Author Website Builders

The short answer

1. Wix 9.7 Free plan; paid from $17 a month (billed yearly)
   Authors who want author templates and a free starter site
2. WordPress.com 8.2 Free plan; paid from $48 a year
   Authors who blog or send posts as a newsletter on WordPress
3. BookBub Author Websites 8.1 Free plan; paid from $7.99 a month (billed yearly)
   Authors wanting a free author site with built-in email sign-ups
4. HostingAuthors 7.5 Free plan; paid from $90 a year
   Authors who want a free, permanent page for one book and room to grow into an author hub
5. Tertulia author websites 7.5 $7.99 a month (billed yearly)
   Authors selling ebooks and audiobooks direct without per-sale fees

All author website builders, scored

How to choose a website builder as an author

Pick by whose domain the site lives on, how it shows your books, whether you’ll sell from it and where the sign-ups go.

Free, but on whose domain?

Only BookBub Author Websites lets a free site use your own domain: its free plan connects one you already own at no cost. Wix and Carrd keep free sites on their own addresses, and WordPress.com does too, with its ads shown to your visitors. HostingAuthors gives you one free book page that never expires. Squarespace and Tertulia have no free plan at all, just a 14-day trial, and Weblium’s free version is time-limited (its pricing page says 60 days) and can’t take a domain.

Pages for your books

BookBub Author Websites, Tertulia and HostingAuthors are made for authors: their templates have book pages with store links built in, and Tertulia and HostingAuthors start the site from the ISBN printed with your back-cover barcode. Of the general builders, Wix and Squarespace describe a books page with retailer links in their author-site guides, and Weblium’s E-Book Store template has Books, Author and Order a Book pages. WordPress.com and Carrd don’t describe a book-page feature, though you can build one by hand. With a long backlist, take Tertulia: its Basic plan holds unlimited books, while HostingAuthors’ $90-a-year plan stops at 10 book pages.

Selling books from your own site

To sell ebooks and audiobooks direct, use HostingAuthors or Tertulia. HostingAuthors’ bookstore comes with the $90-a-year plan, handles up to 100 orders a month and takes no commission, only Stripe’s processing fee; Tertulia’s store is on Pro at $15.99 a month billed yearly, also commission-free apart from Stripe’s fee, and it delivers the ebook and audio files itself. Signed copies you post yourself fit a general store: Wix sells from its Core plan, Squarespace from every plan and Weblium on Business. BookBub Author Websites doesn’t mention direct sales; its book pages send readers to the stores.

If you sell signed copies, turn your cover into product photos for the store with one of the book mockup generators.

A list of your own readers

All eight confirm a newsletter sign-up form or a link to an email service, though not always on the cheapest plan: Carrd’s sign-up forms start at Pro Standard, and BookBub connects an outside email service only on Pro. No service yet? BookBub’s free plan sends up to 1,000 emails a month itself, enough for a first list without a second subscription. In the print edition, a QR code on the last page that opens your sign-up form puts the list one scan away.

Check template looks and load speed before you pay

Every builder here has a free plan or a trial, so build one book page and open it on your phone before you pay for a year. The Author Score doesn’t count template looks or load speed; that phone test is where you see both.

Questions