It’s the first thing you need to do when you are building an author website: choose a domain name! And yet, many people get tripped up by the experience. Here are five fast facts that may help make the process of choosing an author website domain name a little bit smoother and easier.
1. An author website domain name costs very little.
While building and hosting a site may come with some cost, a domain name shouldn’t break the bank. For about $15/year you can purchase your domain. So even if the domain you purchase isn’t the perfect one, that’s okay. Don’t let anyone try to charge you an arm and a leg for it.
2. Your domain name is not the same as your site hosting.
In order for your website to be live online, it will have to be hosted somewhere. Think of that as paying rent for your space on the internet. But well before you get there, you need to have your domain name purchased. One common misconception among authors is that their author website domain name and hosting are one in the same. They are not. The two entities — both of which are required to have a functioning site — can be purchased through the same company, but they don’t have to be. And, too often, an author only remembers their login for their domain name and not their site hosting, or vice versa. These are two very distinct items. Think of one as the copyright to your book (the domain) and one the book itself (the hosting.)
3. You can purchase multiple domain names.
I’ve worked with many authors who purchase multiple domains and have them all point to the same site. That’s perfectly fine. If you want to purchase your name at .net, .com and .org, great. If you want both your name and each of your book titles to all be domains that take people to your author site, that’s totally doable. You will need to select one primary domain (the one that is visible to your audience), but there’s no limit to how many domains you can purchase. Any time someone enters any one of those domains, they will end up on your website.
4. Unless it’s not available, your author website domain name should match the name on your book cover.
Let’s say you go by the name of Joe, but your book is published under Joseph. Or you use your middle initial on your book cover. In those instances, what do you do? Do you reserve a domain by the name people know you as? Or by the one you’ve published under? Again, you can purchase multiple domains, so in many cases I would recommend both. But your primary domain — the one that people see — should match as closely as possible to your author name. Now, if you have a relatively common name, like Joseph Smith, you may have to get more creative. So JosephSmith.com may not be available, but you can always try JosephSmithBooks.com, AuthorJosephSmith.com, etc…
5. You should ALWAYS own your own domain.
I can’t stress this to authors enough. Never let another organization purchase your domain name for you. They might build your website and own the rights to all your files. They might host your site. But at the end of the day, your author website domain name has to be yours. If at some point you decide to terminate the relationship with whomever built your site, you want to have full control over that domain. Because, if you own it, you can always have a new site built under that domain. If someone else owns it, they essentially own your brand and can do with it as they wish. That’s a marketing no-no for authors.
Hopefully, this has cleared up some confusion you might have had about author website domain names. If you have any additional questions, feel free to post them in the comments box below and I will be happy to provide a response! Or feel free to contact us for a free consultation.