6 great Squarespace features for authors
There’s a reason I’m such a huge fan of using Squarespace to build author websites. I truly believe it’s the perfect solution for authors who are looking for an easy-to-manage, fully customisable and reliable platform on which to build their online presence.
Most authors I know are not the greatest fans of technology (to put it mildly!), and don’t want to be spending hours trying to fix issues with their websites. This is why I’m always a little bit surprised to see just how many authors have used Wordpress to build their websites.
Wordpress is really not a beginner’s platform, and you have to be really vigilant in keeping things up to date to ensure your website doesn’t run into issues.
I often see authors tweeting in great despair as something has gone wrong on their Wordpress website and they don’t know how to fix it!
Apologies for the Wordpress bashing! I just tend to get a LITTLE too passionate about this subject.
(but if you DO want to learn more about why I don’t recommend Wordpress for authors, you can read my post on that topic right here → 😉)
OK! Let’s be more positive shall we?
There is a solution to your author-website-Wordpress-woes! And yes, it’s Squarespace.
Squarespace is not only easy to use, reliable, good value and responsive, it also has some amazingly useful features built-in that are just perfect for authors.
In this post I’m going to be taking an in-depth look at my top 6 Squarespace features for authors.
If you have a Squarespace author website already, these are all super simple things you can add to your website TODAY! to make your site work even harder for you and your books.
Let’s get started - six things I think every author with a Squarespace website should do…
1) Add a bookshop to your site
Did you know you can actually sell books to your readers, directly through your Squarespace website?
All Squarespace packages come with e-commerce functionality built-in.
So it’s super simple to set up an online bookshop, take payment and send signed copies out to your readers directly!
Several of my clients do this on their websites – you can take a look at some examples here:
Louise Mumford’s online shop →
Lucy Weldon’s online shop →
If you’re interested in adding an online shop to your author website and would like some help with it, then sign up to my waiting list to hear more about when my mini course, Sell Books Through Your Squarespace Website, launches:
2) List all your author events
This is a really useful extra feature that Squarespace has built into all versions: an interactive Events calendar.
Events are often one of the most crucial facets of an author marketing strategy, so it’s a really good idea to have these listed on your website so that people can find them easily.
It’s all very well sharing details of your event appearances on social media, but these posts ‘disappear’ from people’s feeds within a day or two, and if you have multiple events it can quickly become very confusing…
The Events functionality is a really easy way to add a ‘calendar’ listing any up-and-coming author events you might be participating in, so that people can see them all at a glance.
It’s also a great way of keeping an archive of your past events so that people can check out what you’ve been up to.
The way you use the Events system differs slightly depending on whether your Squarespace website is on version 7.0 or 7.1 but you can read a very helpful guide on how to use it on the Squarespace website right here→
3) Provide bonus reader content
Did you know you can upload a file to your Squarespace website, that people can download by clicking on a link, or clicking a button?
I love this feature and I don’t think enough people know about it!
It’s just perfect for adding extra content for your readers – such as book club questions or Q&As that might have spoilers in, or even short stories or bonus chapters.
Basically, it’s perfect for any content you don’t want to be immediately visible to anyone who visits the site!
I particularly like how one of my author clients, Beth O’Leary, used this to upload some letters that she’d written between the two main characters of her smash-hit debut The Flatshare.
These letters weren’t in the original novel but are a great way to engage readers who’ve finished the book and want to learn more about the characters.
Take a look at Beth’s bonus content here →
Little touches like this can really help build loyalty with your readers.
I’ve written a blog post about how to make the most of the file upload feature which you can check out here →
4) Add Amazon blocks directly linking to your books
Unfortunately this one is currently only available if you’re in the US. But hopefully it’ll be rolled out worldwide soon.
You can add an Amazon block to your Squarespace author website that automatically pulls through your book cover and info and enables people to buy your book with just one click from your website.
I absolutely love integrations like this as they’re such great time-savers for website visitors and make it super simple for people to go on and buy your book after learning more about it on your website!
Here’s some more info on how to use this block on Squarespace’s own website →. As I’m in the UK, I can’t make the most of this feature yet, but hopefully they will make it available to the UK soon (please Squarespace?!)
Check out the guide to the Amazon block on the Squarespace website →
5) Manage your author newsletter
I’ve talked a lot about the importance of starting to gather subscribers for your author mailing list as soon as you launch your website. And of course, Squarespace makes it easy peasy to add sign-up forms to your website and collect email addresses from your visitors, while complying with all current GDPR rules.
But what’s even better is that when you do feel ready to eventually start sending newsletters, you can do the whole thing from within Squarespace!
That’s right, no messing around with Mailchimp or wasting hours of your precious writing time trying to work out how to use yet another piece of software.
Squarespace has its own integrated newsletter platform, called Campaigns, which – like all things SS – is super easy to use and looks beautiful.
I highly recommend it to ALL my author clients – keeping everything within Squarespace is so much more efficient and saves a lot of time, and the functionality that Campaigns offers is perfect for authors.
If you want to learn more about why I use it instead of free software like Mailchimp, then you can read my post all about it here →
I also have an exclusive free 30-minute video training – Author Newsletters, a Beginner’s Guide – which you can sign up for and watch immediately below!
This 30-minute training video will teach you everything you need to know to get started on building a successful author newsletter that will engage your readers, build your author brand and best of all – help you sell more books!
6) Add social media links
Squarespace is super nifty when it comes to sharing social media links across your website.
If you navigate to Settings > Social Links you can add all your social media links in here, and then use the Social block to add links to your social media accounts throughout your website.
There are a ton of different platforms that Squarespace offers logos for, including the obvious: Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, but also Goodreads, so you can link directly to your Goodreads profile so that readers can follow you on there.
List of all the social logos available on Squarespace →
Here’s a little video to walk you through how to add social links to your website and then add the blocks to your pages.
Those are my top six Squarespace features to make the most of on your author website.
But of course, there are tons of other brilliant things about it that make it the perfect platform for authors!
If you’d like some help with your author website, or if you’d like to find out more about the services I offer, take a look at my author website services page here →
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