Make an easy (very) basic author website

It's a quick and easy solution until you can afford something with bells and whistles

Hello!

I remember my first contract stated that I must have a website (yes, I’m that old). I didn’t have any money, so I had to work out how to do it on my shoestring budget. I made a Wordpress website - which used to be easy to manage. It’s a bit more complicated and a lot more expensive now.

Canva websites are a cheap and easy way to get a starter website. Best of all, they will be hosted on Canva’s server for free. You can buy your own URL and redirect it to go to the Canva website you’ve made. If I were starting from scratch, this is what I’d do. Once I made some money from my books, I’d look into getting something better.

These aren't 'proper' websites and won't do interesting things like connect up to sign up forms for your mailing list or let you have a blog or a shop, but if you're just getting started, they are a good option. Canva's 2025 update means that we can have several pages in the website now, which is brilliant.

Here’s the tutorial. Just click on the play button to watch on YouTube.

I think I have a workaround for how to link it to your newsletter sign up. I’ll talk about that at a later date.

Do you have an author friend? Why not forward this email to them?

Have fun designing. I’ll see you next week.

Jeev