For self-published authors, a website is a great way to advertise and sell your work and communicate with your audience. You can share updates, promote upcoming events, create a community, and sell your books online. However, building a website can seem somewhat intimidating if you don’t consider yourself particularly tech-savvy.
In this review, we will compare different website builders, examining the pros and cons as well as the features and pricing of each.
Wix
Wix is a great website builder for authors. The builder can create highly personalised and unique websites thanks to its design flexibility with the drag-and-drop editor and ADI website generator. Easy to use, Wix is suitable for both beginner users and those with more experience when it comes to website building.
Pricing
Wix offers a free plan to get you started and four paid plans, ranging from £7.50/mo to £119/mo. They also offer their ‘Enterprise’ plan for large-scale businesses; however, this price is only available on request.
Light Plan: £7.50/mo
2 collaborators, 2 GB storage space, light marketing suite, free domain for 1 year.
Core Plan: £14.00/mo
5 collaborators, 50 GB storage space, basic marketing suite, free domain for 1 year, basic site analytics, accept payments, basic eCommerce.
Business Plan: £20.00/mo
10 collaborators, 100 GB storage space, standard marketing suite, free domain for 1 year, standard site analytics, accept payments, standard eCommerce.
Business Elite: £119.00/mo
15 collaborators, unlimited storage space, advanced marketing suite, free domain for 1 year, advanced site analytics, accept payments, advanced eCommerce, advanced developer platform.
Enterprise: Price on Request
All premium features, plus unlimited collaborators, multi-site management, single-sign-on (SSO), dedicated account manager, centralised billing, custom templates, and custom integrations.
Pros & Cons
Pros
- Great SEO & marketing tools
- Brilliant flexibility design-wise
- Numerous templates suitable for writers
Cons
- Some functionalities may be tricky for beginners.
Weebly
Another great choice for authors when searching for a website builder is Weebly, yet some believe that it is becoming outdated compared to other builder options due to its limited customisation. Weebly does have a very generous free plan and is very user-friendly for beginners. The site offers features such as drag-and-drop tools, customizable site templates, SEO tools and multimedia features such as photo galleries, forms, and slideshows.
Pricing
Weebly offers one of the most generous free plans, along with three other very reasonably priced paid plans, ranging from £5.00/mo to £19/mo.
Free Plan: £0.00/mo
Free SSL security, add 3rd party embed code, shopping cart, unlimited items, item badges, item options, quick shop, digital goods, inventory management, in-store pickup, automatic tax calculator,
coupons, square gift cards, SEO, lead capture, Instagram feed, community forum, chat & email support.
Personal Plan: £5.00/mo (billed annually) or £7.00 month-to-month
Free SSL security, add 3rd party embed code, connect to a custom domain, Free SSL security, add 3rd party embed code, shopping cart, unlimited items, item badges, item options, quick shop, digital goods, inventory management, in-store pickup, automatic tax calculator, coupons, square gift cards, shipping calculator, shipping labels, SEO, lead capture, Instagram feed, pop-up notifications, community forum, chat & email support.
Professional Plan: £9.00/mo (billed annually) or £12.00 month-to-month
Free SSL security, add 3rd party embed code, connect to a custom domain, Free SSL security, add 3rd party embed code, advanced site stats, free domain, remove square ads, password protection, shopping cart, unlimited items, item badges, item options, quick shop, digital goods, inventory management, in-store pickup, automatic tax calculator, coupons, square gift cards, shipping calculator, shipping labels, SEO, lead capture, Instagram feed, pop-up notifications, community forum, chat & email support, phone support.
Performance Plan: £19.00/mo (billed annually) or £22.00 month-to-month
Free SSL security, add 3rd party embed code, connect to a custom domain, Free SSL security, add 3rd party embed code, advanced site stats, free domain, remove square ads, password protection, shopping cart, unlimited items, item badges, item options, quick shop, digital goods, inventory management, in-store pickup, automatic tax calculator, coupons, square gift cards, shipping calculator, accepts payments through PayPal, item reviews, abandoned cart emails, shipping labels, SEO, lead capture, Instagram feed, pop-up notifications, advanced eCommerce insights, community forum, chat & email support, phone support, priority support.
Pros & Cons
Pros
- Generous Free plan.
- App store improvements.
- Great SEO guides.
Cons
- Drag-and-drop customisation is limited.
- Some outdated designs.
- Poor mobile optimization.
- Very eCommerce focused for authors who want a standard website.
Nrdly
For our third option, we have Nrdly. In co-founder Nick Stephenson’s own words:
Nrdly was born out of this frustrating experience. I teamed up with a professional designer and developer to create website templates that look amazing and allow me to easily promote and sell my books as well as run my online courses – all in one platform. Best of all, the templates are lightweight and compatible with all of my favourite plugins and tools.
Marketed as ‘the best option for authors who need to create a beautiful website, without the stress”, Nrdly offers a 30-day free trial to new users, with features such as connected your own email mailing list and the option to sell your books direct from your own site through Paypal. The site also offers a library of information videos on topics ranging from book formatting to customisation.
Monthly $59.00
Set up, secure, fast web hosting, updates & support, 30-day free trial.
Yearly $497.00
Set up, secure, fast web hosting, updates & support, 30-day free trial, save $211.00.
Pros & Cons
Pros
- Stylish templates.
- Marketed towards authors.
- Sell your books directly through the site.
Cons
- Limited information before signing up as to what features are included.
- No free plan.
WordPress.com
Easily the most customisable option is wordpress.com. WordPress.com is a blog hosting site.
(It is important to mention the company also offers wordpress.org, a content management system (CMS) that enables you to install it on your own web hosting, with the opportunity to customise every aspect of your site. wordpress.org is much more complicated to use than wordpress.com. To build a site on wordpress.org, you may also need to use a drag-and-drop site builder such as Divi, Seedpod and Thrive Architect to extend customisation options further.)
WordPress.com offers endless customisable themes (some only available with a paid plan). The site can be a little trickier to use than others, with some customisation options proving challenging to use, yet it includes features such as analytics, social bookmarking, SEO and fantastic help and support. Finally, it is another site to offer a really generous free plan to get you started, or paid plans start from £36.00 per year.
Free Plan: £0.00/mo
Beautiful themes and patterns, unlimited pages, unlimited users, time machine for post edits, built-in newsletters & RSS, brute-force protection, smart redirects, online forever, 10% transaction fee for payments, paid subscribers, paid content gating, donations and tips, payment buttons, visitor stats, spam protection with Akismet, limited automatic shares in social media, contact form.
Personal Plan: £36.00 billed annually
Beautiful themes and patterns, unlimited pages, unlimited users, time machine for post edits, built-in newsletters & RSS, brute-force protection, smart redirects, online forever, 8% transaction fee for payments, paid subscribers, paid content gating, donations and tips, payment buttons, visitor stats, spam protection with Akismet, limited automatic shares in social media, contact form, free domain for one year, ad-free experience, extremely fast DNS with SSL, support via email.
Premium Plan: £84.00 billed annually
Premium themes and patterns, style customisation, unlimited pages, unlimited users, a time machine for post edits, built-in newsletters & RSS, brute-force protection, smart redirects, online forever, 4% transaction fee for payments, paid subscribers, paid content gating, donations and tips, payment buttons, visitor stats, spam protection with Akismet, unlimited automatic shares in social media, contact form, free domain for one year, ad-free experience, extremely fast DNS with SSL, support via email, live chat support, earn with WordAds, 4K Videos with VideoPress, site activity log.
Commerce Plan: £432.00 billed annually
Premium store themes and patterns, store design tools, style customisation, unlimited pages, unlimited users, time machine for post edits, built-in newsletters & RSS, brute-force protection, smart redirects, online forever, 0% transaction fee for payments, paid subscribers, paid content gating, donations and tips, payment buttons, visitor stats, spam protection with Akismet, unlimited automatic shares in social media, contact form, free domain for one year, ad-free experience, extremely fast DNS with SSL, support via email, live chat support, earn with WordAds, 4K Videos with VideoPress, site activity log, unlimited products, display products by brand, product add-ons, min/max order quantities, back-in-stock notifications, dynamic product upsells, referral and loyalty programs, custom marketing automation, offer bulk discounts, inventory management, streamlined checkout, sell in 60+ countries, integrations with top shipping carriers.
Pros & Cons
Pros
- Very customizable. You can change any design to suit your needs (with a paid plan).
- Very generous free plan.
- Lots of support is available from previous users and WordPress.com itself.
Cons
- Limited themes are available on a free plan.
- It can be tricky to use if you are not particularly tech-savvy.
- You cannot install plug-ins.
Hostinger
Last but by no means least, we have Hostinger. Hostinger is an AI website builder offering hundreds of beautiful and beginner-friendly templates. No coding skills are required with their drag-and-drop experience, and the site’s features include SEO tools, built-in marketing integrations, royalty-free images and step-by-step video walkthroughs to make the user experience pain-free. Plans range from £2.59/mo to £8.99/mo, including three months free.
Premium Plan: £2.59/mo
Top features include standard performance, 100 websites, 100 GB SSD Storage, weekly backups, unlimited free SSL, unlimited bandwidth, free email, and a free domain (£8.99 value).
Business Plan: £3.99/mo
Top features include standard performance, 100 websites, 100 GB SSD Storage, weekly backups, unlimited free SSL, unlimited bandwidth, free email, free domain (£8.99 value), and free CDN.
Cloud Startup Plan: £8.99/mo
Top features include standard performance, 100 websites, 100 GB SSD Storage, weekly backups, unlimited free SSL, unlimited bandwidth, free email, free domain (£8.99 value), free CDN, and free IP address.
Pros & Cons
Pros
- Very affordable.
- User friendly.
Cons
- No app version.
- Limited customer service.
