As a writer, you need an author website. I don’t care if you’re being published for the first time by a Big 6 press. I don’t care if you’ve been rejected fifty times. I don’t care if you think you’ll “just” be self-publishing. You need an author website. But if you’re a Black LGBTQ writer, your author website can (and should) do more than just serve as your online home base. Black LGBTQ writers have a unique opportunity to use our author websites to tell our own stories the way we want to tell them. While the publishing industry continues to fail miserably at both representing Black people and advocating for LGBTQ stories, we as Black queer writers can create spaces for ourselves and our readers to feel seen and heard. Here are just a few reasons why your author website is so important.
I cannot emphasize enough how powerful it is for Black LGBTQ writers to have their own author website. The publishing industry has historically marginalized Black LGBTQ narratives. Publishers, agents, booksellers, editors, and reviewers are just a few of the gatekeepers Black writers have had to navigate to share stories centered on Blackness and queerness. Author websites dismantle gatekeeping by allowing writers to self-publish, self-promote, and self-distribute. The benefit of this is two-fold. First, an author website allows Black LGBTQ creatives to say who they are and what they care about outside of the lens of an institution that may not have them at the forefront of their mission. Second, author websites show Black readers that Black LGBTQ stories are out there and that there are people who look like them creating art centered around those stories. There is so much that goes beyond sales when readers from marginalized communities see themselves reflected by your content. They feel seen, heard, validated, and proud of their culture.
When it comes to establishing your brand online, your author website serves as the foundation for everything you want to accomplish. Your website should be professional, yet authentically you. Own who you are: you are Black, you are queer, and you are amazing. Ensure your website is clutter-free and well-designed. Include an author bio, published works, blog/essay posts, and contact information for readers, publishing inquiries, and media. Throughout your website and branding, ensure you are speaking directly to your people. Include photos, writing, and colors that touch on your Black and LGBTQ identity. This allows people to know you the moment they see your site. Also, make sure your social media accounts (Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, etc.) are linked to your author website. You can use your website as a hub and your social media as tools to funnel readers to your website. Stay active by regularly posting and sharing your newest publications.
Your author website should be your strongest marketing tool. When social media platforms change algorithms, or enact company policies around speech and how often you can post, you website will always be there. You own the domain. Think about how you can market to your reader on your website. Learn about SEO and place keywords that will help someone looking for a Black LGBTQ book find you (examples: Black LGBTQ fiction, queer black authors, Black queer romance novels). An email list is another way you can market to your readers. Offer a free short story or excerpt on your website in exchange for an email subscription. When you have a book release, speaking event, or are running for an award you can send those readers who engaged with your content a reminder. Share any press you’ve received, display reviews from readers and create a space on your site for testimonials. Network with Black LGBTQ book clubs, literary festivals, and organizations that work within social justice and list these on your website as well.
Visibility is a privilege and visibility requires accountability. As Black LGBTQ writers who live online, how we choose to show up has to be strategic. The internet can be a hostile place. No matter how far we come in diversifying literary culture and making bookish spaces more inclusive, being out online still opens writers up to trolling, doxxing, harassment, and flat out rejection of our identities. Sure, you can build an online presence through social media. But social media platforms have been known to bury content (hello algorithm) and can also be dangerous territory if someone decides to launch a harassment campaign against you. Your author website is one place you own and where you can be as visible as you want. There you can choose to share only what you want about your identity. You can show up as a Black LGBTQ person on your terms. You can frame the conversation around your work however you’d like. And if you choose to be out on your website, consider allowing your readers to see you. A photo. A video. An interview where you casually mention your identity and talk about being Black and LGBTQ. That could mean the world to someone who may have never seen a person that looks like them in literary spaces. So be bad online. Be unapologetically you.}}}
Author websites allow writers to continue marketing their books well beyond their release date. A literary website can become a permanent home for an author’s books (novels, short stories, essays, poems, screenplays), allowing readers, teachers, journalists and librarians to access their work in one location. But Black LGBTQ authors have another, important reason to keep their writing live and available: to preserve it. So much of Black queer literature has been lost to time, forgotten or poorly archived by publishers and libraries. Author websites allow writers to archive their own works and keep it preserved for future generations. Author websites can also be used to help support and sell a book after it’s released. Writers can create a page dedicated to their books, which can include descriptions, book covers, links to purchase books, and reader reviews. Authors can even create support materials like reading group guides, book club questions, and classroom materials to help teachers and professors learn about and share Black LGBTQ literature with students. Authors can upload videos to their website, as well — from trailers to pitch their books, to podcast appearances, to videos of the author reading their work or discussing their books.
Function #4: Amplification Author websites have the incredible power to amplify voices. For Black LGBTQ authors, amplification isn’t just about getting more followers or selling more books. It’s about changing the culture so that Black queer stories are seen as just as valid, as worthy of readership and praise as any other stories. Author websites amplify by archiving an author’s work and viewpoints in a search-engine accessible space on the internet. Every blog post. Every interview. Every essay you write for your author website helps fill the internet with Black LGBTQ authors shaping the world’s culture today. Amplification can also take place through community. Black LGBTQ authors can amplify the voices of other queer authors on their websites by inviting guest blog posts, recommending each other’s writing, or compiling reading lists. We live in a world where if one of us shines, we all shine a little brighter. When you use your platform to lift up your fellow authors, you’re paying that lesson forward.
Publishing as a Black LGBTQ writer is political. Having your own author website is political. Your website allows you to own your story. Promote yourself. Speak directly to your readers. Having a website as a Black queer writer allows you to exist online. When big conglomerates try to silence you, hide you, or erase you from existence, you still have your website. Readers will find you. When they can. While they can. The internet has given readers new ways to find books and authors they love. As someone who shares their queerness and publishes books centering Black LGBTQ people, creating an online presence through your author website is essential. Those who take website creation seriously and use it as a tool to further their writing career will continue to thrive.