, or even at the top, whatever it should just have the text of your of your website. Ww, it doesn't. It can't be clicked actually.

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Stuart Grant: although you can put that in the comments of the header. So if you click on the header. You can actually leave a comment just like you can on any post. And you could put in there the the actual link to your website. But it's just a visual cue to remind people what your website is to have it in the header

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Stuart Grant: thing.

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Hayley @ ProWritingAid: We've got a couple of questions on Price range which you've just addressed. Linda asks any recommendations for website hosts.

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Stuart Grant: Again. I can't really talk about that, you know. There's loads out there. Blue Host Hostinger got all the kinds of ones that I've worked with over the years. But again, from my point of view, and for our company we only use Wix, and they provide all the hosting, so

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Stuart Grant: I'm afraid I don't get into that. But just choose carefully. Some of them are a lot better than others. It's hard to tell you how to gauge that, but

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Stuart Grant: you know the bigger names are probably the ones to go with.

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Hayley @ ProWritingAid: Right? So Hannah asks what would be the bare minimum and 1st steps when starting to make a website, what should I start with to just get started. In your opinion.

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Stuart Grant: Collect the information you need, which basically, I think comes down to about 5 things. You need your book cover. You need your links to wherever it's for sale. You need a bio. Okay, an author. Bio, you need a book description and probably a an author photo

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Stuart Grant: that's. And also obviously, you need an email service of some description to collect the emails that you want as well. So those kind of 5 or 6 things are the things I'd make sure you've ticked off your list and have ready, and then use the book cover as your design inspiration for the website.

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Hayley @ ProWritingAid: Amazing. I think we've time for about 2 more.

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Hayley @ ProWritingAid: if we build a website with you or others, does that website belong to you or to the author you're creating it for could I take whatever you built for me and add to it later, when Book 2 comes out, or would I need to rebuild this whole site each time.

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Stuart Grant: Oh, God! Yeah, I mean again, I can't talk for any other provider, but certainly for us, and I'm you know I don't want to come here and be all about us. I don't think I've even mentioned who we are really so. But no, in terms of us, and I would imagine most providers. We build the site. We give authors a lot of training around how to update the site, and off they go on their merry way and do whatever they want to it. So it certainly doesn't necessarily mean you've got to come back to us to get anything

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Stuart Grant: done. I would think most platforms are. You know, it's possible for you to do it. So yeah, you you can change it. You don't ever own the technology. Whatever platform you're on. Obviously, you know, you don't end up owning wordpress, or or wix, or whoever. So you only end up in owning the content. Essentially

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Stuart Grant: but yes, you can do what you like with it once you've got it.

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Hayley @ ProWritingAid: Of great. Okay, I think the last one we'll have time for is, do websites need to be designed for different formats like PC, mobile or different specs and Internet speeds.

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Stuart Grant: Yes, it's the short answer they do. And you need to make sure, you know, by actually looking at it on a real device, that it does work on your phone, on your tablet. If you haven't got a tablet, you know, beg, borrow, and steal, and have a look at it. Make sure it all fits. Make sure it does work again. Most platforms do have an automatic

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Stuart Grant: kind of thing that will work out for you, but there's always a bit of, you know, human need in terms of making sure things are lined up, and they sit in the right places. I mean again, Wix, for example, you create the desktop site, and then it will create the mobile site for you, and then you just go in and tinker with it and make sure it all lines up as you think it should.

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Stuart Grant: But yes.

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Hayley @ ProWritingAid: Thank you so much, Stuart. This is so much useful information. I've put links to Stuart's website and profile and reads the into the chat. So if you have any further questions, you can find Stuart there, and follow up with any of the questions that weren't answered, or just learn more about their services. Yeah, thank you, Stuart. Any last parting thoughts.

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Stuart Grant: No, just get it done. You know there's a lot of procrastination. Is that the word you know of? Of kind of sitting with the same old website. And if you do that, it's just unlikely you're gonna get much traffic, or anyone really acting on it. So have a refresh. Get a friend, get a cousin, or whatever to sit down and actually look at it and go through the journey, you know. Where do they go to sign up and watch them, making sure that it does what you think it does.

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Stuart Grant: But yes, good luck. And again, yeah, get in touch with me if you need any help. Not just about selling it, or, you know, but happy to answer any questions. And thanks so much to Hayley for hosting it, and and pro writing. Aid all the best with your authoring.

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Hayley @ ProWritingAid: Yes, thank you all so much. Have a great rest of your day. Goodbye.