When you go to the website of an established author, what do you most want to see? What is your favorite part of the website? What do you expect to see on the homepage? Blog? Bio? Listings of published books?

I like to see involvement in the process of whatever book they may be writing. A personal blog is also a big thing I look for.

eru

I agree with Eru, seeing what behind the scenes info I can get is a real attention grabber. I loved the story of how Branden Sanderson wrote for like seven years before getting published, and how he had to blend ideas from novels before he sold them.

I love a good format for blog posts, so that I can see a quick overview of post titles w/ brief excerpts (usually at the bottom). I don't like to have one long post that I have to scroll down to get to the next one. I'm more apt to just leave than look for more posts.

It is also essential to have links to their other locations on the web, such as facebook, twitter, etc.

Make your catalog easily accessible as well. If I come looking to buy or read your work, please make it easy to see the scope, as well as have bios and intros with links to buy on multiple formats (kindle, nook, etc)

I also love blog posts with fitting and cool pictures. Haven't quite figured out how people get them to fit so well, but I really like when they do.

Thanks, you two! That was helpful.

@Inesdar: I am that way too. Which is why I plan for my author website to have equal attention given to both the books and the world they are in.

eru

If I visit an author's website it's typically to see what else has been published. I also always check out the about page, to see the person behind the story. I love "How this came to be written" stories, but I don't usually have time to hunt them down and read them... I don't follow blogs, as a general rule, which means if I'm there I'm probably looking for something.

I'm curious why you have a rule against following blogs. That's fine that you do, I'm just curious why so I can see what some others may find unappealing to following blogs.

Oh, it's not an actual rule. That's just a phrase my family uses to indicate a habitual practice. I don't follow blogs because I lose links, forget about them, and/or simply don't have time to keep up with that much.