My website isn’t the best. I admit it looks amateurish. I haven’t spent enough time with the website. But, I do own my domain, and I have a website. Way back when I discussed that in today’s world every author needs a website. I pretty much just said authors need a website and I had one. (It was also when I was a newbie blogger. You can tell from my writing.)
The website is part of my marketing platform. Like anything I do, there are tons of hyperlinks on every page that’ll take you to other parts of the website or to other locations on the web. Those hyperlinks take the reader directly to what I’m talking about. Interested in the blog I just mentioned? The hyperlink takes you directly to the blog. Wanna check out my Facebook Fan Page now that I said I have one? Click the hyperlink. Does the idea of reading my stories make you drool? Click the link.
I’ve got a great little Facebook app that lets visitors to the website see what’s happening on my Facebook page. Cool, huh? There is also the Twitter app that shows what I’m doing over at Twitter. Plus the blog page shows what’s going on over here. The greatest thing is not only does that help people find other places to interact with me on the web, but every time I post on the blog, do a status update on Twitter, or interact with fans on Facebook it updates the website automatically. Which means my SEO is helped by the internet thinking I’m active on the website when I’m really active somewhere else. The SEO engines think I’m updating the website daily, sometimes even more. But I’m really playing around elsewhere on the web. I do so love pulling one over on the internet geeks.
Everything I’m doing on the web and in real life. All in one central spot. That’s what my website is to me. Perfect? Not by a long shot. But the website isn’t my main marketing platform. That’s the blog. It’s not a secondary marketing platform. That’s Facebook and Twitter. The website is really the third tier, and it probably shows. It doesn’t really matter as long as the website still looks somewhat professional.
So, the website is still around. I have a website I could include in the query letter, but it gets so few hits I don’t really think it’s worth including. Besides, I am seriously thinking of sending my query emails from my website email. Any agent who is curious about my presence on the web can probably figure out that the email address means I have a website somewhere on the web. Or they can Google me. Right?
Amanda's Blog 
Wow, you’ve been doing a lot of work! I never realized there was so much to publishing, although I have heard that new authors need to market their own work.
You are a brave woman to embark upon this journey. I’m glad you are sharing it with us – I can learn so much through your experiences.
I’m not so sure about brave. Crazy is more like it.
There’s a lot to publishing, even for established authors. Besides, I actually like doing a lot of this platform building. Which leads me back to me being crazy. 🙂